Seasonal Cycles, Hypoxia, and Renewal in a Coastal Fjord (Barkley Sound, British Columbia)

The west coast of Vancouver Island (WCVI) is an important marine ecosystem in which concentrations of dissolved oxygen can reach hypoxic levels at certain times of the year. Although the general features of its oceanography are well understood, little is known in particular about the seasonal cycle of oxygen in shelf areas and its interannual variability. It is possible that high temporal resolution monitoring efforts could be carried out relatively easily in sheltered fjords adjacent to the shelf, but the linkages between conditions in these fjords and those on the shelf are also not known. Here a 10-year time series of monthly hydrographic stations in Barkley Sound, British Columbia, is used to identify the seasonal cycle of temperature, salinity, density, dissolved oxygen, and chlorophyll fluorescence in a WCVI fjord. Analysis suggests that there is a standard estuarine circulation in surface and near-surface waters of the Sound, as well as a deep renewal cycle in intermediate and deep waters, and that the two are largely independent. The deep basin in the Sound undergoes annual summer renewals in response to wind-driven upwelling on the shelf, separated by stagnation and hypoxia during fall, winter, and spring downwelling periods. Other than for the stagnant deep waters in winter, residence times in different parts of the Sound are only a few weeks. Barkley Sound characteristics thus adjust rapidly to shelf conditions, and inshore measurements can be used with care as a proxy for some shelf properties. However, phytoplankton biomass does not appear to be affected by the onset of deep renewal and the associated reversal of along-shore winds and instead responds to local factors. Finally, once the seasonal cycle has been accounted for, interannual variations in temperature, density, and dissolved oxygen are uncoupled, possibly in response to longer-term changes in the characteristics of source waters offshore and/or to changes in shelf processes.