Biological production in two contrasted regions of the Mediterranean Sea during the oligotrophic period: an estimate based on the diel cycle of optical properties measured by BioGeoChemical-Argo profiling floats

Barbieux, Marie; Uitz, Julia; Mignot, Alexandre; Roesler, Collin; Claustre, Hervé; Gentili, Bernard; Taillandier, Vincent; D'Ortenzio, Fabrizio; Loisel, Hubert; Poteau, Antoine; Leymarie, Edouard; Penkerc'h, Christophe; Schmechtig, Catherine; Bricaud, Annick

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-1165-2022

Articles | Volume 19, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-1165-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Atmospheric deposition in the low-nutrient-low-chlorophyll...

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-1165-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 4

Research article

|

24 Feb 2022

Research article |

| 24 Feb 2022

Biological production in two contrasted regions of the Mediterranean Sea during the oligotrophic period: an estimate based on the diel cycle of optical properties measured by BioGeoChemical-Argo profiling floats

Marie Barbieux, Julia Uitz, Alexandre Mignot, Collin Roesler, Hervé Claustre, Bernard Gentili, Vincent Taillandier, Fabrizio D'Ortenzio, Hubert Loisel, Antoine Poteau, Edouard Leymarie, Christophe Penkerc'h, Catherine Schmechtig, and Annick Bricaud

Data sets

Argo float data and metadata from Global Data Assembly Centre (Argo GDAC) A. Fumihiko, A. Turki, A. Pascual, et al. https://doi.org/10.17882/42182

Biogeochemical dataset collected during the PEACETIME cruise C. Guieu, K. Desboeufs, S. Albani, et al. https://doi.org/10.17882/75747

Short summary

This study assesses marine biological production in two Mediterranean systems representative of vast desert-like (oligotrophic) areas encountered in the global ocean. We use a novel approach based on non-intrusive high-frequency in situ measurements by two profiling robots, the BioGeoChemical-Argo (BGC-Argo) floats. Our results indicate substantial yet variable production rates and contribution to the whole water column of the subsurface layer, typically considered steady and non-productive.