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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub"></issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2026-5346</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Constraining organic alkalinity in Antarctic sea ice brines containing high concentrations of dissolved organic matter: Current limitations and future directions</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Glass</surname>
<given-names>Samantha C.</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4707-0298</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Thomas</surname>
<given-names>David N.</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8832-5907</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Papadimitriou</surname>
<given-names>Stathys</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Vlahos</surname>
<given-names>Penny</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0034-6007</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Department of Marine Sciences, University of Connecticut, Groton, CT 06340, United States of America</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Department of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, FI-00014 Finland</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>National Oceanography Centre, European Way, Southampton, SO14 3ZH, United Kingdom</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>16</day>
<month>09</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>26</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Samantha C. Glass et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-5346/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-5346/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-5346/egusphere-2026-5346.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-5346/egusphere-2026-5346.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Organic alkalinity (OrgAlk), the component of total alkalinity (A&lt;sub&gt;T&lt;/sub&gt;) arising from non-inorganic species or uncharacterized bases, introduces error into calculated carbonate system parameters when A&lt;sub&gt;T&lt;/sub&gt; is used as an input. OrgAlk has been identified in Arctic sea ice brines with elevated dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations, suggesting organic contributions to A&lt;sub&gt;T&lt;/sub&gt; may also be important in other sea ice environments. Antarctic sea ice brines are reported to contain higher DOC concentrations, yet estimating carbonate system components in Antarctic sea ice brines has relied on A&lt;sub&gt;T&lt;/sub&gt;-based calculations although no direct OrgAlk measurements exist for Antarctic sea ice brines and the potential magnitude of organic contributions to Antarctic brine A&lt;sub&gt;T&lt;/sub&gt; remains unknown. This study assesses potential OrgAlk contributions in Antarctic sea ice brines using published OrgAlk:DOC relationships as boundary conditions. Applying published OrgAlk:DOC relationships spanning 0.06&amp;ndash;0.44 to Antarctic sea ice brine DOC concentrations produced a wide range of possible OrgAlk values, reinforcing the uncertainty of transferring DOC relationships across environments. These values are not interpreted as quantitative estimates of Antarctic sea ice brine OrgAlk, but rather as a sensitivity framework for evaluating plausible conditions. Sensitivity analyses indicate that unaccounted OrgAlk of this magnitude could affect calculated carbonate system parameters, including &lt;em&gt;p&lt;/em&gt;CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;, when A&lt;sub&gt;T&lt;/sub&gt; is used as an input parameter. These findings establish current uncertainty boundaries for OrgAlk in Antarctic sea ice brines, highlight a significant gap in Antarctic sea ice biogeochemistry and demonstrate the need for direct OrgAlk measurements to reduce uncertainty in Antarctic sea ice carbonate system calculations.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="26"/></counts>
<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program</funding-source>
<award-id>DGE-2234985</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
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