Abstract
Research related to the potential for coral reef-derived dimethylsulfide (DMS) oxidation products to regulate the regional climate of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) according to the CLAW hypothesis is summarized in this mini review. The GBR has been indicated as a region of high DMS production where atmospheric emissions may be increased when corals are subject to environmental stresses associated with low tide. During low wind speeds over aerially exposed coral reefs, plumes of atmospheric DMS and new sulfate-containing nano-particle production under photo-oxidative conditions have been detected on the GBR. Hygroscopic growth of these particles in combination with coagulation and condensation processes could potentially provide a coral-mediated mechanism of new aerosol for seeding low-level stratocumulus clouds. Fine mode aerosol optical depth over GBR coral reefs has been correlated with low wind speeds and a coral stress metric formulated as a function of irradiance, water clarity, and tide height. This correlation has been proposed as a possible mechanism by which the GBR might alter the optical properties of the overlying atmosphere to attenuate local insolation leading to regional climate regulation. However, recent regional-scale aerosol-climate modeling indicates that the potential for GBR regional climate regulation via DMS atmospheric oxidation products is weak under current anthropogenic conditions which have instigated mass coral bleaching events along the entire length of the GBR between 1998 and 2022. This increased bleaching indicates that DMS oxidation products are insufficient to regulate the regional climate of the GBR according to the CLAW hypothesis under current global warming conditions.
Introduction
It is now fifty years since Lovelock et al. (1972) proposed that dimethylsulfide (DMS) was the missing link in the natural biogeochemical sulfur cycle capable of annually cycling megatonnes of sulfur from the sea back onto the land. Later, in 1987, DMS was assigned as the driving force in a mechanism by which the ocean and the atmosphere were hypothesized to be dynamically coupled in a global system that had the potential to affect and possibly even regulate climate (). This hypothesis, which was conceived almost by accident in 1985 during a visit by James Lovelock to Robert Charlson at the University of Washington in Seattle (Liss and Lovelock, 2007), has become known as the CLAW hypothesis, an acronym of the four contributing authors’ surnames. CLAW hypothesized that the Earth’s radiation balance may be modulated by reflection or absorption of solar radiation by clouds seeded by the oxidation products of the marine volatile DMS, an algal metabolic by-product that is constantly exchanged from the oceans to the atmosphere. Consequential changes in sea surface temperate (SST) could affect algal growth and hence DMS emissions, thereby providing a potential climate feedback loop where surface ocean primary productivity is dynamically linked to marine cloud production and albedo. Regarding this CLAW mechanism, it has more recently been stated by Liss and Lovelock (2007) that any climate feedback effect could be stabilizing (i.e. negative) or destabilizing (i.e. positive) and the extent, or even its existence, to play any part in the present day climate is in question. What makes the CLAW hypothesis so scientifically compelling is that it continues to be possible to provide empirical evidence for various processes in the proposed mechanism (Figure 1). For example, in Southern Ocean clean marine air sampled at Cape Grim in north-west Tasmania it has been possible to show coherence in the seasonal cycles of atmospheric DMS (DMSa) and its major oxidation products methanesulfonic acid (MSA) and non-sea-salt sulfate (nss-SO4) (). Additionally, cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) number concentrations, modeled cloud droplet concentrations, and mean cloud droplet effective radii were also shown to have the same seasonal phase cycles as DMS (). These early data strongly indicated a connection between DMS emissions, aerosol particle chemistry, and CCN and cloud droplet concentrations (). Other data have shown a strong relationship between DMS and solar radiation dose over the global surface ocean, providing support for a negative climate feedback (Vallina and Simó, 2007).
Figure 1
The CLAW hypothesis has been experimentally shown to be far more complex than first proposed, and despite much research it has not been possible to quantitatively demonstrate the relationship between the mass air-sea flux of DMS-derived sulfate and the number concentration of CCN (
Production of Dimethylsulfide and Dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMS/P) by Scleractinian Corals
It has been known since the early 1990s that coral reef ecosystems can be significant sessile sources of dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP), the major marine precursor of DMS (Jones et al., 1994; Hill et al., 1995). Initially, the algal zooxanthellae endosymbionts (Symbiodium sp.) were presumed and also indicated to be the coral’s source of DMS/P because cellular or particulate DMSP was typically correlated with Symbiodium number (
Conditions That Promote DMS Transfer From Coral Reefs to the Atmosphere
In chamber experiments with three Indo-Pacific coral species, it was shown that gas phase DMS increased by an order of magnitude when the corals were exposed to air, and this was followed by an additional rise in gas phase DMS on their re-submersion (Hopkins et al., 2016). In the environment, atmospheric DMS (DMSa) was observed to peak over coral reefs in the northern GBR at, or shortly after, low tide when the reefs were exposed to the atmosphere (Jones and Trevena, 2005). This was also observed at Heron Island, a coral cay in the southern GBR, where it was possible to demonstrate that median DMSa mixing ratios were a function of tide height, which controls the extent and duration of coral reef aerial exposure, Figure 2 (Swan, 2017). A combination of DMSa source signals are shown in Figure 2, where DMSa derived from the coral reef is the tidally-induced contribution above the oceanic background DMSa continuum. When a coral reef is aerially exposed, DMS can diffuse from the mucus covered coral surfaces directly to the atmosphere, a process that circumvents DMS air-sea exchange; hence, low-tide DMS emissions may result in rapidly released plumes. These were observed as intermittent DMSa time-line spikes in the Heron Island datasets, which were in most instances detected under low wind speeds (WS < 2 m s-1) when atmospheric mixing with oceanic air was least (Swan et al., 2017). Coral reefs emit DMS at low tide in response to environmental stresses when corals can be subject to elevated solar irradiance, heating and hypoxia in shallow pooled water, and dehydration due to air exposure (Deschaseaux et al., 2014).
Figure 2

Median atmospheric DMS mixing ratios plotted against low tide seawater height at Heron Island (23.44°S, 151.91°E) on the southern GBR, 18 Jul - 5 Aug 2013 (austral winter), derived from 30 min resolution measurements of DMSa. The plotted median values are for measurements made in a time window approximately ± 1 h either side of the low tide height range that, to varying extents, aerially exposed the 27 km2 lagoonal platform coral reef surrounding Heron Island shown in the photo (H.B. Swan). According to the dominant south-easterly trade winds at this location, the Heron Reef and the adjacent Wistari Reef, 1 km to the south, are expected to be the sources of DMSa in excess of the approximately 20 pmol mol-1 DMSa background wintertime mixing ratio.
DMS Flux and Emission Estimates From the GBR
Seasonally averaged DMS flux estimates for five coral reefs across the GBR, determined from spatially and temporally combined data, have been reported by Jones et al. (2018). These averaged fluxes, estimated from dissolved DMS (DMSw) and WS using the gradient approach of Liss and Merlivat (1986), were 6.4 and 2.4 µmol m-2 d-1 for summer (Oct-Mar, n = 237) and winter (Apr-Sep, n = 156), respectively. Seasonal fluxes at Heron Island, estimated from DMSa using the mass balance-photochemical box model of
Aerosol Optical Depth and Cloud Cover Over the GBR
The direct effect of marine aerosol to alter the extent that the atmosphere reflects and absorbs solar radiation can be evaluated by aerosol optical depth (AOD). A 16-year (2000-2015) satellite-derived record of fine mode AOD (0.1-0.25 μm radius) for an area of the GBR centred over Heron Island, was correlated with a coral reef stress metric formulated as a function of irradiance, water clarity, and tide height (Cropp et al., 2018). The correlation, which assumes that biogenic aerosol derived from the GBR was primarily linked to AOD, was strongest at low WS when biogenic aerosol is least advected away from its source point, and there is less sea spray aerosol generation. This correlation, which was consistent with field observations of DMSa plumes at Heron Island at low-tide under low WS, was proposed as a possible mechanism by which coral reefs might alter the optical properties of the overlying atmosphere to attenuate local insolation (Cropp et al., 2018). This analysis was extended by Jackson et al. (2018) who analyzed fine mode AOD (2000-2017) over the entire 2,300 km length of the GBR and found AOD to be positively correlated with both SST and the coral reef stress metric. However, a thermal tipping point in the coral stress metric was identified where it became uncoupled from AOD, this being interpreted as a threshold for coral bleaching based on the assumption that bleaching leads to a reduction in emission of biogenic aerosol. The thermal threshold that leads to coral bleaching, separation of Symbiodinium from its polyp host and cessation of coral DMS production, has been reported to be when SST exceeds 30°C for an extended period (Fischer and Jones, 2012; Jones et al., 2017; Jones et al., 2018). Such marine heatwaves are increasing in frequency and, from a culmination of events in 1998, 2002, 2016, 2017 and 2020, have now resulted in mass coral bleaching along the entire GBR (Hughes et al., 2021). Increased summer cloud cover may alleviate coral bleaching by surface cooling, an effect that has been quantified over the GBR using satellite imagery and in-situ temperature and light loggers (Leahy et al., 2013). In that study, cloud cover alone was responsible for up to 32% of the variation in SST, although there was a 3-day lag between a change in cloud cover and a change in SST. Local-scale cloud cover over shallow GBR waters was recently reported to be more highly correlated with SST cooling than the larger-scale regional modulation of cloud cover linked to the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (Zhao et al., 2021). This cloud cover-SST relationship has been proposed to operate as an ocean thermostat in the western Pacific warm pool to the north of Australia where coral bleaching events have been relatively few in number despite the region having the highest average SST of all ocean regions (Kleypas et al., 2008). It has been proposed that DMS atmospheric oxidation products might promote a similar cloud cooling ocean thermostat effect over the GBR (Fischer and Jones, 2012), although this phenomenon may be explained by physical processes alone (Johnson et al., 2001; Takahashi et al., 2010).
Modelling the CLAW Hypothesis Globally and Regionally on the GBR
Application of aerosol microphysics models to calculate the sensitivity of CCN, cloud fraction and surface incoming short-wave radiation to change due to varying DMS air-sea emissions over a wide range of climatologies have indicated the role of DMS in climate regulation to be globally weak (Woodhouse et al., 2010; Fiddes et al., 2018). These modeled outcomes are underpinned by observational evidence showing (i) gas-to-particle nucleation of DMS-derived H2SO4 does not commonly occur in the marine boundary layer (MBL) (Clarke et al., 1998; Gras et al., 2009; Kerminen et al., 2018); (ii) ultra-fine sea salt (
Concluding Comments
Periodic new sulfate-containing particle production (Dp < 20 nm) in the MBL has been indicated from the GBR (Modini et al., 2009) and on the GBR (Vaattovaara et al., 2013). These nano-particles can grow to the climatically active CCN size range (Dp ~50-100 nm) attenuating irradiance and contributing to marine cloud formation. However, aerosol contributions to CCN and cloud formation over the GBR have not been clearly identified and quantified, so it remains uncertain if the proposed ocean thermostat effect from low-level clouds to cool GBR SST is actually a negative feedback driven by coral-derived DMS oxidation products. Additionally, while clouds can reflect incoming sunlight leading to localized 3‐day delayed temporal surface cooling, they also trap outgoing infrared radiation; hence, net radiative forcing by clouds over the GBR remains an uncertain complex component of the planetary greenhouse effect. While aerosol-climate models are important tools to assess the potential for DMS-facilitated climate regulation on the GBR, all are restricted by limited multiphase DMS chemistry, nucleation and nanoparticle growth mechanisms as well as other inherent short-comings and biases in meteorological, physical and chemical processes (Lee et al., 2019). DMS oxidation is far more complex than first imagined by
Funding
The Faculty of Science and Engineering, Southern Cross University, has provided financial support to publish this mini review. Australian Research Council grant DP150101649 for a Discovery Project titled, “The Great Barrier Reef as a significant source of climatically relevant aerosol particles” has assisted recent research cited in this mini review.
Publisher’s Note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
Statements
Author contributions
HS declares that he is the sole author of this mini review and has done his best to correctly summarize all cited research. The author agrees to be accountable for the content of this work and has approved the submitted version.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the topic editors for facilitating the Frontiers Research Topic which led to this mini review. I would also like to thank Edith Olsen for assistance with preparation of Figure 1 and the Faculty of Science and Engineering, Southern Cross University for an adjunct position that provides on-going association for work such as this to be published.
Conflict of interest
The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
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Summary
Keywords
dimethylsulfide (DMS), Great Barrier Reef (GBR), climate, oxidation, sulfate
Citation
Swan HB (2022) The Potential for Great Barrier Reef Regional Climate Regulation via Dimethylsulfide Atmospheric Oxidation Products. Front. Mar. Sci. 9:869166. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2022.869166
Received
03 February 2022
Accepted
23 May 2022
Published
20 June 2022
Volume
9 - 2022
Edited by
Gabrielle Nevitt, University of California, Davis, United States
Reviewed by
Stephen D. Archer, Bigelow Laboratory For Ocean Sciences, United States; Mike Harvey, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), New Zealand
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Copyright
© 2022 Swan.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Hilton B. Swan, hilton.swan@scu.edu.au
This article was submitted to Coral Reef Research, a section of the journal Frontiers in Marine Science
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