Organic nutrients and excess nitrogen in the North Atlantic subtropical gyre

A. Landolfi (1) , A. Oschlies (1) , R. Sanders (2)

1 IFM-GEOMAR - Leibniz-Institut für Meereswissenschaften
2 NOC - National Oceanography Centre [Southampton]

To enable an accurate estimate of total excess nitrogen (N) in the North Atlantic a new tracer, TNxs, is defined which includes the contribution of organic nutrients to the assessment of N:P stoichiometric anomalies. We estimate the spatial distribution of TNxs within the North Atlantic using data from a trans-Atlantic section across 24.5° N conducted in 2004. We then employ three different approaches to infer rates of total excess nitrogen accumulation using pCFC-12 derived ventilation ages (a TNxs vertical integration, a one end-member and a two-end member mixing model). Despite some variability among the different methods the dissolved organic nutrient fraction always contributes to about half of the TNxs accumulation, which is in the order of 9.38±4.18×10¹¹ mol N y^?1. Here we suggest that neglecting organic nutrients in stoichiometric balances of the marine N and P inventories can lead to systematic errors when estimating a nitrogen excess or deficit relative to the Redfield ratio in the oceans. For the North Atlantic the inclusion of the organic fraction leads to an upward revision of the N supply by N₂ fixation to 10.2±6.9×10¹¹ mol N y^?1. This enhanced estimate of nitrogen fixation reconciles the geochemical estimates of N₂ fixation derived from excess nitrate and the direct estimates from N₂ fixation measurements.

Domaines: Cosmologie et astrophysique extra-galactique [astro-ph.CO]; Astrophysique [astro-ph]; Interfaces continentales, environnement; Océan, Atmosphère; Sciences de la Terre

A. Landolfi, A. Oschlies, R. Sanders. Organic nutrients and excess nitrogen in the North Atlantic subtropical gyre. Biogeosciences Discussions, 2008, 5 (1), pp.685-724. ⟨hal-00297972⟩