Patterns and drivers of dimethylsulfide concentration in the northeast subarctic Pacific across multiple spatial and temporal scales
The northeast subarctic Pacific (NESAP) is a globally important source of the climate-active gas dimethylsulfide (DMS), yet the processes driving DMS variability across this region are poorly understood. Here we examine the spatial distribution of DMS at various spatial scales in contrasting oceanog...
| Published in: | Biogeosciences |
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| Main Authors: | , , , |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2019
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-16-1729-2019 https://doaj.org/article/1008efd13cd04b369903a3a274cdb166 |
| Summary: | The northeast subarctic Pacific (NESAP) is a globally important source of the climate-active gas dimethylsulfide (DMS), yet the processes driving DMS variability across this region are poorly understood. Here we examine the spatial distribution of DMS at various spatial scales in contrasting oceanographic regimes of the NESAP. We present new high-spatial-resolution measurements of DMS across hydrographic frontal zones along the British Columbia continental shelf, together with key environmental variables and biological rate measurements. We combine these new data with existing observations to produce a revised summertime DMS climatology for the NESAP, yielding a broader context for our sub-mesoscale process studies. Our results demonstrate sharp DMS concentration gradients across hydrographic frontal zones and suggest the presence of two distinct DMS cycling regimes in the NESAP, corresponding to microphytoplankton-dominated waters along the continental shelf and nanoplankton-dominated waters in the cross-shelf transitional zone. DMS concentrations across the continental shelf transition (range < 1–10 nM, mean 3.9 nM) exhibited positive correlations to salinity ( r =0.80 ), sea surface height anomaly (SSHA; r =0.51 ), and the relative abundance of prymnesiophyte and dinoflagellates ( r =0.89 ). In contrast, DMS concentrations in nearshore coastal transects (range < 1–24 nM, mean 6.1 nM) showed a negative correlation with salinity ( <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M4" display="inline" overflow="scroll" dspmath="mathml"><mrow><mi>r</mi><mo>=</mo><mo>-</mo><mn mathvariant="normal">0.69</mn></mrow></math> <svg:svg xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="49pt" height="10pt" class="svg-formula" dspmath="mathimg" md5hash="1d720f16ffc1c28e18cb5a2217ddede9"><svg:image xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="bg-16-1729-2019-ie00001.svg" width="49pt" height="10pt" ... |
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