Strong Southern Ocean carbon uptake evident in airborne observations.
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 34855495.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/science.abi4355.
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Abstract
The Southern Ocean plays an important role in determining atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO<sub>2</sub>), yet estimates of air-sea CO<sub>2</sub> flux for the region diverge widely. In this study, we constrained Southern Ocean air-sea CO<sub>2</sub> exchange by relating fluxes to horizontal and vertical CO<sub>2</sub> gradients in atmospheric transport models and applying atmospheric observations of these gradients to estimate fluxes. Aircraft-based measurements of the vertical atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub> gradient provide robust flux constraints. We found an annual mean flux of –0.53 ± 0.23 petagrams of carbon per year (net uptake) south of 45°S during the period 2009–2018. This is consistent with the mean of atmospheric inversion estimates and surface-ocean partial pressure of CO<sub>2</sub> (<i>P</i>co<sub>2</sub>)–based products, but our data indicate stronger annual mean uptake than suggested by recent interpretations of profiling float observations.