Endospore abundance, microbial growth and necromass turnover in deep sub-seafloor sediment

Two decades of scientific ocean drilling have demonstrated widespread microbial life in deep sub-seafloor sediment, and surprisingly high microbial-cell numbers. Despite the ubiquity of life in the deep biosphere, the large community sizes and the low energy fluxes in this vast buried ecosystem are not yet understood. It is not known whether organisms of the deep biosphere are specifically adapted to extremely low energy fluxes or whether most of the observed cells are in a dormant, spore-like state. Here we apply a new approach--the D:L-amino-acid model--to quantify the distributions and turnover times of living microbial biomass, endospores and microbial necromass, as well as to determine their role in the sub-seafloor carbon budget. The approach combines sensitive analyses of unique bacterial markers (muramic acid and D-amino acids) and the bacterial endospore marker, dipicolinic acid, with racemization dynamics of stereo-isomeric amino acids. Endospores are as abundant as vegetative cells and microbial activity is extremely low, leading to microbial biomass turnover times of hundreds to thousands of years. We infer from model calculations that biomass production is sustained by organic carbon deposited from the surface photosynthetic world millions of years ago and that microbial necromass is recycled over timescales of hundreds of thousands of years.     

Analysis for retrieval and validation results of FY-3 Total Ozone Unit (TOU)

Retrieval experiment was made for global total column ozone using the first year measurements of Total Ozone Unit (TOU) on board the second generation polar orbiting meteorological satellite of China, FY-3/A. The retrieval results were analyzed and validated by comparison with AURA/OMI, Meteop/GOME-2 global ozone products and ground-based ozone measurement data. The qualititative comparisons over the globe especially over Antarctica and the Tibetan Plateau show that the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics are consistent with OMI and GOME-2 products. The quantitative comparisons with ground-based measurements and AURA/OMI ozone product were made over 74 stations, the TOU total ozone retrieval has a 3% rms relative error compared with AURA/OMI ozone product and 4.2% rms relative error with ground-based measurements. The maximum difference between satellite retrieval and ground-based measurements was found in the Antarctica ozone hole. The TOU global ozone product is operational and distributed to all users.     

Simulation of CO2 variations at Chinese background atmospheric monitoring stations between 2000 and 2009: Applying a CarbonTracker model

We carried out a downscaling treatment over China using the CarbonTracker numerical model, which was applied using double grid nesting technology (3° × 2° over the whole globe, 1° × 1° over China), simulating and analyzing atmospheric CO₂ concentrations over 10 recent years (2000–2009). The simulation results agreed very well with observed data from four background atmospheric monitoring stations in China (The periods for which the simulation results and observed values be compared were January 2000 to December 2009 for the WLG station and June 2006 to December 2009 for the SDZ, LFS, and LAN stations), giving correlation coefficients of >0.7. The high-resolution simulation data correlated slightly better than the low resolution simulation data with the observed data for three of the regions’ atmospheric background stations. Further analysis of the annual, seasonal CO₂ concentration variations at the background stations showed that the CO₂ concentration increased each year over the study period, with an average annual increase of more than 5%, and annual increases of more than 7% at the Shangdianzi and Lin’an stations. Seasonal CO₂ variations were greater at the Longfengshan station than at the Shangdianzi or Lin’an stations. However, the CO₂ concentrations were higher at the Shangdianzi and Lin’an stations because they are greatly affected by human activities in the Jingjinji and Changjiang Delta economic zones. Spatial distribution in CO₂ concentrations and fluxes were higher in eastern than in western China.