Annual net community production in the subtropical Pacific Ocean from in situ oxygen measurements on profiling floats

Annual net community production (ANCP) in the subtropical Pacific Ocean was determined by using annual oxygen measurements from Argo profiling floats with an upper water column oxygen mass balance model. ANCP was determined to be from 2.0 to 2.4 mol C m(-2) yr(-1) in the western subtropical North Pacific, 2.4 mol C m(-2) yr(-1) in the eastern subtropical North Pacific, and near zero in the subtropical South Pacific. Error analysis with the main sources of uncertainty being the accuracy of oxygen measurements and the parameterization of bubble fluxes in winter suggested an uncertainty of similar to 0.3 mol C m(-2) yr(-1) in subtropical Pacific. The results are in good agreement with previous observations in locations where ANCP has been determined before. These are the first results from the western subtropical North Pacific and subtropical South Pacific where ANCP have not been evaluated before. ANCP for the subtropical South Pacific is significantly lower than in all other open ocean locations where it has been determined by mass balance. Comparison of our observations with net biological carbon export estimated from remote sensing algorithms indicates that observations from the subtropical North Pacific are higher than the satellite estimates, but those in the subtropical South Pacific are lower than satellite-determined carbon export.