Processes controlling the distributions of Cd and PO4 in the ocean

Abstract

AbstractDepth profiles of dissolved Cd and PO4 from a global data compilation were used to derive the Cd/P of particles exported from the surface layer, and the results indicate lowest values in the North Atlantic (0.17 ± 0.05), highest in the Southern (0.56 ± 0.24), and intermediate in the South Indian (0.31 ± 0.14) and North Pacific (0.36 ± 0.08) Ocean basins. The Cd/P of exported particles in high nutrient‐low chlorophyll (HNLC) regions is twice that for particles exported in non‐HNLC regions as is the fractionation effect during biological uptake of Cd and PO4, and these trends primarily determine the spatial trends of dissolved Cd/PO4 observed in the surface ocean. In deep waters the lowest dissolved Cd/PO4 of 0.23 ± 0.07 is found in the North Atlantic Ocean and the result primarily of low Cd/PO4 of North Atlantic Deep Water (0.23). In contrast, deep waters in the Southern Ocean have significantly higher dissolved Cd/PO4 (0.30 ± 0.06), which is a result of the Cd/PO4 of upwelled deep water from the South Pacific and South Indian (0.28) and the high Cd/P of degrading particles. A multibox model that accounts for the impacts of particle degradation and thermohaline circulation in the deep sea yields dissolved Cd and PO4 interbasin trends close to observations. Model experiments illustrate the dependence of the dissolved Cd/PO4 of the deep sea on the extent of HNLC conditions in the Southern Ocean and the impact on reconstructing paleo PO4 concentrations from a Cd proxy.