BG Biogeosciences BG 1726-4189 Copernicus GmbH Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/bg-9-1217-2012 Carbon dynamics in the western Arctic Ocean: insights from full-depth carbon isotope profiles of DIC, DOC, and POC Griffith D. R. 1 McNichol A. P. 2 Xu L. 2 McLaughlin F. A. 3 Macdonald R. W. 3 Brown K. A. 4 Eglinton T. I. 5 MIT/WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography, 266 Woods Hole Rd., Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA Dept. of Geology and Geophysics, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 266 Woods Hole Rd., Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA Institute of Ocean Sciences, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, 9860 West Saanich Rd., Sidney, BC, V8L 4B2, Canada Dept. of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of British Columbia, 2146 Health Sciences Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z3, Canada Geological Institute, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Sonneggstrasse 5, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland 28 03 2012 9 3 1217 1224 This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This article is available from http://www.biogeosciences.net/9/1217/2012/bg-9-1217-2012.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.biogeosciences.net/9/1217/2012/bg-9-1217-2012.pdf

Arctic warming is projected to continue throughout the coming century. Yet, our currently limited understanding of the Arctic Ocean carbon cycle hinders our ability to predict how changing conditions will affect local Arctic ecosystems, regional carbon budgets, and global climate. We present here the first set of concurrent, full-depth, dual-isotope profiles for dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), dissolved organic carbon (DOC), and suspended particulate organic carbon (POCsusp) at two sites in the Canada Basin of the Arctic Ocean. The carbon isotope composition of sinking and suspended POC in the Arctic contrasts strongly with open ocean Atlantic and Pacific sites, pointing to a combination of inputs to Arctic POCsusp at depth, including surface-derived organic carbon (OC), sorbed/advected OC, and OC derived from in situ DIC fixation. The latter process appears to be particularly important at intermediate depths, where mass balance calculations suggest that OC derived from in situ DIC fixation contributes up to 22% of POCsusp. As in other oceans, surface-derived OC is still a dominant source to Arctic POCsusp. Yet, we suggest that significantly smaller vertical POC fluxes in the Canada Basin make it possible to see evidence of DIC fixation in the POCsusp pool even at the bulk isotope level.

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