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Marine heterotrophicBacteria(or referred to as bacteria) play an important role in the ocean carbon cycle by utilizing, respiring, and remineralizing organic matter exported from the surface to deep ocean. Here, we investigate the responses of bacteria to climate change using a three-dimensional coupled ocean biogeochemical model with explicit bacterial dynamics as part of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6. First, we assess the credibility of the century-scale projections (2015–2099) of bacterial carbon stock and rates in the upper 100 m layer using skill scores and compilations of the measurements for the contemporary period (1988–2011). Second, we demonstrate that across different climate scenarios, the simulated bacterial biomass trends (2076–2099) are sensitive to the regional trends in temperature and organic carbon stocks. Bacterial carbon biomass declines by 5–10% globally, while it increases by 3–5% in the Southern Ocean where semi-labile dissolved organic carbon (DOC) stocks are relatively low and particle-attached bacteria dominate. While a full analysis of drivers underpinning the simulated changes in all bacterial stock and rates is not possible due to data constraints, we investigate the mechanisms of the changes in DOC uptake rates of free-living bacteria using the first-order Taylor decomposition. The results demonstrate that the increase in semi-labile DOC stocks drives the increase in DOC uptake rates in the Southern Ocean, while the increase in temperature drives the increase in DOC uptake rates in the northern high and low latitudes. Our study provides a systematic analysis of bacteria at global scale and a critical step toward a better understanding of how bacteria affect the functioning of the biological carbon pump and partitioning of organic carbon pools between surface and deep layers. 

Abstract A key challenge for current‐generation Earth system models (ESMs) is the simulation of the penetration of sinking particulate organic carbon (POC) into the ocean interior, which has implications for projections of future oceanic carbon sequestration in a warming climate. This paper presents a new, cost‐efficient, mechanistic 1D model that prognostically calculates POC fluxes by carrying four component particles in two different size classes. Gravitational settling and removal/transformation processes are represented explicitly through parameterizations that incorporate the effects of particle size and density, dissolved oxygen, calcite and aragonite saturation states, and seawater temperature, density, and viscosity. The model reproduces the observed POC flux attenuation at 22 locations in the North Atlantic and North Pacific. The model is applied over a global ocean domain with seawater properties prescribed from observation‐based climatologies in order to address an important scientific question: What controls the spatial pattern of mesopelagic POC transfer efficiency? The simulated vertical POC transfer is more efficient at high latitudes than at low latitudes with the exception of oxygen minimum zones, which is consistent with recent inverse modeling and neutrally buoyant sediment trap studies. Here, model experiments show that the relative abundance of large‐sized, rapidly sinking particles and the slower rate of remineralization at high latitudes compensate for the region's lack of calcium carbonate ballast and the cold‐water viscous resistance, leading to higher transfer efficiencies compared to low‐latitude regions. The model could be deployed in ESMs in order to diagnose the impacts of climate change on oceanic carbon sequestration and vice versa. 

Abstract Rising ocean temperatures affect marine microbial ecosystems directly, since metabolic rates (e.g., photosynthesis, respiration) are temperature‐dependent, but temperature also has indirect effects mediated through changes to the physical environment. Empirical observations of the long‐term trends in biomass and productivity measure the integrated response of these two kinds of effects, making the independent components difficult to disentangle. We used a combination of modeling approaches to isolate the direct effects of rising temperatures on microbial metabolism and explored the consequences for food web dynamics and global biogeochemistry. We evaluated the effects of temperature sensitivity in two cases: first, assuming that all metabolic processes have the same temperature sensitivity, or, alternatively, that heterotrophic processes have higher temperature sensitivity than autotrophic processes. Microbial ecosystems at higher temperatures are characterized by increased productivity but decreased biomass stocks as a result of transient, high export events that reduce nutrient availability in the surface ocean. Trophic dynamics also mediate community structure shifts resulting in increased heterotroph to autotroph ratios at higher temperatures. These ecosystem thermal responses are magnified when the temperature sensitivity of heterotrophs is higher than that of autotrophs. These results provide important context for understanding the combined food web response to direct and indirect temperature effects and inform the construction and interpretation of Earth systems models used in climate projections. 

Abstract Marine plastic debris floating on the ocean surface is a major environmental problem. However, its distribution in the ocean is poorly mapped, and most of the plastic waste estimated to have entered the ocean from land is unaccounted for. Better understanding of how plastic debris is transported from coastal and marine sources is crucial to quantify and close the global inventory of marine plastics, which in turn represents critical information for mitigation or policy strategies. At the same time, plastic is a unique tracer that provides an opportunity to learn more about the physics and dynamics of our ocean across multiple scales, from the Ekman convergence in basin-scale gyres to individual waves in the surfzone. In this review, we comprehensively discuss what is known about the different processes that govern the transport of floating marine plastic debris in both the open ocean and the coastal zones, based on the published literature and referring to insights from neighbouring fields such as oil spill dispersion, marine safety recovery, plankton connectivity, and others. We discuss how measurements of marine plastics (bothin situand in the laboratory), remote sensing, and numerical simulations can elucidate these processes and their interactions across spatio-temporal scales.