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Measurement · Nutrients & Chemistry · µmol/L

Bottle ammonium

NERC P01 AMONZZXXP06 units UPOX umol/Lkey btl_ammonium series btl_ammonium
69,507
values
0
flagged
4,435
sampling events
2008–2026
years
1
dataset
1–3,510 m
depth
Jan · Feb · Mar · Apr · May · Jun · Jul · Aug · Oct · Nov
seasons
What

H4N+ · ammonium · 18.039 g/mol · CHEBI:28938

Concentration of ammonium per unit volume of the water column. Ammonium may be expressed in terms of mass or quantity of substance.

How
rosette bottle

Seal Analytical continuous-flow AutoAnalyzer 3 (AA3)

660 nm

Bottle sampling methods on calcofi.org ↗

Is the biomass of the ocean changing?

CalCOFI holds 69,507 values of it from 4,435 sampling events in one dataset, 2008–2026, from the surface to 3,510 m. At 10–50 m it has fallen 0.19 per decade since 2009.R Ammonium is nitrogen recycled by zooplankton and bacteria; phytoplankton take it up before nitrate, so production fed by it is “regenerated” rather than “new”.C

other ways to say why · 4
  • authored Most nitrogen in the sunlit layer is recycled several times before it sinks; ammonium measures that recycling, excreted by animals and released as bacteria break organic matter down. needs a citation before it can be the pick
  • GOOS asks Is the biomass of the ocean changing? source
  • Wikipedia Nitrogen cycle source
  • Wikipedia Ammonium is a modified form of ammonia that has an extra hydrogen atom. It is a positively charged (cationic) molecular ion with the chemical formula NH4+ or [NH4]+. Ammonium · CC BY-SA 4.0 · rev. 1376536172

The measurement

Measured in
i

One row per series, one cell per year, darker with more values — the same strip the front door draws per dataset and a species page draws per taxon. Each row is one dataset's own measurement_type; the label is written once, in the title above.

  • CTD Cast Files 69,507 values · 4,435 sampling events · 2008–2026 · 1–3,510 m · 107 grid cells · 63 cruises
    series btl_ammonium · source column nh4 no flag at this grain

The structure

H4N+ ammonium CHEBI:28938 · 18.039 g/mol · the_thing
H3N ammonia CHEBI:16134 · 17.031 g/mol · conjugate

ChEBI: “An onium cation obtained by protonation of ammonia.” · RDKit 2026.03.6 from the ChEBI molfile, in the page’s ink · CC BY 4.0. ChEBI’s roles are never shown.

How it is measured

CTD Cast Files · rosette bottle
Seal Analytical continuous-flow AutoAnalyzer 3 (AA3)

The Berthelot reaction: hypochlorous acid and phenol react with ammonium in alkaline solution to form indophenol blue, read in a 10 mm flow cell (a modification of Koroleff 1969, 1970). (calcofi.org Bottle sampling methods)

  • NH4+ + phenol + hypochlorite (alkaline) -> indophenol blue
  • absorbance read at 660 nm
no flag at this grain
Bottle sampling methods on calcofi.org ↗

Why it matters

The familiar scale
i

Bars are each series' 5th–95th percentile, the line its minimum to maximum, the ring its median; the marks are metadata/measurement_scale.csv's, each hovering to its own source.

The record’s own history
i

Deeper than the climatology reaches: 17 values at 1000–2000 m, 20 values at 2000+ m have no normal to depart from, because the release’s climatology stops at its deepest built bin. Carrying it to the bottom is one argument of build_climatology() and puts these bands on the page too.

Essential Ocean Variable
Nutrients

the GOOS specification sheet for this Essential Ocean Variable lists it, and asks

GOOS asks

  • Is the biomass of the ocean changing?

GOOS specification sheet ↗ · quoted, not copied

The record

Ways in
i

Read from measurements.json of release v2026.10.05, written at release by calcofi4db::build_measurements_catalog() beside taxa.json. The catalog's index is /measurements/; the JSON-LD on this page is a schema.org/DefinedTerm in the NERC P01 term set with a PropertyValue per series.

ExplorerExplorer · a depth section vs normaldb-query
ERDDAP · CTD Cast FilesCalCOFI's own server, the CTD Cast Files table constrained to this series
https://erddap.calcofi.io/erddap/tabledap/calcofi_ctd-cast.html?&measurement_type=%22btl_ammonium%22

By depth
i

Values per depth band at the release grain, one thin bar per series. The bands are the record's own (0-10 … 2000+ m).

By month
i

Values per calendar month, one row per series: CalCOFI's quarterly cruises show as peaks in the months the ships sail.

Range & quality

bounds0 … 100 µmol/Lobserved0 … 33.58 µmol/Lflagged0baselineclimatology ✓
details
bounds
The registry declares 0 … 100 µmol/L for btl_ammonium; a value outside it is dropped at the ingest (drop_out_of_bounds()).
observed
CTD Cast Files btl_ammonium 0 · median 0 · 33.58 µmol/L (5th–95th percentile 0–0.6)
flags
CTD Cast Files btl_ammonium carries no quality code at the release grain; qual_ok keeps all 69,507.
baseline
A monthly climatology exists for this measurement (the release's climatology table: 1993–2013, dataset × grid cell × calendar month × 10 m bin), so the Explorer can draw anomalies against it rather than values.

Related measurements
i

The same quantity from another platform or another kind of sample, each its own page and never merged into this one: a dataset's own bottle samples would count that dataset twice, an underway intake is not a cast, and a replicate is not a mean. The reason is the record's (related[].why).

  • Ammonium concentration (QC'd ammonia · Hydrographic Bottle · 2008–2021 · 90,489 values · P01 AMONZZXX the same quantity from the CTD files' own bottle samples — plausibly the same physical bottles, so merging them would count the bottle dataset twice
  • Reported ammonium concentration (pre-QC) r_ammonium · Hydrographic Bottle · 2008–2021 · 90,509 values · P01 AMONZZXX the same quantity from the CTD files' own bottle samples — plausibly the same physical bottles, so merging them would count the bottle dataset twice

Cite

Cite the release; each dataset's own citation, licence and DOI are on its page — CTD Cast Files. The Explorer's Share → Cite writes it for the view you make.