Subtropical Productivity from Profiling Floats and Gliders

Abstract:

Since 2007 profiling floats equipped with dissolved oxygen and nitrate sensors have been released from the Hawaii Ocean Time-series (HOT) and Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) sites and can be calibrated using time-series observations. More recent deployments have also included bio-optical and pH sensors. Gliders with oxygen sensors and bio-optics have been intermittently deployed near HOT Station ALOHA since 2008 and at BATS since 2014. While gliders maintain a restricted survey region near the time-series stations, profiling floats drifted widely across the subtropical gyres. Multiple floats and gliders enables a cotemporaneous comparison of biogeochemical processes across gyres. These platforms enable observations on spatial scales from submesoscale to basin scale and on temporal scales from diel to interannual. Here, I focus on the spatiotemporal variability of nitrate and oxygen mass balances in the North Pacific and North Atlantic subtropical gyres using a data-assimilating and float-tracking 1D upper ocean model.