Nitrous oxide in the sea |
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| Authors: | Tadashi Yoshinari |
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| Institution: | Department of Oceanography, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S. Canada |
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| Abstract: | A new gas chromatographic method was developed for the measurement of nitrous oxide (N2O) in seawater. It takes 15 min for the analysis in a sample of 640 ml seawater.By this method, more than 1000 samples taken over various depths and areas in the sea were analyzed. In the western North Atlantic, the N2O concentration over a range of oceanic depths gave characteristic profiles that were negatively correlated with oxygen profiles, reaching its maximum (c.a. 1 μg/l) in the oxygen-minimum layer at mid-depths. In the Caribbean, the N2O maximum reached higher concentrations than in the North Atlantic. N2O was near equilibrium with that in the atmosphere in Atlantic surface waters, but supersaturation of N2O was observed in surface waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence in early June and in most surface samples from the Caribbean Sea in March.The estimated rate of N2O production in the sea may be significant in terms of geochemical cycling of combined nitrogen to the atmosphere. |
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