Tracking the variable North Atlantic sink for atmospheric CO2

Watson, Andrew J., Schuster, Ute, Bakker, Dorothee C. E. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9234-5337, Bates, Nicholas R., Corbière, Antoine, González-Dávila, Melchor, Friedrich, Tobias, Hauck, Judith, Heinze, Christoph, Johannessen, Truls, Körtzinger, Arne, Metzl, Nicolas, Olafsson, Jon, Olsen, Are, Oschlies, Andreas, Padin, X. Antonio, Pfeil, Benjamin, Santana-Casiano, J. Magdalena, Steinhoff, Tobias, Telszewski, Maciej, Rios, Aida F., Wallace, Douglas W. R. and Wanninkhof, Rik (2009) Tracking the variable North Atlantic sink for atmospheric CO2. Science, 326 (5958). pp. 1391-1393. ISSN 1095-9203

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Abstract

The oceans are a major sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2 Historically, observations have been too sparse to allow accurate tracking of changes in rates of CO2 uptake over ocean basins, so little is known about how these vary. Here, we show observations indicating substantial variability in the CO2 uptake by the North Atlantic on time scales of a few years. Further, we use measurements from a coordinated network of instrumented commercial ships to define the annual flux into the North Atlantic, for the year 2005, to a precision of about 10%. This approach offers the prospect of accurately monitoring the changing ocean CO2 sink for those ocean basins that are well covered by shipping routes.

Item Type:	Article
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Theme - ClimateUEA
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Climate, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (former - to 2017) Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (former - to 2017)
Depositing User:	Rosie Cullington
Date Deposited:	23 Feb 2011 12:12
Last Modified:	20 Mar 2023 10:33
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/24273
DOI:	10.1126/science.1177394

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