Particulate Organic Carbon Dynamics in Oceanic and Freshwater Systems
Summary
Particulate organic carbon (POC) comprises microscopic organic particles that form a critical component of the global carbon cycle. In marine and freshwater environments, POC originates from phytoplankton, macrophytes, bacterioplankton and terrestrial inputs, and undergoes processes of aggregation, transformation and transport. In the surface layer, biological production and resuspension determine POC concentrations, while photodegradation and grazing modulate particle composition. Vertical fluxes convey carbon to the deep ocean or lake sediments through the “biological pump”, where a fraction of POC is sequestered on timescales from years to millennia. Coastal and estuarine systems serve as dynamic interfaces between land and sea, with riverine POC inputs, tidal mixing and benthic resuspension creating highly variable concentrations. Accurate quantification of POC dynamics informs assessments of carbon sequestration, nutrient cycling and ecosystem health under changing climatic and anthropogenic pressures. Advances in optical measurement, remote sensing and modelling have improved our ability to observe POC over broad spatial and temporal scales, yet challenges remain in accounting for particle composition, size distribution and interference from mineral sediments.
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Particulate Organic Carbon Dynamics in Oceanic and Freshwater Systems publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in particulate organic carbon dynamics in oceanic and freshwater systems across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Particulate Organic Carbon (POC): Organic particles, including living and detrital material, suspended in water and measured as carbon mass per volume.
Suspended Particulate Matter (SPM): All particulate material, organic and inorganic, present in the water column and influencing optical signals.
Biological Pump: The suite of processes by which marine organisms transfer carbon from the surface ocean to the deep sea or sediments.
Inherent Optical Properties (IOPs): Intrinsic measures of light absorption and scattering by particles and dissolved substances, independent of illumination conditions.
Remote‐sensing Reflectance (Rrs): The ratio of upwelling radiance leaving the water surface to downwelling irradiance above the surface, used to infer water constituents.
References
- Adaptive optical algorithms with differentiation of water bodies based on varying composition of suspended particulate matter: A case study for estimating the particulate organic carbon concentration in the western Arctic seas. Remote Sensing of Environment (2023).
- Advanced Machine Learning Models for Estimating the Distribution of Sea-Surface Particulate Organic Carbon (POC) Concentrations Using Satellite Remote Sensing Data: The Mediterranean as an Example. Sensors (2024).
- Validation and Intercomparison of Ocean Color Algorithms for Estimating Particulate Organic Carbon in the Oceans. Frontiers in Marine Science (2017).
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