Controls on open-coean North Atlantic ΔpCO2 at seasonal and interannual time scales are different

Henson, Stephanie A., Humphreys, Matthew P., Land, Peter E., Shutler, Jamie D., Goddijn-Murphy, Lonneke and Warren, Mark (2018) Controls on open-coean North Atlantic ΔpCO2 at seasonal and interannual time scales are different. Geophysical Research Letters, 45 (17). pp. 9067-9076. ISSN 0094-8276

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Abstract

The North Atlantic is a substantial sink for anthropogenic CO2. Understanding the mechanisms driving the sink's variability is key to assessing its current state and predicting its potential response to global climate change. Here we apply a time series decomposition technique to satellite and in situ data to examine separately the factors (both biological and nonbiological) that affect the sea‐air CO2 difference (ΔpCO2) on seasonal and interannual time scales. We demonstrate that on seasonal time scales, the subpolar North Atlantic ΔpCO2 signal is predominantly correlated with biological processes, whereas seawater temperature dominates in the subtropics. However, the same factors do not necessarily control ΔpCO2 on interannual time scales. Our results imply that the mechanisms driving seasonal variability in ΔpCO2 cannot necessarily be extrapolated to predict how ΔpCO2, and thus the North Atlantic CO2 sink, may respond to increases in anthropogenic CO2 over longer time scales.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: sdg 13 - climate action ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/climate_action
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
Related URLs:
Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 24 Sep 2018 12:30
Last Modified: 22 Oct 2022 04:08
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/68334
DOI: 10.1029/2018GL078797

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