Net biological oxygen production in the ocean—II: Remote in situ measurements of O 2 and N 2 in subarctic pacific surface waters

Abstract

Net community biological production in the euphotic zone of the ocean fuels organic matter and oxygen export from the upper ocean, which has a large influence on the atmospheric pressure of carbon dioxide and is the driving force for metabolite distributions in the sea. We determine the net annual biological oxygen production in the mixed layer of the northeast subarctic Pacific Ocean from in situ O 2 and N 2 measurements. Temperature, salinity, total gas pressure and O 2 were measured every 3 h for 9 months in 2007 at about 3 m depth on a surface mooring at Station P (50°N, 145°W). The concentration of nitrogen gas, N 2, determined from separate total gas pressure and pO 2 measurements, was used as an inert tracer of the physical processes that induce gas departure from thermodynamic equilibrium with the atmosphere. We use a simple model of the ocean’s mixed layer along with the nitrogen concentration to constrain the importance of bubbles, gas exchange and horizontal advection, which are then used in the oxygen mass balance to derive net biological oxygen production. The mixed-layer oxygen mass balance is dominated by exchange with the atmosphere, and we determine a mean summertime oxygen production of 24 mmol O 2 m −2 d −1. The annual pattern in the difference between the supersaturation of oxygen and nitrogen in the surface waters reveals very little net oxygen production during the winter at this location. The calculated annual net community production (NCP) of carbon from this new method, 2.5 mol m −2 yr −1, agrees to within its error of about×40% with previous determinations at this location from oxygen mass balance, NO 3 − draw down and 234Th measurements. This value is either indistinguishable from or lower than annual NCP measurements in the subtropical North Pacific, indicating that there is no experimental evidence for differences in annual NCP between the subarctic and subtropical North Pacific Ocean.