Estimates of Basin-Specific Oxygen Utilization Rates (OURs) in the East Sea (Sea of Japan)

The oxygen utilization rate (OUR) is one of the crucial parameters for ocean carbon cycling and climate models. However, parameterization of OUR in the East Sea (Sea of Japan) is yet to be established. We estimated the basin-specific OURs in the East Sea and fitted them with exponential functions with depth by using pCFC- 12 age and apparent oxygen utilization (AOU) measured in summer 1999. The estimated OURs are higher in the upper water column and decrease with depth, in general. The vertical distributions of the estimated OURs in the Western and Eastern Japan Basins (WJB & EJB) are very similar. The OURs in the Ulleung Basin (UB) varied greatly depending on whether the surface layer (0~200 m) data are included in the OUR estimate or not. Apparently, weaker oxygen consumption occurs in the deep layer of Yamato Basin (YB). The ranges of the OURs between 200 m and 2000 m at WJB, EJB, UB, and YB are 8.15~0.83, 8.11~0.68, 5.29~0.73, and 7.31~0.06 , respectively. Consideration of the wintertime surface water oxygen disequilibrium condition in estimating the OUR will be necessary in the future study.