production and carbon export in the

• Main Authors: Biogeochemical Regimes, Net Community, Ross Sea Antarctica
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2000
• Subjects: Austral; Ross Sea
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.391.5777; http://yyy.rsmas.miami.edu/groups/biogeochem/Hansell pdfs/29 Hansell.pdf

The net community production (NCP) of the Ross Sea, from the early austral spring (mid-October) to the austral summer (mid-February), has been estimated from the seasonal drawdown of CO concentrations integrated over the top 100 m of the water column. The de"cits in nutrients and CO indicate three distinct biogeochemical regimes. The regime in the southwestern Ross Sea (Region I) had relatively shallow mixed layers and was dominated by diatom growth, as evidenced by a silicate (Def(Si)) to NCP removal ratio (0.11$0.04) that was similar to the silicate-to-carbon ratio found in diatoms growing in temperate regions. High NCP values (4.9}8.7 mol m��) and low ratios of surplus total organic carbon (Surp(TOC)) to NCP (from 0.27 to 0.67) show high organic carbon export out of the upper 100 m of the water column. The second regime (Region II), located in the center of the southern Ross Sea polynya, also had high NCP's (4.4}10.8 mol m��) but the mixed layers were deeper. The average Def(Si)/NCP ratio was 0.04$0.02, much lower than the southwestern sector and consistent