Impact of advection on Arctic ocean ecosystems

What is it about?

The Arctic Ocean is extremely oligotrophic. This means that the primary production in this basin is very low because phytoplankton in the surface waters does not have access to nutrients necessary for its growth. This paper shows role of advection in supplying nutrients to the Arctic from neighboring nutrient-rich North Pacific and North Atlantic.

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Why is it important?

Our experiments show that advective timescales linking subsurface layers of the central AO with the nutrient-rich Pacific and Atlantic waters do not exceed 15–20 years and that the advective supply of shelf nutrients to the deep AO occurs on the timescale of about 5 years. We show substantial role of the continental shelf pump in sustaining up to 20% of total AO primary production.