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Are eddies nature’s trigger to enhance biological productivity in the Bay of Bengal?

DRS at CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography

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Title Are eddies nature’s trigger to enhance biological productivity in the Bay of Bengal?
 
Creator PrasannaKumar, S.
Nuncio, M.
Kumar, A.
Sardessai, S.
DeSouza, S.N.
Gauns, M.
Ramaiah, N.
Madhupratap, M.
 
Subject Eddies and mesoscale processes
Circulation and Hydrography
Stratification
Chlorophyll and phytoplankton
Nutrients
River input
Fresh water flux
Bay of Bengal
 
Description The Bay of Bengal is traditionally considered to be a less productive basin compared to the Arabian Sea. Despite the contrasting chlorophyll and primary productivity pattern, sediment trap data shows that annual fluxes of organic carbon reach comparable rates in both the basins. The traditional mechanisms of nutrient supply to the upper ocean waters cannot account for this. We propose eddy pumping as a possible mechanism of vertical transfer of nutrients across the halocline to the oligotrophic euphotic zone during summer monsoon when upper ocean is highly stratified. This would induce rapid biological uptake and in turn significantly increase biological production. In the northern Bay, riverine input acts as an additional source of nutrients and augments the subsurface nutrient injection to the euphotic zone by eddy pumping. Notwithstanding this, the lower than expected primary production in the north suggests the possible role of riverine sediment in limiting the sunlight for photosynthesis.
This work was supported by the Department of Ocean development under the program Bay of Bengal Process Studies (BOBPS). Authors Nuncio and Jayu acknowledge the financial support from CSIR
 
Date 2006-06-12T06:03:08Z
2006-06-12T06:03:08Z
2004
 
Type Journal Article
 
Identifier Geophysical Research Letters, Vol.31(7)
http://drs.nio.org/drs/handle/2264/113
 
Language en
 
Rights An edited version of this paper was published by AGU. Copyright [2004] American Geophysical Union
 
Format 733818 bytes
application/pdf
 
Publisher American Geophysical Union