In Situ Estimates of Net Primary Production in the Western North Atlantic With Argo Profiling Floats.

The 14C incubation method for net primary production (NPP) has limited spatial/temporal resolution, while satellite approaches cannot provide direct information at depth. With chlorophyll-a and backscatter measurements from BGC-Argo floats, we quantified year-round NPP in the western North Atlantic Ocean using both the Carbon-based Productivity Model (CbPM) and Photoacclimation Productivity Model (PPM). Comparison with NPP profiles from 14C incubation measurements showed advantages and limitations of both models. CbPM reproduced the magnitude of NPP in most cases. However, in the summer the CbPM-based NPP had a large peak in the subsurface, which was an artifact from the subsurface chlorophyll maximum caused by photoacclimation. PPM avoided the artifacts from photoacclimation, but the magnitude of PPM-derived NPP was smaller than the 14C result. Different NPP distribution patterns along a North-South transect in the Western North Atlantic Ocean were observed, including higher winter NPP/lower summer NPP in the south, timing differences in NPP seasonal phenology, and different NPP depth distribution patterns in the summer months. Using a 6-months record of concurrent oxygen and bio-optical measurements from two Argo floats, we also demonstrated the ability of Argo floats to obtain estimates of the net community production to NPP ratio, ranging from 0.3 in July to -1.0 in December 2016. Our results highlight the utility of float bio-optical profiles and indicate that environmental conditions (e.g., light availability, nutrient supply) are major factors controlling the seasonality and spatial (horizontal and vertical) distributions of NPP in the western North Atlantic Ocean.

Using Noble Gases to Assess the Ocean's Carbon Pumps.

Natural mechanisms in the ocean, both physical and biological, concentrate carbon in the deep ocean, resulting in lower atmospheric carbon dioxide. The signals of these carbon pumps overlap to create the observed carbon distribution in the ocean, making the individual impact of each pump difficult to disentangle. Noble gases have the potential to directly quantify the physical carbon solubility pump and to indirectly improve estimates of the biological organic carbon pump. Noble gases are biologically inert, can be precisely measured, and span a range of physical properties. We present dissolved neon, argon, and krypton data spanning the Atlantic, Southern, Pacific, and Arctic Oceans. Comparisons between deep-ocean observations and models of varying complexity enable the rates of processes that control the carbon solubility pump to be quantified and thus provide an important metric for ocean model skill. Noble gases also provide a powerful means of assessing air-sea gas exchange parameterizations.