In this article, we evaluate the performance of a commercially available lifetime-based optode and compare it with data obtained by other methods. We performed a set of 10 different tests, including targeted laboratory evaluations and field studies, covering a wide range of situations from shallow coastal waters and wastewater treatment plants to abyssal depths. Our principal conclusion is that, owing to high accuracy (± 2 µM), long-term stability (more than 20 months), lack of pressure hysteresis, and limited cross-sensitivity, this method is overall more suitable for oxygen monitoring than other methods.

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Mass sedimentation of gelatinous colonies of the prymensiophyte Phaeocystis pouchetii were observed in the upper 100 m of Atlantic water in the central Barents Sea. Sedimentation rates of particulate organic carbon and nitrogen as well as pigments were the highest recorded so far from oceanic environments of the North Atlantic or coastal areas of Norway. High relative concentrat~ons of phytoplankton pigments found in the traps are interpreted as a combination of sinlung of intact phytoplankton cells and undegraded pigments present in macrozooplankton faecal pellets. Evldence presented in this study implies that the zooplankton community of the Barents Sea was not able to control this phytoplankton spnng bloom. The suspended and sedimenting organic matter was rlch in carbon and pigments, but poor in nitrogen. This is explained by the presence of large amounts of carbon-rich mucilage which P. pouchetii colonies develop during their development. In addition to diatoms, sedimentation of a gelatinous phytoplankton species like P. pouchetii may contribute significantly to the formation of marine snow and vertical flux from the euphotic zone. However, degradation of P. pouchetii derived detritus at depths less than 100 m greatly diminishes the likely significance of P. pouchetii blooms in processes such as the carbon flux to the deep ocean and sequestering of CO2.

The North Atlantic is characterized by diatom-dominated spring blooms that results in significant transfer of carbon to higher trophic levels and the deep ocean. These blooms are terminated by limiting silicate concentrations in summer. Numerous regional studies have demonstrated phytoplankton community shifts to lightly-silicified diatoms and non-silicifying plankton at the onset of silicate limitation. However, to understand basin-scale patterns in ecosystem and climate dynamics, nutrient inventories must be examined over sufficient temporal and spatial scales. Here we show, from a new comprehensive compilation of data from the subpolar Atlantic Ocean, clear evidence of a marked pre-bloom silicate decline of 1.5–2 µM throughout the winter mixed layer during the last 25 years. This silicate decrease is primarily attributed to natural multi-decadal variability through decreased winter convection depths since the mid-1990s, a weakening and retraction of the subpolar gyre and an associated increased influence of nutrient-poor water of subtropical origin. Reduced Arctic silicate import and the projected hemispheric-scale climate change-induced weakening of vertical mixing may have acted to amplify the recent decline. These marked fluctuations in pre-bloom silicate inventories will likely have important consequences for the spatial and temporal extent of diatom blooms, thus impacting ecosystem productivity and ocean-atmosphere climate dynamics.