Satellite detection of red tide in Ariake Sound, 1998–2001

High resolution SeaWiFS data was used to detect red tide events that occurred in the Ariake Sound, Japan, a small embayment known as one of the most productive areas in Japan. SeaWiFS chlorophyll data clearly showed that a large red tide event, which damaged seaweed (Nori) cultures, started early in December 2000 in Isahaya Bay, expanded to the whole sound and persisted to the end of February 2001. The monthly average of SeaWiFS data from May 1998 to December 2001 indicated that the chlorophyll peaks appeared twice a year, in early summer and in fall, after the peaks of rain and river discharge. The SeaWiFS data showed that the red tide event during 2000–2001 winter was part of the fall bloom; however, it started later and continued significantly longer than other years. Satellite ocean color data is useful to detect the red tide; however the algorithms require improvement to accurately estimate chlorophyll in highly turbid water and in red tide areas.     

Vertical and seasonal differences in biogenic silica dissolution in natural seawater in Suruga Bay, Japan: Effects of temperature and organic matter

Vertical and seasonal characteristics of biogenic silica (BSi) dissolution in seawater were investigated by multiple dissolution experiments using seawater collected from surface and mesopelagic layers in Suruga Bay during the period 2002–2004. The dissolution rate coefficients calculated based on temporal changes of BSi concentration varied with the season of sample collection. They ranged from 0.023–0.057 day^− 1 for surface samples and 0.0018–0.0025 day^− 1 for mesopelagic samples for temperatures approaching in situ conditions. Experiments at various temperatures confirmed that BSi dissolution depends on temperature in natural seawater. Dissolution rate coefficient (day^− 1) of BSi correlated significantly with temperature (°C), and Q₁₀ was 2.6. Addition of bioavailable organic matter to low-bioactivity seawater enhanced the protease activity and abundance of bacteria, and increased BSi dissolution rate by a factor of 1.4–2.0. There is clear evidence that BSi dissolution is accelerated by bacterial activity and potentially limited by bioavailable organic matter in natural seawater. Dissolution rates and total decreases of BSi concentration were lower during experiments using mesopelagic samples than in those using surface samples. This suggests that dissolution of BSi varies with depth and that BSi in the mesopelagic water is more resistant to the dissolution than that in the surface water. This lower dissolution rate was caused by lower temperature and lower bacterial activity due to less bioavailable organic matter in mesopelagic water. Our results provide a mechanistic understanding of variations in silica cycling within the seasonally and vertically differing marine environment.     

Box model analysis of hydrography and behaviour of nitrogen and phosphorus in a eutrophic estuary

In order to investigate the mechanism of eutrophication in Atsumi Bay which is a shallow and partially mixed estuary, distributions of temperature, salinity and concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus in all their chemical forms were observed once a month throughout a year. Supplies of freshwater and nutrients are estimated and balances of salt and nutrients are examined using a modified box model. The deduced estuarine hydrography and calculated values of photosynthesis, decomposition, deposition and sedimentation are compared with those obtained byin situ observations and laboratory experiments. It is found that the factors responsible for the appearance of heavy eutrophication include not only the general increase of nutrient supply from land but also nutrient accumulation in the rainy season just before summer, the N/P ratio of the supply from land being favourable for uptake by phytoplankton, formation of semi-closed circulations of the nutrients associated with stratification and vertical circulation of estuarine water, and possibly the inorganic turnover of phosphorus (PO₄-P) under aerobic and anaerobic conditions. The usefulness of the modified box model for obtaining a synoptic understanding of the estuarine system is also demonstrated.     

Barotropic Response of the Sea of Okhotsk to Wind Forcing

We have examined wind-induced circulation in the Sea of Okhotsk using a barotropic model that contains realistic topography with a resolution of 9.25 km. The monthly wind stress field calculated from daily European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) Re-Analysis data is used as the forcing, and the integration is carried out for 20 days until the circulation attains an almost steady state. In the case of November (a representative for the winter season from October to March), southward currents of velocity 0.1–0.3 m s⁻¹ occur along the bottom contours off the east of Sakhalin Island. The currents are mostly confined to the shelf (shallower than 200 m) and extend as far south as the Hokkaido coast. In the July case (a representative for the summer season from April to September), significant currents do not occur, even in the shallow shelves. The simulated southward current over the east Sakhalin shelf appears to correspond to the near-shore branch of the East Sakhalin Current (ESC), which was observed with the surface drifters. These seasonal variations simulated in our experiments are consistent with the observations of the ESC. Dynamically, the simulated ESC is interpreted as the arrested topographic wave (ATW), which is the coastally trapped flow driven by steady alongshore wind stress. The volume transport of the simulated ESC over the shelf reaches about 1.0 Sv (1 Sv = 10⁶ m³s⁻¹) in the winter season, which is determined by the integrated onshore Ekman transport in the direction from which shelf waves propagate. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Recovery of thermohaline circulation under CO2 stabilization and overshoot scenarios

In this study we examine the behavior of the thermohaline circulation, as simulated by the Community Climate System Model version 3 (CCSM3), for several centuries following CO₂ stabilization for the SRES B1 and A1B scenarios and for an “overshoot” scenario in which CO₂ levels temporarily reach the same level as in the A1B scenario before declining to an ultimate stabilization level that is identical to the B1 case. While we find no evidence for irreversible changes of the thermohaline circulation in the overshoot experiment, the interplay of the different timescales of the temperature response of the surface and interior ocean does lead to a number of differences in the long-term response of the ocean between it and the B1 stabilization scenario where the same GHG levels are approached by different paths. The stronger initial warming and its slow penetration into the deeper ocean, followed by a transient surface cooling in the overshoot scenario leads to lower static stability, deeper mixing, and a more rapid recovery of the thermohaline circulation than in the B1 stabilization scenario. While the overshoot scenario recovers surface conditions (e.g. SST, sea ice extent) very similar to the B1 scenario shortly after reaching the same GHG levels, the additional accumulation of heat in the interior ocean during the period of higher forcing causes the global mean ocean temperature and steric sea level to remain higher than in the B1 stabilization scenario for at least another several centuries.     

Characteristics of photosynthetic pigment composition ofGymnodinium mikimotoi Miyake etKominami exOda

Gymnodinium mikimotoi, a senior synonym ofGymnodinium nagasakiense often causes red tides in coastal waters of the western part of Japan. The photosynthetic pigment composition of two strains ofG. mikimotoi were analyzed by HPLC. They contain chlorophyllc ₃ which has not been reported from dinoflagellates. They also contain fucoxanthin, 19'-hexanoyloxyfucoxanthin and 19'-butanoyloxyfucoxanthin as major carotenoides, which are anomalous in dinoflagellates. The pigment composition ofG. mikimotoi is compared with that ofGyrodinium aureolum which occur in European waters and is thought as a conspecific species withG. mikimotoi by several authors.     

Temporal change of clustered distribution of planktonic ciliates in Toyama Bay in summers of 1989 and 1990

Temporal change of clustered distribution in vertical profiles of three nutritional groups of planktonic ciliates, e.g. heterotrophic naked ciliates, mixotrophic naked ciliates and heterotrophic loricated ciliates, was investigated by following a drifting buoy in Toyama Bay on the Japan Sea coast of central Japan in summers of 1989 and 1990. Clustered distribution, represented as the mode of population density in the vertical plane, occurred mainly in the oligotrophic upper layer (0–50 m depth) above the subsurface chlorophyll-a maximum layer. Its clustered degree was stronger when the mode of population density in the vertical plane was formed at shallower depth, while its longevity was shorter as mentioned above. Vertical distribution of ciliates during summer in Toyama Bay is characterized by ephemeral clustered distribution, or in other wards, by rapid alternations of appearance and disappearance of the clustered distribution.     

The content of selenium and its chemical form in sea water

By using the new fluorometric method of determination of the total selenium ( Se), Se (IV) and Se (VI), the content of selenium in sea weter was determined in the western North Pacific. Results showed that the content of Se in surface water ranged from 0.06 to 0.12g l^–1, while in deeper layers, the content increased to 0.20g l^–1. It was found that Se (IV) showed rather uniform distribution with depth, while Se (VI) increased with depth to about three times that in the surface. The ratio of Se (IV) to the Se ranged from 0.5 to 0.8 in the surface and 0.4 to 0.6 in the deep. The coexistence of the hexa- and tetravalent ions of selenium was confirmed both in surface and deep layers. Some results of observations on the content of selenium in the coastal areas of Japan were also reported.     

Responses of phytoplankton and heterotrophic bacteria in the northwest subarctic Pacific to in situ iron fertilization as estimated by HPLC pigment analysis and flow cytometry

To verify the hypothesis that the growth of phytoplankton in the Western Subarctic Gyre (WSG), which is located in the northwest subarctic Pacific, is suppressed by low iron (Fe) availability, an in situ Fe fertilization experiment was carried out in the summer of 2001. Changes over time in the abundance and community structure of phytoplankton were examined inside and outside an Fe patch using phytoplankton pigment markers analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and flow cytometry (FCM). In addition, the abundance of heterotrophic bacteria was also investigated by FCM. The chlorophyll a concentration was initially ca. 0.9 μg l⁻¹ in the surface mixed layer where diatoms and chlorophyll b-containing green algae (prasinophytes and chlorophytes) were predominant in the chlorophyll biomass. After the iron enrichment, the chlorophyll a concentration increased up to 9.1 μg l⁻¹ in the upper 10 m inside the Fe patch on Day 13. At the same time, the concentration of fucoxanthin (a diatom marker) increased 45-fold in the Fe patch, and diatoms accounted for a maximum 69% of the chlorophyll biomass. This result was consistent with a microscopic observation showing that the diatom Chaetoceros debilis had bloomed inside the Fe patch. However, chlorophyllide a concentrations also increased in the Fe patch with time, and reached a maximum of 2.2 μg l⁻¹ at 5 m depth on Day 13, suggesting that a marked abundance of senescent algal cells existed at the end of the experiment. The concentration of peridinin (a dinoflagellate marker) also reached a maximum 24-fold, and dinoflagellates had contributed significantly (>15%) to the chlorophyll biomass inside the Fe patch by the end of the experiment. Concentrations of 19′-hexanoyloxyfucoxanthin (a prymnesiophyte marker), 19′-butanoyloxyfucoxanthin (a pelagophyte marker), and alloxanthin (a cryptophyte marker) were only incremented a few-fold increment inside the Fe patch. On the contrary, chlorophyll b concentration reduced to almost half of the initial level in the upper 10 m water column inside the Fe patch at the end of the experiment. A decrease with time in the abundance of eukaryotic ultraphytoplankton (<ca. 5 μm in size), in which chlorophyll b-containing green algae were possibly included was also observed by FCM. Overall, our results indicate that Fe supply can dramatically alter the abundance and community structure of phytoplankton in the WSG. On the other hand, cell density of heterotrophic bacteria inside the Fe patch was maximum at only ca. 1.5-fold higher than that outside the Fe patch. This indicates that heterotrophic bacteria abundance was little respondent to the Fe enrichment.