IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v427y2004i6969d10.1038_nature02127.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

High-latitude controls of thermocline nutrients and low latitude biological productivity

Author

Listed:
  • J. L. Sarmiento

    (Princeton University)

  • N. Gruber

    (University of California at Los Angeles)

  • M. A. Brzezinski

    (University of California)

  • J. P. Dunne

    (NOAA/Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory)

Abstract

The ocean's biological pump strips nutrients out of the surface waters and exports them into the thermocline and deep waters. If there were no return path of nutrients from deep waters, the biological pump would eventually deplete the surface waters and thermocline of nutrients; surface biological productivity would plummet. Here we make use of the combined distributions of silicic acid and nitrate to trace the main nutrient return path from deep waters by upwelling in the Southern Ocean1 and subsequent entrainment into subantarctic mode water. We show that the subantarctic mode water, which spreads throughout the entire Southern Hemisphere2,3 and North Atlantic Ocean3, is the main source of nutrients for the thermocline. We also find that an additional return path exists in the northwest corner of the Pacific Ocean, where enhanced vertical mixing, perhaps driven by tides4, brings abyssal nutrients to the surface and supplies them to the thermocline of the North Pacific. Our analysis has important implications for our understanding of large-scale controls on the nature and magnitude of low-latitude biological productivity and its sensitivity to climate change.

Suggested Citation

  • J. L. Sarmiento & N. Gruber & M. A. Brzezinski & J. P. Dunne, 2004. "High-latitude controls of thermocline nutrients and low latitude biological productivity," Nature, Nature, vol. 427(6969), pages 56-60, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:427:y:2004:i:6969:d:10.1038_nature02127
    DOI: 10.1038/nature02127
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature02127
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature02127?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. M. S. Clark & J. I. Hoffman & L. S. Peck & L. Bargelloni & D. Gande & C. Havermans & B. Meyer & T. Patarnello & T. Phillips & K. R. Stoof-Leichsenring & D. L. J. Vendrami & A. Beck & G. Collins & M. W, 2023. "Multi-omics for studying and understanding polar life," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-12, December.
    2. Yuhao Dai & Jimin Yu & Haojia Ren & Xuan Ji, 2022. "Deglacial Subantarctic CO2 outgassing driven by a weakened solubility pump," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-9, December.
    3. Gagan Mandal & Shih-Yu Lee & Jia-Yuh Yu, 2021. "The Roles of Wind and Sea Ice in Driving the Deglacial Change in the Southern Ocean Upwelling: A Modeling Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-21, January.
    4. Shantong Sun & Andrew F. Thompson & Jimin Yu & Lixin Wu, 2024. "Transient overturning changes cause an upper-ocean nutrient decline in a warming climate," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-9, December.
    5. Claire Siddiqui & Tim Rixen & Niko Lahajnar & Anja K. Van der Plas & Deon C. Louw & Tarron Lamont & Keshnee Pillay, 2023. "Regional and global impact of CO2 uptake in the Benguela Upwelling System through preformed nutrients," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-11, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:427:y:2004:i:6969:d:10.1038_nature02127. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.