Project: The Marine Dissolved N2/Ar Ratio, A Tracer for Deep Ocean Denitrification?

The role of nitrate in the ocean carbon cycle and its relatively short residence time make it crucial to understand the marine nitrogen cycle; however, there is currently insufficient experimental evidence to accurately determine present day fluxes. Denitrification and nitrogen fixation are the main sink and source for dissolved inorganic nitrogen in the sea.

In this study a research team at the University of Washington will collaborate with colleagues at the University of Victoria to study changes in the N2/Ar ratio in seawater caused by denitrification. Previous research has demonstrated the utility of this tracer in the oxygen minimum zones of the Pacific and Indian Ocean, but they will investigate observed changes in the "background" distribution of the ratio. The investigators already have unpublished data that indicate the N2/Ar ratio increases by about 0.5 % from the Atlantic to Pacific Oceans in waters below 1000 meters. If this increase is assumed to be caused by denitrification in deep ocean sediments it amounts to roughly 80 Tg/yr of denitrification. This is a significant portion of estimated global denitrification (between 200 and 400 Tg/yr) and within the range of the largely untested predictions of deep-ocean sediment denitrification using global sediment diagenesis models. Presently it is not possible to unequivocally attribute the observed deep water column N2/Ar increase to denitrification because it could also be caused by deep-water formation processes in the Antarctic.

The investigators will separate the fraction of the N2/Ar ratio increase due to the physical processes of atmosphere or ice-water interaction from that due to denitrification by measuring other noble gas ratios (primarily Ne/Ar and Kr/Ar) that change only in response to ocean surface cooling and bubble processes. They will measure deep water-column profiles of N2/Ar, Ne/Ar and Kr/Ar in strategically-located sites where there are ships of opportunity: the Labrador Sea, the North Atlantic at the Bermuda time-series site, the Drake Passage, the Indian Ocean south of Madagascar, the subtropical North Pacific at the Hawaii Ocean time-series site, and the subarctic North Pacific at Station P. Preliminary measurements of all of the gas ratios have been made, and extensive testing has been done to identify sources of contamination in the sampling methods. This proposal involves a two-laboratory collaboration to make it possible to sample a large number of ocean sites, minimize atmospheric contamination by rapid sample analysis, and create maximum accuracy through laboratory intercalibration.

Broader Impacts: This project will promote international ocean science collaboration between the U.S.and Canada. It will support the research of an assistant professor to apply analytical methods that she has helped develop to an important problem in oceanography. A PhD candidate at the University of Washington will be trained in the area of chemical oceanography using analytical methods of gas ratio and isotope ratio mass spectrometry.