Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 108, Issue 33, Pages 13612-13617Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1102457108
Keywords
air-sea exchange; immunological probes; Melosira arctica
Categories
Funding
- US National Science Foundation [ARC-0707555, ARC-0707513]
- Swedish Natural Research Council
- Swedish Research Council
- Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation
- European Union
- Natural Environmental Research Council
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Marine microgels play an important role in regulating ocean basin-scale biogeochemical dynamics. In this paper, we demonstrate that, in the high Arctic, marine gels with unique physicochemical characteristics originate in the organic material produced by ice algae and/or phytoplankton in the surface water. The polymers in this dissolved organic pool assembled faster and with higher microgel yields than at other latitudes. The reversible phase transitions shown by these Arctic marine gels, as a function of pH, dimethylsulfide, and dimethylsulfoniopropionate concentrations, stimulate the gels to attain sizes below 1 mu m in diameter. These marine gels were identified with an antibody probe specific toward material from the surface waters, sized, and quantified in airborne aerosol, fog, and cloud water, strongly suggesting that they dominate the available cloud condensation nuclei number population in the high Arctic (north of 80 degrees N) during the summer season. Knowledge about emergent properties of marine gels provides important new insights into the processes controlling cloud formation and radiative forcing, and links the biology at the ocean surface with cloud properties and climate over the central Arctic Ocean and, probably, all oceans.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available