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Phosphate in the English Channel, 1933–8, with A Comparison with Earlier Years, 1916 and 1923–32

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2009

L. H. N. Cooper
L. H. N. Cooper
Affiliation:
Assistant Chemist at the Plymouth Laboratory
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Extract

At Station E I,22 sea miles south-west from Plymouth, the winter maximum for phosphate, representing the stock available for plant growth in the following spring, averaged 0·67 mg.-atom/m.3 for the winters 1923–4 to 1928–9 and only 0·47 mg.-atom for 1930–1 to 1937–8. This fall in phosphate shows a close correlation with the abundance of summer-spawning young fish (Russell). Since water containing similar low phosphate appeared to occupy the English Channel in 1916 (Matthews), the inflow of warm Atlantic water in the autumn of 1921 may well have brought with it the relatively rich phosphate found in the 1920's.

The impoverishment of phosphate around 1930 runs parallel with a decrease in the easting of the residual current at the Varne lightship in the Straits of Dover (Carruthers).

On the basis of spring phosphate consumption, the years may be classified in order of productivity:

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , November 1938 , pp. 181 - 195
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 1938

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