Nitrous oxide production rates and stable isotopes in the Benguela Upwelling System during METEOR cruise M157

DOI

Upwelling systems are significant sources of atmospheric nitrous oxide (N₂O). The Benguela Upwelling System is one of the most productive regions worldwide and a temporally variable source of N₂O. Strong O₂ depletions above the shelf are favoring periodically OMZ formations. We aimed to assess underlying N₂O production and consumption processes on different temporal and spatial scales during austral winter in the Benguela Upwelling System, when O₂-deficiency in the water column is relatively low. The fieldwork took place during the cruise M157 (August 4th – September 16th 2019) onboard the R/V METEOR. This expedition included four close-coastal regions around Walvis Bay at 23°S, which presented the lowest O₂ concentrations near the seafloor and thus may provide hotspots of N₂O production. Seawater was collected in 10 L free-flow bottles by using a rosette system equipped with conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) sensors (SBE 911plus, Seabird-electronics, USA).Incubation experiments were performed using stable isotope ¹⁵N-tracers. Seawater samples for ¹⁵N-tracer incubations and natural abundance N₂O analysis were collected from 10 L free-flow bottles and filled bubble-free into 125 mL serum bottles. The samples for natural abundance N₂O analysis were immediately fixed with saturated HgCl₂ and stored in the dark. To perform the incubation, we added ¹⁵N-labeled NO₂-, NO₃⁻ and NH₄⁺ to estimate the in-situ N₂O production rates and associated reactions. To determine a single rate, the bottles were sacrificed after tracer addition, and within the time interval of 12 h, 24 h and 48 h by adding HgCl₂. Rates were calculated based on a linear regression over time. Total N₂O and natural abundance isotopologues of N₂O were analyzed by using an isotope ratio mass spectrometer (IRMS, Delta V Plus, Thermo Scientific). NO₂- production was additionally analyzed by transforming ¹⁵NO₂- to ¹⁵N₂O following the azide method after McIlvin & Altabet (2005) and the nitrogen isotope ratio of N₂O was measured by an IRMS. N₂ production was determined via an IRMS (Flash-EA-ConfloIV-DELTA V Advanced, Thermo Scientific) by injecting headspace from exetainers. The N₂O yield per nitrite produced and the N₂O yield during denitrification was calculated. Samples for natural abundance N₂O was sampled and measured in triplicates and is shown as an average with standard deviation (SD). In order to estimate the contribution of different N₂O producing pathways by major biological processes and the extent of N₂O reduction to N₂, the dual-isotope mapping approach was applied to natural abundance isotopologues of N₂O, which uses the relative position of background-subtracted N₂O samples in a δ¹⁵Nˢᴾ-N₂O vs. δ¹⁸O-N₂O diagram (Yu et al., 2020; Lewicka-Szczebak et al., 2020).

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.966690
Related Identifier https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/browser/view/PRJEB60503
Related Identifier https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.956014
Related Identifier https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.955991
Related Identifier https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.946811
Related Identifier https://www.ldf.uni-hamburg.de/meteor/wochenberichte/wochenberichte-meteor/m156-m159/m157-scr.pdf
Related Identifier https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.956016
Related Identifier https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-5513-2020
Related Identifier https://doi.org/10.1021/ac050528s
Related Identifier https://doi.org/10.1002/jgrd.50221
Related Identifier https://doi.org/10.1002/rcm.8858
Metadata Access https://ws.pangaea.de/oai/provider?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=datacite4&identifier=oai:pangaea.de:doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.966690
Provenance
Creator Dangl, Gabriela ORCID logo; Frey, Claudia ORCID logo; Hassenrück, Christiane ORCID logo; Sabbaghzadeh, Bita ORCID logo; Wäge-Recchioni, Janine; Lehmann, Moritz F ORCID logo; Ley, Martin; Rehder, Gregor ORCID logo; Jürgens, Klaus ORCID logo
Publisher PANGAEA
Publication Year 2024
Rights Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
OpenAccess true
Representation
Resource Type Dataset
Format text/tab-separated-values
Size 801 data points
Discipline Earth System Research
Spatial Coverage (14.053W, -23.000S, 14.367E, -23.000N)
Temporal Coverage Begin 2019-08-24T14:33:00Z
Temporal Coverage End 2019-09-13T10:49:00Z