An Observationally-Based Reconstruction of the 3-Dimensional, Time-Dependent History of Anthropogenic Carbon in the Ocean and its Implications for the Global Carbon Cycle
Abstract
The release of fossil fuel CO2 to the atmosphere by human activity has been implicated as the predominant cause of global climate change. The ocean plays a crucial role in mitigating the effects of this perturbation to the climate system, sequestering 20% to 35% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions from the atmosphere. While much progress has been made in recent years in understanding and quantifying this sink, considerable uncertainty remains as to the distribution of anthropogenic CO2 in the ocean, and its precise rate of uptake over the industrial era. Here, we present the first observationally-based reconstruction of the 3-dimensional, time-dependent history of anthropogenic carbon in the ocean over the industrial era. Our approach is based on the recognition that the transport of tracers in the ocean is described by a Green's function or "transit-time distribution" which may be estimated from tracer data using Bayesian inversion techniques. Our results show that the Southern Ocean is the primary conduit by which anthropogenic CO enters the ocean (contributing over 40% of the anthropogenic CO2 in the ocean in 2007), although its contribution relative to other surface regions has changed significantly over the industrial period. We also present estimates of the relative size of the various sources and sinks of anthropogenic CO2, and their evolution over the industrial era.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2008
- Bibcode:
- 2008AGUFM.U43D..02K
- Keywords:
-
- 1600 GLOBAL CHANGE;
- 3260 Inverse theory;
- 4806 Carbon cycling (0428)