Abstract Measurements by the submersible ultraviolet nitrate analyzer (SUNA) can be used to derive high‐resolution in situ nitrate concentration with reliable accuracy and precision. Here we report our operational practices for SUNA deployment (including pre‐cruise instrument preparation and in‐cruise instrument maintenance) and detailed post‐cruise nitrate quality control procedures for SUNA integrated onto the CTD rosette. This work is based on experiences and findings from over 500 individual SUNA casts collected from 24 cruises (of which 14 cruises have been quality controlled so far) over the past 5 yr. After applying previously published spectral corrections for temperature, salinity, and pressure effects, we found residual biases in SUNA nitrate estimates compared to independently measured discrete samples. We further develop and assess a new two‐step procedure to remove remaining biases: (1) a general temperature‐dependent adjustment at low‐nitrate concentrations; and (2) a cruise‐specific full‐range bias correction. Our final quality‐controlled SUNA nitrate data achieve an accuracy of 0.34–0.78 μM, with a precision of 0.08–0.21 μM, at a vertical resolution of 1 m. Additional comparisons between the nitrate and density data confirm the high quality of the quality‐controlled SUNA data. Although applying spectral correction algorithms increases the accuracy and precision of the instrument‐output nitrate concentration, we emphasize that additional constraints of SUNA measurements against other independent sources (e.g., bottle data, temperature, and density) are irreplaceable to ensure the accuracy of final nitrate data.
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A 5-year Validated Nitrate Dataset from the Ocean Observatories Initiative Pioneer - New England Shelf Array
The Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) deployed both the In-Situ Ultraviolet Spectrophotometer (ISUS) and Submersible Underwater Nitrate Sensor (SUNA) for continuous, in-situ measurement of nitrate. At the Pioneer-New England Shelf Array (Pioneer-NES), ISUS/SUNA sensors were deployed at 7-meters depth at the Inshore (ISSM), Central (CNSM), and Offshore (OSSM) Surface Mooring locations. The SUNA sensor replaced the ISUS sensors spring 2018. The SUNA was a major improvement in technology, with significant improvements in accuracy and precision. However, it still suffers from calibration drift due to lamp fatigue and biofouling as well as spectral interference due to bromide and fluorometric CDOM. Drift is corrected by application of post-cruise calibrations to recalculate the temperature-and-salinity corrected nitrate concentration following Sakamoto (2009a) and estimating a linear drift between pre-and-post cruise deployments. Validation is performed by comparison with discrete water samples collected during deployment/recovery of the sensors. These datasets include the nitrate data from the Pioneer-NES ISSM (CP03ISSM-RID26-07-NUTNRB000.nc), CNSM (CP01CNSM-RID26-07-NUTNRB000.nc), and OSSM (CP04OSSM-RID26-07-NUTNRB000.nc) SUNA instruments spanning Spring 2018 through Fall 2022. Each dataset contains the measured nitrate, the temperature-salinity corrected nitrate, the drift-corrected nitrate, and the nitrate following validation with bottle samples.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2244833
- PAR ID:
- 10627745
- Publisher / Repository:
- Zenodo
- Date Published:
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- Ocean Observatories Initiative OOI Nitrate SUNA Pioneer - New England Shelf
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Right(s):
- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Abstract Sensors that use ultraviolet (UV) light absorption to measure nitrate in seawater at in situ temperatures require a correction to the calibration coefficients if the calibration and sample temperatures are not identical. This is mostly due to the bromide molecule, which absorbs more UV light as temperature increases. The current correction applied to in situ ultraviolet spectrophotometer (ISUS) and submersible ultraviolet nitrate analyzer (SUNA) nitrate sensors generally follows Sakamoto et al. (2009, Limnol. Oceanogr. Methods 7, 132–143). For waters warmer than the calibration temperature, this correction model can lead to a 1–2 μmol kg−1positive bias in nitrate concentration. Here we present an updated correction model, which reduces this small but noticeable bias by at least 50%. This improved model is based on additional laboratory data and describes the temperature correction as an exponential function of wavelength and temperature difference from the calibration temperature. It is a better fit to the experimental data than the current model and the improvement is validated using two populations of nitrate profiles from Biogeochemical Argo floats navigating through tropical waters. One population is from floats equipped with ISUS sensors while the other arises from floats with SUNA sensors on board. Although this model can be applied to both ISUS and SUNA nitrate sensors, it should not be used for OPUS UV nitrate sensors at this time. This new approach is similar to that used for OPUS sensors (Nehir et al., 2021, Front. Mar. Sci. 8, 663800) with differing model coefficients. This difference suggests that there is an instrumental component to the temperature correction or that there are slight differences in experimental methodologies.more » « less
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