On anomalously high sub-surface dissolved oxygen in the Indian sector of the Southern Ocean

The Southern Ocean (SO) plays a critical role in global ocean productivity and carbon cycling. Bio-Argo floats deployed in the Indian sector of the Southern Ocean provides new insights into the biogeochemical processes. Here we report significantly higher dissolved oxygen(DO) (similar to 310 mu mol/kg) in summer of 2014-2015 for one float (F1) and winter of 2014 in other float (F2) at sub-surface layer in the subantarctic region of the SO. The summer DO peak in F1 was 10% higher than those during the summer of succeeding year, while the winter DO peak in F2 was 20% higher than those during the winter of succeeding year. Temperature and dynamic height structure show that cyclonic eddies play an important role in the observed increase in the dissolved oxygen: the high DO is a manifestation of the co-occurrence of a cold core eddy which transported the cold oxygen rich water from deep to the surface during winter, while, during summer, the high chlorophyll below the mixed layer depth (MLD) also contributed to the elevated DO. Low apparent oxygen utilisation suggests that the observed high oxygen concentration was due to high production rates over the consumption.