Quantifying photodegradation of peatland-derived dissolved organic carbon in the coastal ocean of Southeast Asia

Abstract

Southeast Asia's peatlands are a globally significant source of terrigenous dissolved organic carbon (tDOC) to the ocean, and field observations show that this tDOC is extensively remineralized within the shelf sea. Yet the processes that drive this remineralization remain unclear. Here, we combined incubation experiments and model simulations to quantify the rate and extent of photodegradation of tDOC in the Sunda Shelf Sea. During laboratory photodegradation experiments, 26%–74% of the peatland tDOC was photomineralized, but realistic in situ rates of photodegradation have not yet been estimated in this region. Based on spectrally resolved apparent quantum yields for tDOC remineralization calculated from experiments, modeled in situ solar irradiance, and measured in-water inherent optical properties, we simulated peatland tDOC photomineralization for two coastal regions of the Sunda Shelf Sea. These simulations show that sunlight can directly remineralize 25 ± 9% of the tDOC input over its maximum 2-year residence time in the Sunda Shelf Sea, accounting for 38% of the total tDOC remineralization. We also found that photobleaching can remove 54 ± 4% of colored dissolved organic matter over this time-scale. We further derived a simplified photochemical decay constant ∅ref of 0.016 day−1 for Southeast Asia's peatland-derived tDOC, which can be used to parameterize the recently proposed UniDOM model. We conclude that direct photodegradation may be a greater sink for tDOC in Southeast Asia's coastal ocean compared to higher latitudes, although it is insufficient to account for the total tDOC remineralization observed in the Sunda Shelf Sea.