Seasonal cycle of phosphate in the open ocean

Abstract

The seasonal cycle of phosphate in the world ocean is described using all historical data (over 170,000 profiles) held at the U.S. National Oceanographic Data Center and World Data Center-A for Oceanography. Generally, phosphate concentrations are depressed in the season of highest primary production, in conformance with phosphate's role as a major nutrient. Mean phosphate concentration in the North Pacific are twice those in the North Atlantic. The largest seasonal differences occur in the sub-polar North Atlantic and Pacific, where changes in concentration are as large as a factor of two. Temperate and equatorial regions exhibit less seasonal variability. High latitudes, upwelling areas, and river mouths exhibit a notable seasonal signal in phosphate. Enrichment of phosphate from the Amazon and Orinoco rivers appears to dominate the seasonal signal in the tropical Atlantic. In fact, the extent of the rivers’ effects extend so far north into the North Atlantic gyre that it obscures the normal pattern of summer depletion occurring elsewhere in the basin. The seasonal signal in the tropical Pacific Ocean is a function of seasonal variability in the winds, which affect the strength of coastal upwelling.