Assessing Climate Impacts of Biogenic Sulfur Cycling in Polar Oceans

 

The polar oceans and sea ice are active sources of gases that can influence clouds and climate. Among these gases are volatile sulfur compounds such as dimethylsulfide (DMS) and methanethiol (MeSH), produced by marine microorganisms living in and around sea ice. The processes determining the S-cycle in polar regions are still poorly understood and insufficiently represented in coupled ocean-atmosphere climate models. This limits our ability to assess climate change impacts on the S-cycle and the S-cycle influence on climate. This makes it challenging to design the observations needed to develop model parameterisation. A new review published in Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene synthesises the key features of S-cycle across the ocean-sea ice-atmosphere system, new and existing observations of MeSH in the atmosphere and seawater, and outlines priority steps to improve its representation in models.

Reference: Ishino, S., Willis, M.D.,  Angot, H., et al. (2026). The biogenic sulfur cycle in the coupled ocean-sea ice-atmosphere system. Elem. Sci. Anth, 14, 1-60. https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.2025.00067