Subtropical Contribution to Sub-Antarctic Mode Waters

• Published in: Geophysical Research Letters
• Main Authors: Castro, Bieito Fernandez, Mazloff, Matthew, Williams, Richard G, Garabato, Alberto C Naveira
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: American Geophysical Union (AGU) 2022
• Subjects: Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*
• Online Access: http://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/3164044/; https://doi.org/10.1029/2021gl097560; http://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/3164044/1/grl_2022_bfc.pdf

Sub-Antarctic Mode Waters (SAMW) form to the north of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) through deep winter mixing. SAMW connect the atmosphere with the oceanic pycnocline, transferring heat and carbon into the ocean interior and supplying nutrients to the northern ocean basins. The processes controlling SAMW ventilation and properties remain poorly understood. Here, we investigate the significance and origin of a ubiquitous feature of SAMW formation regions: The seasonal build-up of a subsurface salinity maximum. With biogeochemical Argo floats, we show that this feature influences SAMW mixed-layer dynamics, and that its formation is associated with a decline in preformed nutrients comparable to biological drawdown in surface waters (∼0.15 mol m−2 y−1). Our analysis reveals that these features are driven by advection of warm, salty, nutrient-poor waters of subtropical origin along the ACC. This influx represents a leading-order term in the SAMW physical and biogeochemical budgets, and can impact large-scale nutrient distributions.