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Investigating the Relationship between Sea Surface Chlorophyll and Major Features of the South China Sea with Satellite Information
Published on: June 13, 2020
Saturation of the southern ocean CO2 sink due to recent climate change
Corinne Le Quéré1, Christian Rödenbeck, Erik T Buitenhuis
1Max Planck Institut für Biogeochemie, Postfach 100164, D-07701 Jena, Germany. c.lequere@uea.ac.uk
Abstract:
Based on observed atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration and an inverse method, we estimate that the Southern Ocean sink of CO2 has weakened between 1981 and 2004 by 0.08 petagrams of carbon per year per decade relative to the trend expected from the large increase in atmospheric CO2. We attribute this weakening to the observed increase in Southern Ocean winds resulting from human activities, which is projected to continue in the future. Consequences include a reduction of the efficiency of the Southern Ocean sink of CO2 in the short term (about 25 years) and possibly a higher level of stabilization of atmospheric CO2 on a multicentury time scale.
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