The conservative behavior of dissolved organic carbon in surface waters of the southern Chukchi Sea, Arctic Ocean, during early summer

Kazuki Tanaka; Nobuyuki Takesue; Jun Nishioka; Yoshiko Kondo; Atsushi Ooki; Kenshi Kuma; Toru Hirawake; Youhei Yamashita

doi:10.1038/srep34123

The conservative behavior of dissolved organic carbon in surface waters of the southern Chukchi Sea, Arctic Ocean, during early summer

Sci Rep. 2016 Sep 23:6:34123. doi: 10.1038/srep34123.

Authors

Kazuki Tanaka¹, Nobuyuki Takesue^{1

2}, Jun Nishioka², Yoshiko Kondo^{3

4}, Atsushi Ooki⁵, Kenshi Kuma⁵, Toru Hirawake⁵, Youhei Yamashita^{1

6}

Affiliations

¹ Graduate School of Environmental Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan.
² Pan-Okhotsk Research Center, Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan.
³ National Institute of Polar Research, Tokyo, Japan.
⁴ Graduate School of Fisheries and Environmental Sciences, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan.
⁵ Faculty of Fisheries Sciences, Hokkaido University, Hakodate, Japan.
⁶ Faculty of Environmental Earth Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan.

Abstract

The spatial distribution of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations and the optical properties of dissolved organic matter (DOM) determined by ultraviolet-visible absorbance and fluorescence spectroscopy were measured in surface waters of the southern Chukchi Sea, western Arctic Ocean, during the early summer of 2013. Neither the DOC concentration nor the optical parameters of the DOM correlated with salinity. Principal component analysis using the DOM optical parameters clearly separated the DOM sources. A significant linear relationship was evident between the DOC and the principal component score for specific water masses, indicating that a high DOC level was related to a terrigenous source, whereas a low DOC level was related to a marine source. Relationships between the DOC and the principal component scores of the surface waters of the southern Chukchi Sea implied that the major factor controlling the distribution of DOC concentrations was the mixing of plural water masses rather than local production and degradation.