Significance of nutrients in oxygen-depleted bottom waters via various origins on the mid-outer shelf of the East China Sea during summer

Abstract

East China Sea (ECS) is considered one of the largest dissolved oxygen (DO) depleted areas in the world's oceans. To assess the relative importance of water sources and biological processes to modulate low DO water over the ECS shelf, we conducted 7 cruises in the summers between 2004 and 2015. To cover a broad study area, observations were taken by both Chinese and Japanese research vessels in 2013, the consistent DO values were obtained in the intercalibration station from China and Japan. The subsurface/bottom water DO depletion was observed over both the inner and mid-outer shelves. In 2009 and 2013, the low DO (3–4.2 mg L−1) area covered ca. 4 × 104 km2 on the mid-outer shelf, comparable with the reported area of summer hypoxia off the Changjiang estuary. On the basis of a seven endmember mixing model using heavy rare earth elements, temperature and salinity data collected in 2013 and 2015, we determined that on the southern shelf the low DO water mainly originated from Kuroshio Subsurface Water (28–72%). Both the DO level in the dominant source water and organic matter (OM) remineralization modulated the formation and expansion of low DO waters. Oxygen-depleted bottom waters featured with high nutrients were both transported from the water's source regions and produced by OM remineralization on the mid-outer shelf. The estimated regenerated nutrient fluxes derived from OM respiration in the bottom water of the mid-outer shelf were equivalent to 18–37% of the nitrate and nitrite, and 2 to 5-fold the phosphorus, delivered from the Changjiang River in summer. The large quantity of regenerated nutrients from oxygen-depleted bottom waters on the mid-outer shelf could be utilized and support primary production in the adjacent oceans. Our findings provide valuable observation for simulation models of nutrient cycles and budgets in the ECS and adjacent oceans.