Photochemical Mineralization of Terrigenous DOC to Dissolved Inorganic Carbon in Ocean

• Published in: Global Biogeochemical Cycles
• Main Authors: Aarnos, Hanna, Gelinas, Yves, Kasurinen, Ville, Gu, Yufei, Puupponen, Veli-Mikko, Vähätalo, Anssi V.
• Other Authors: Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Department of Forest Sciences, Department of Physics
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley/Blackwell 2019
• Subjects: APPARENT QUANTUM YIELD; NATURAL ORGANIC-MATTER; AMAZON RIVER PLUME; MICROBIAL DECOMPOSITION; LIGHT-ABSORPTION; ATLANTIC BIGHT; COASTAL OCEAN; WORLD RIVERS; GLOBAL OCEAN; HUMIC LAKE; 1172 Environmental sciences; 1171 Geosciences; Humic Lake; Lambda; lena river
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10138/308195

When terrigenous dissolved organic carbon (tDOC) rich in chromophoric dissolved organic matter (tCDOM) enters the ocean, solar radiation mineralizes it partially into dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC). This study addresses the amount and the rates of DIC photoproduction from tDOC and the area of ocean required to photomineralize tDOC. We collected water samples from 10 major rivers, mixed them with artificial seawater, and irradiated them with simulated solar radiation to measure DIC photoproduction and the photobleaching of tCDOM. The linear relationship between DIC photoproduction and tCDOM photobleaching was used to estimate the amount of photoproduced DIC from the tCDOM fluxes of the study rivers. Solar radiation was estimated to mineralize 12.5 +/- 3.7 Tg C yr(-1) (10 rivers)(-1) or 18 +/- 8% of tDOC flux. The irradiation experiments also approximated typical apparent spectral quantum yields for DIC photoproduction (phi(lambda)) over the entire lifetime of the tCDOM. Based on phi(lambda)s and the local solar irradiances in river plumes, the annual areal DIC photoproduction rates from tDOC were calculated to range from 52 +/- 4 (Lena River) to 157 +/- 2 mmol C m(-2) yr(-1) (Mississippi River). When the amount of photoproduced DIC was divided by the areal rate, 9.6 +/- 2.5 x 10(6) km(2) of ocean was required for the photomineralization of tDOC from the study rivers. Extrapolation to the global tDOC flux yields 45 (31-58) Tg of photoproduced DIC per year in the river plumes that cover 34 (25-43) x 10(6) km(2) of the ocean. Peer reviewed