Transport of dissolved black carbon from marginal sea sediments to the western North Pacific

Abstract

Pyrogenic carbon, also called black carbon (BC), is produced by biomass burning as well as by fossil fuel combustion and is an important slow-cycling component in the global carbon cycle. BC occurs in a fraction of marine dissolved organic carbon, and this is called dissolved BC (DBC). Marine DBC has been considered the ultimate repository for fluvial DBC; however, the environmental dynamics of marine DBC have not been well documented. In this study, vertical DBC profiles from the surface to the deep layers of the western subarctic Pacific and its marginal seas were analyzed using the benzenepolycarboxylic acid (BPCA) method. DBC concentrations tended to be highest in the surface layer and decreased with increasing depth, except for those in the Bussol’ Strait locatedin the Kuril Islands between the Sea of Okhotsk and the North Pacific. Vertical distributions of the condensation degree index of DBC (i.e., the ratio of B5CA and B6CA to all BPCAs) did not show a general trend with depth. Atmospheric deposition of BC is likely a major source of DBC in the surface layer. In the intermediate layer, the DBC concentration and the condensation degree index in the Bussol’ Strait were higher than those in the western subarctic Pacific. The occurrence of highly condensed DBC observed in the Bussol’ Strait was accompanied by low salinity and a high DO concentration, indicating that DBC is transported from the shelf sediments of the Sea of Okhotsk to the Bussol’ Strait by dense shelf water (DSW) and Okhotsk Sea Intermediate Water (OSIW). The DBC concentration and the condensation degree index in the intermediate layer of the Bering Sea and the Kamchatka Strait (locatedin the Aleutian Islands between the Bering Sea and the North Pacific) were higher than those in the western subarctic Pacific but lower than those in the Bussol’ Strait; this suggests that DBC from the slope sediments in the Bering Sea is transported to the Kamchatka Strait by the East Kamchatka Current and that the DBC flux from the slope sediments of the Bering Sea is lower than that involving the DSW in the Sea of Okhotsk, which accompanies the resuspension of shelf sediments. The results of this study imply that sedimentary BC is an important source of water column DBC in marginal seas and the adjacent open ocean.