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Agulhas rings provide the principal route for ocean waters to circulate from the Indo-Pacific to the Atlantic basin. Their influence on global ocean circulation is well known, but their role in plankton transport is largely unexplored. We show that, although the coarse taxonomic structure of plankton communities is continuous across the Agulhas choke point, South Atlantic plankton diversity is altered compared with Indian Ocean source populations. Modeling and in situ sampling of a young Agulhas ring indicate that strong vertical mixing drives complex nitrogen cycling, shaping community metabolism and biogeochemical signatures as the ring and associated plankton transit westward. The peculiar local environment inside Agulhas rings may provide a selective mechanism contributing to the limited dispersal of Indian Ocean plankton populations into the Atlantic.

Abstract. Ocean color remote sensing offers two decades-long time series of information on phytoplankton abundance. However, determining the structure of the phytoplankton community from this signal is not straightforward, and many uncertainties remain to be evaluated, despite multiple intercomparison efforts of the different available algorithms. Here, we use remote sensing and machine learning to infer the abundance of seven phytoplankton groups at a global scale based on a new molecular method from Tara Oceans. Our dataset is to our knowledge the most comprehensive and complete, available to describe phytoplankton community structure at a global scale using a molecular marker that defines relative abundances of all phytoplankton groups simultaneously. The methodology shows satisfying performances to provide robust estimates of phytoplankton groups using satellite data, with few limitations regarding the global generalization of the method. Furthermore, this new satellite-based methodology allows a valuable global intercomparison with the pigment-based approach used in in-situ and satellite data to identify phytoplankton groups. Nevertheless, these datasets show different, yet coherent information on the phytoplankton, valuable for the understanding of community structure. This makes remote sensing observations excellent tools to collect Essential Biodiversity Variables and provide a foundation for developing marine biodiversity forecasts.

We present here future projections of the Greenland climate performed by the regional climate model MAR coupled with a snow model and forced by two scenarios of greenhouse gas emissions from the global model CanESM2 of the next IPCC assessment report (AR5). Knowing that MAR forced by CanESM2 over the current climate (1970-1999) compares well with the reference MAR simulation performed by using the ERA-40 reanalysis as forcing, this gives us confidence in our future projections. For the RCP4.5 scenario (optimistic) and respectively RCP8.5 scenario (pessimistic), MAR projects a sea level rise in 2100 of 6.5 +/- 1.5 cm and respectively 14+/-2 cm as result of increasing surface melt of the Greenland ice sheet over 2000-2100. It is true that MAR projects a small increase of snowfall in the winter because the atmosphere will be warmer and therefore can contain more water vapor. But this is not sufficient to offset the acceleration of melt, notably for the scenario RCP8.5 which projects an increase of 10 °C in 2100 above the ice sheet. This work fits in the ICE2SEA project (http://www.ice2sea.eu) of the 7th Framework Program (FP7) which aims to improve the projections of the continental ice melting contribution to sea level rise.

AbstractA deep-water approximation of the Stokes drift velocity profile is explored as an alternative to the monochromatic profile. The alternative profile investigated relies on the same two quantities required for the monochromatic profile, namely, the Stokes transport and the surface Stokes drift velocity. Comparisons with parametric spectra and profiles under wave spectra from the Interim ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-Interim) and buoy observations reveal much better agreement than the monochromatic profile even for complex sea states. That the profile gives a closer match and a more correct shear has implications for ocean circulation models since the Coriolis–Stokes force depends on the magnitude and direction of the Stokes drift profile, and Langmuir turbulence parameterizations depend sensitively on the shear of the profile. The alternative profile comes at no added numerical cost compared to the monochromatic profile.

AbstractThe Sahel experienced a severe drought during the 1970s and 1980s after wet periods in the 1950s and 1960s. Although rainfall partially recovered since the 1990s, the drought had devastating impacts on society. Most studies agree that this dry period resulted primarily from remote effects of sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies amplified by local land surface–atmosphere interactions. This paper reviews advances made during the last decade to better understand the impact of global SST variability on West African rainfall at interannual to decadal time scales. At interannual time scales, a warming of the equatorial Atlantic and Pacific/Indian Oceans results in rainfall reduction over the Sahel, and positive SST anomalies over the Mediterranean Sea tend to be associated with increased rainfall. At decadal time scales, warming over the tropics leads to drought over the Sahel, whereas warming over the North Atlantic promotes increased rainfall. Prediction systems have evolved from seasonal to decadal forecasting. The agreement among future projections has improved from CMIP3 to CMIP5, with a general tendency for slightly wetter conditions over the central part of the Sahel, drier conditions over the western part, and a delay in the monsoon onset. The role of the Indian Ocean, the stationarity of teleconnections, the determination of the leader ocean basin in driving decadal variability, the anthropogenic role, the reduction of the model rainfall spread, and the improvement of some model components are among the most important remaining questions that continue to be the focus of current international projects.

Accompanying material, text, data and figures for the article de Vargas et al., 'Eukaryotic plankton diversity in the sunlit ocean', Science 348, 1261605 (2015), doi: 10.1126/science.1261605

As part of the ICE2SEA project, the regional climate model MAR was forced by the general circulation models HadCM3 and ECHAM5 for making future projections of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) Surface Mass Balance (SMB) over 1980-2099 at a resolution of 25km. For the A1B scenario, the GCM-forced MAR projects that the SMB rate at the end of this century would be highly negative (-500 GT/yr) and the resulting mass loss would correspond to a sea level rise of 8 cm over 2000-2100. However, the comparison with MAR forced by the ERA-40 reanalysis over 1980-1999 shows that MAR forced by the 20C3M scenario is not able to represent reliably the current SMB due to biases in the general circulation and in the free atmosphere summer temperature modelled by these two GCMs around the GrIS. These biases induce in MAR an underestimation of the snow accumulation and an overestimation of the surface melt. Therefore, this questions the reliability of these future projections made for ICE2SEA by using these versions of HadCM3 and ECHAM5, knowing that these biases could be amplified in the MAR snow model due to the albedo-temperature feedback.That is why, we suggest here to present the first results of MAR forced by the next generation of GCMs that will be used in the next Assessment Report in 2013 (IPCC AR5). These GCM outputs should be available in January 2011 on the CMIP5 web site (http://cmip-pcmdi.llnl.gov/cmip5/). Only the GCMs able to reproduce reliably the current climate of the Greenland ice sheet over 1961-1990 (from the Historical experiment) will be selected for forcing MAR over the GrIS. We will focus our evaluation on the GCMs ability to simulate:the general circulation (impacting notably the simulated precipitation) over the GrIS by using a circulation type classification (see the abstract of Belleflamme et al.).the free atmosphere summer temperature knowing that a bias of 2°C (in respect to the reanalysis) at the MAR boundaries is enough for significantly impacting the simulated surface melt over the GrIS.the sea surface temperature and sea ice cover which are used in MAR as surface boundary conditions over ocean around the GrIS.