4.2.3. Investigations on Seasonal pCO2 Gradients
Our further investigations on thermal and non-thermal control on the gradients of p CO2 in the BUS however, revealed that the fluctuations in p CO2 are primarily controlled by biological effects. This pattern is consistently observed across all sampled regions and remains consistent irrespective of seasonal variations. The estimated contributions of temperature and biological activity in the BUS are presented in Table 1. The ratios of Δp CO2Temp. / Δp CO2Bio. are always well below 1, varying from 0.09 to 0.36, typical of coastal ecosystems that are strongly controlled by biological productivity (e.g. Cotovicz et al., 2015).
Table 1. Evaluation of Δp CO2Temp. and Δp CO2Bio ., the difference between thermal and biological control (T - B) and the ratio of T/B for the coastal and offshore stations in the BUS