Opal and calcium carbonate are thought to regulate the biological pump's transfer of organic carbon to the deep ocean. A global sediment trap database exhibits large regional variations in the organic carbon flux associated with opal flux. These variations are well-explained by upper ocean silicate concentrations, with high opal ‘ballasting’ in the silicate-deplete tropical Atlantic Ocean, and low ballasting in the silicate-rich Southern Ocean. A plausible, testable hypothesis is that opal ballasting varies because diatoms grow thicker frustules where silicate concentrations are higher, carrying less organic carbon per unit opal. The observed pattern does not fully emerge in an advanced ocean biogeochemical model when diatom silicification is represented using a single global parameterization as a function of silicate and iron. Our results suggest a need for improving understanding of currently modeled processes and/or considering additional parameterizations to capture the links between elemental cycles and future biological pump changes.

中文翻译：

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全球海洋蛋白石压载物与硅酸盐的关系


蛋白石和碳酸钙被认为可以调节生物泵将有机碳转移到深海。全球沉积物圈闭数据库显示，与蛋白石通量相关的有机碳通量存在很大的区域差异。这些变化可以用上层海洋硅酸盐浓度很好地解释，在硅酸盐含量丰富的热带大西洋中，蛋白石的“压载性”很高，而在富含硅酸盐的南大洋，压载性很低。一个合理、可检验的假设是，蛋白石的压载物会发生变化，因为硅藻在硅酸盐浓度较高的地方会长出更厚的壳，每单位蛋白石携带的有机碳更少。当硅藻硅化使用单个全局参数化作为硅酸盐和铁的函数来表示时，观察到的模式在高级海洋生物地球化学模型中并不完全出现。我们的结果表明，需要提高对当前建模过程的理解和/或考虑额外的参数化，以捕捉元素循环和未来生物泵变化之间的联系。