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The inventory and variability of oceanic dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) is driven by the interplay of physical, chemical, and biological processes. Quantifying the spatiotemporal variability of these drivers is crucial for a mechanistic understanding of the ocean carbon sink and its future trajectory. Here, we use the Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean-Darwin ocean biogeochemistry state estimate to generate a global-ocean, data-constrained DIC budget and investigate how spatial and seasonal-to-interannual variability in three-dimensional circulation, air-sea CO2 flux, and biological processes have modulated the ocean sink for 1995-2018. Our results demonstrate substantial compensation between budget terms, resulting in distinct upper-ocean carbon regimes. For example, boundary current regions have strong contributions from vertical diffusion while equatorial regions exhibit compensation between upwelling and biological processes. When integrated across the full ocean depth, the 24-year DIC mass increase of 64 Pg C (2.7 Pg C year-1) primarily tracks the anthropogenic CO2 growth rate, with biological processes providing a small contribution of 2% (1.4 Pg C). In the upper 100 m, which stores roughly 13% (8.1 Pg C) of the global increase, we find that circulation provides the largest DIC gain (6.3 Pg C year-1) and biological processes are the largest loss (8.6 Pg C year-1). Interannual variability is dominated by vertical advection in equatorial regions, with the 1997-1998 El Niño-Southern Oscillation causing the largest year-to-year change in upper-ocean DIC (2.1 Pg C). Our results provide a novel, data-constrained framework for an improved mechanistic understanding of natural and anthropogenic perturbations to the ocean sink.

Edited by James McWilliams, University of California, Los Angeles, CA; received April 19, 2022; accepted September 3, 2022 The expansive gyres of the subtropical ocean account for a significant fraction of global organic carbon export fromthe upper ocean. In the gyre interior, verticalmixing and the heaving of nutrient-rich waters into the euphotic layer sustain local productivity, in turn depleting the layers below. However, the nutrient pathways by which these subeuphotic layers are themselves replenished remain unclear. Using a global, eddy-permitting simulation of ocean physics and biogeochemistry, we quantify nutrient resupplymechanisms along and across density surfaces, including the contribution of eddy-scale motions that are challenging to observe. We find that mesoscale eddies (10 to 100 km) flux nutrients from the shallow flanks of the gyre into the recirculating interior, through time-varying motions along density surfaces. The subeuphotic layers are ultimately replenished in approximately equal contributions by this mesoscale eddy transport and the remineralization of sinking particles.Themesoscale eddy resupply ismost important in the lower thermocline for the whole subtropical region but is dominant at all depths within the gyre interior. Subtropical gyre productivity may therefore be sustained by a nutrient relay, where the lateral transport resupplies nutrients to the thermocline and allows vertical exchanges to maintain surface biological production and carbon export. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anaerobic microbial activity in the ocean causes losses of bioavailable nitrogen and emission of nitrous oxide to the atmosphere, but its predictability at global scales remains limited. Resource ratio theory suggests that anaerobic activity becomes sustainable when the ratio of oxygen to organic matter supply is below the ratio required by aerobic metabolisms. Here, we demonstrate the relevance of this framework at the global scale using three‐dimensional ocean datasets, providing a new interpretation of existing observations. Evaluations of the location and extent of anoxic zones and a diagnostic rate of pelagic nitrogen loss are consistent with previous estimates. However, we demonstrate that a threshold based on substrate‐supply fluxes is qualitatively different from a threshold based solely on the ambient oxygen concentration. This implies that use of the flux‐based threshold in global biogeochemical models can result in different predictions of anaerobic activity and nitrogen loss. Plain Language Summary: Where oxygen concentrations are sufficiently low in the ocean, nutrients are lost to the atmosphere because of specialized activity by microorganisms. Typically, biogeochemical models prescribe a critical oxygen concentration as a threshold to predict this activity. Here, we explain and demonstrate that an alternative threshold is more appropriate. The new threshold takes into account the supply flux of oxygen, rather than the concentration, as well as the supply flux of organic matter that is consumed by the microorganisms. We use global datasets to demonstrate that this threshold is relevant at the global scale. Since it is distinct from and more mechanistic than the typical oxygen concentration threshold, it may be used in global biogeochemical climate models to improve their ability to predict the loss of nutrients to the atmosphere and the impact on the climate system. Key Points: We show that a threshold for anaerobic activity based on oxygen and organic matter fluxes is consistent with global ocean observationsOur diagnostic calculation uses global datasets to define the three major pelagic anoxic zones in a new wayThe flux‐based threshold is qualitatively different than a threshold based on the oxygen concentration [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]