Episodic subduction patches in the western North Pacific identified from BGC-Argo float data

Chen, Shuangling; Wells, Mark L.; Huang, Rui Xin; Xue, Huijie; Xi, Jingyuan; Chai, Fei

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-5539-2021

Articles | Volume 18, issue 19

Biogeosciences, 18, 5539–5554, 2021

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-5539-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Biogeosciences, 18, 5539–5554, 2021

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-5539-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 18, issue 19

Research article 13 Oct 2021

Research article | 13 Oct 2021

Episodic subduction patches in the western North Pacific identified from BGC-Argo float data

Shuangling Chen et al.

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-5539-2021-supplement

Data sets

Argo float data and metadata from Global Data Assembly Centre (Argo GDAC) Argo https://doi.org/10.17882/42182

Short summary

Subduction transports surface waters to the oceanic interior, which can supply significant amounts of carbon and oxygen to the twilight zone. Using a novel BGC-Argo dataset covering the western North Pacific, we successfully identified the imprints of episodic shallow subduction patches. These subduction patches were observed mainly in spring and summer (70.6 %), and roughly half of them extended below ~ 450 m, injecting carbon- and oxygen-enriched waters into the ocean interior.