The biological carbon pump exports carbon fixed by photosynthesis out of the surface ocean and transfers it to the deep, mostly in the form of sinking particles. Despite the importance of the pump in regulating the air‐sea CO 2 balance, the magnitude of global carbon export remains unclear, as do its controlling mechanisms. A possible sinking flux of carbon to the mesopelagic zone may be via the mixed‐layer pump: a seasonal net detrainment of particulate organic carbon (POC)‐rich surface waters, caused by sequential deepening and shoaling of the mixed layer. In this study, we present a full year of daily small‐particle POC concentrations derived from glider optical backscatter data, to study export variability at the Porcupine Abyssal Plain (PAP) sustained observatory in the Northeast Atlantic. We observe a strong seasonality in small‐particle transfer efficiency, with a maximum in winter and early spring. By calculating daily POC export driven by mixed‐layer variations, we find that the mixed‐layer pump supplies an annual flux of at least 3.0 ± 0.9 g POC·m −2 ·year −1 to the mesopelagic zone, contributing between 5% and 25% of the total annual export flux and likely contributing to closing a gap in the mesopelagic carbon budget found by other studies. These are, to our best knowledge, the first high‐frequency observations of export variability over the course of a full year. Our results support the deployment of bio‐optical sensors on gliders to improve our understanding of the ocean carbon cycle on temporal scales from daily to annual.

The Irminger Current (IC), flowing northeastward along the western flank of the Reykjanes Ridge, is an important component in the overturning of the North Atlantic subpolar gyre. A 2-year (2014-2016) time series from moored observations shows that the IC consists of two highly variable current cores. A subsampling experiment, using an ocean reanalysis, showed that this current's variability is adequately captured by the array. The two current cores contribute nearly equally to the mean volume transport. The total 2-year mean transport was found to be 10.6 Sv with a standard deviation of daily (monthly) values of 9.2 Sv (4.4 Sv) and a standard error of 1.4 Sv. Mean heat and freshwater transport were 0.21 PW and −22.5 mSv, respectively (S ref = 34.92). The volume transport is strongest in spring, and the average over the first year (8.6 Sv) was lower than that of the second year (12.4 Sv), coinciding with an increase in the density gradient over the array in the second year. The variability of the total transport is dominated by variations in the western core, while the warmer, saltier eastern core contributes more to the heat and (negative) freshwater transport. During the two observed winters, which were marked by exceptional deep convection in the central Irminger Sea, mixed layer deepening down to 400 m depth and outcropping of the 27.7 kg m 3 isopycnal were observed within the IC.