Comparative accounts of biological productivity characteristics and estimates of carbon fluxes in the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal

Abstract The Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal are tropical basins experiencing monsoonal wind forcing that reverses semi-annually. This brings changes in physics, chemistry and biology of the upper water column on a seasonal scale and ultimately regulates the sinking fluxes of the region. An attempt is made here to focus on factors responsible for fluxes of carbon from the upper layers to the deep sea. Higher fluxes are observed during southwest and northeast monsoon season in both the regions. In contrast to the Arabian Sea, an immense quantity of freshwater runoff together with warmer SST (∼30 °C) makes the northern bay strongly stratified. The runoff also brings in billions of tonnes of fluvial matter as well. Stratification constrains subsurface nutrient input into the surface waters thereby reducing the primary production in the Bay of Bengal. The total living carbon content in the Bay of Bengal is much lower than in the Arabian Sea. Higher downward fluxes associated with deep mixed layer and high production in the Arabian Sea during summer and winter pinpoint importance of strong winds causing mixing and upwelling during summer and evaporative cooling and convection during winter. Inability of the low-speed winds to break the stratification in the Bay of Bengal keeps the region low productive throughout the year. Therefore, river water associated with the terrigenous material due to ballast effect appears to swipe off surface producers to the deep, thereby increasing the downward fluxes of total particulates, which are sometimes even higher than that of the more productive Arabian Sea.

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