Abstract
Export of Particulate Organic Carbon (POC) is mainly driven by
gravitational sinking. Thus, traditionally, it is thought that larger,
faster-sinking particles make up most of the POC export flux. However,
this need not be the case for particles whose sinking speeds are
comparable to the vertical velocities of a dynamic flow field that can
influence the descent rate of particles. Particles with different
settling speeds are released in two process-oriented model simulations
of an upper ocean eddying flow in the Northeast Pacific to evaluate the
impact of (1) ocean dynamics on the respective contribution of the
different sinking-velocity classes to POC export, and (2) the particle
number size-spectrum slope. The analysis reveals that the leading export
mechanism changes from gravitationally-driven to advectively-driven as
submesoscale dynamics become more active in the region. The vertical
velocity associated with submesoscale dynamics enhances the contribution
of slower-sinking particles to POC export flux by a factor ranging from
3 to 10, especially where the relative abundance of small particles is
large, (i.e., steep particle size-spectrum slope). Remineralization
generally decreases the total amount of biomass exported, but its impact
is weaker in dynamical regimes where submesoscale dynamics are present
and export is advectively-driven.