Biological and Physical Drivers of Oxygen Saturation and Net Community Production Variability along the Western Antarctic Peninsula

Detailed maps of changes in net oxygen content will be combined with measurements of the surface water chemistry and phytoplankton distributions. The project will determine the extent to which on-shore or offshore phytoplankton blooms along the peninsula are likely to lead to different amounts of carbon being exported to the deeper ocean.

The project will analyze oxygen in relation to argon that will allow determination of the physical and biological contributions to surface ocean oxygen dynamics. These assessments will be combined with spatial and temporal distributions of nutrients (iron and macronutrients) and irradiances. This will allow the investigators to unravel the complex interplay between ice dynamics, iron and physical mixing dynamics as they relate to Net Community Production (NCP) in the region.