This morning we’re transiting from the E to the F line. As of now we’ve found stratification and bottom water hypoxia (dissolved oxygen < 2 mg/L) at almost all stations from A, B, and C 6 shoreward, and D' and D 3, E 2A shoreward. Which is many more stations than at this point on the cruise last year. It's not hard to see why. Surface water has been filled with phytoplankton blooms (I've taken to calling it shelfwide Gatorade, because of the green color) and some of my GoPro recordings of our CTD casts (I'll post video when I get back to shore) show marine snow raining down. This is yummy yummy candy for aerobic heterotrophs that will respire the carbon, and in doing so, draw down the dissolved oxygen (DO) in the water. This process will have been going for some time to reduce bottom water DO to hypoxic levels. I'll keep you posted!
-jct
