Extreme events and impacts on organic carbon cycles from ocean color remote sensing: Review with case study, challenges, and future directions

Abstract

Extreme events and disturbances (e.g., tropical cyclones, extreme precipitation, and flooding often associated with land falling storms) affect aquatic carbon (C) cycling at multiple spatiotemporal scales and are most impactful in the coastal ocean with highly connected ecosystems that include rivers, estuaries, wetlands, and the continental shelf. Satellite remote sensing with its synoptic and repeated coverage over large regions and across a range of environmental conditions - including severe weather and natural disasters, has the potential to greatly expand our ability to monitor and quantify the impacts of extreme events on C cycling, particularly in the coastal zone. This review presents recent studies that have employed a combination of field data, numerical model simulations, and multiple resolution satellite observations to assess the impacts of extreme events on the fluxes, transport, and cycling of dissolved (DOC) and particulate organic carbon (POC) in the coastal zone, across the continuum of tidal wetlands, estuaries, and shelf waters. Our review highlights the challenges in quantifying C cycling across the coastal interface and examines key research needs and opportunities (e.g., sensor capabilities and algorithms) to better integrate ocean color remote sensing with field and modeling efforts to improve estimates of lateral C fluxes between wetlands, estuaries, and the shelf at local, regional, and global scales.