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

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

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.

0094-8276
1-10
Henson, Stephanie A.
d6532e17-a65b-4d7b-9ee3-755ecb565c19
Humphreys, Matthew P.
40cb219a-c2dd-4581-94d0-52fb1c992498
Land, Peter E.
5eba1952-28a3-4059-9de5-64c657e03694
Shutler, Jamie D.
9f39caa1-a8d5-46b2-927a-1f122f2e6c16
Goddijn-Murphy, Lonneke
5c1fd8cb-657b-45db-973b-cf9728c3c1cd
Warren, Mark
b9d71023-3db5-4364-b6a6-92ac795a1731
Henson, Stephanie A.
d6532e17-a65b-4d7b-9ee3-755ecb565c19
Humphreys, Matthew P.
40cb219a-c2dd-4581-94d0-52fb1c992498
Land, Peter E.
5eba1952-28a3-4059-9de5-64c657e03694
Shutler, Jamie D.
9f39caa1-a8d5-46b2-927a-1f122f2e6c16
Goddijn-Murphy, Lonneke
5c1fd8cb-657b-45db-973b-cf9728c3c1cd
Warren, Mark
b9d71023-3db5-4364-b6a6-92ac795a1731

Henson, Stephanie A., Humphreys, Matthew P., Land, Peter E., Shutler, Jamie D., Goddijn-Murphy, Lonneke and Warren, Mark (2018) Controls on open-ocean North Atlantic ΔpCO2 at seasonal and interannual time scales are different. Geophysical Research Letters, 1-10. (doi:10.1029/2018GL078797).

Record type: Article

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.

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Accepted/In Press date: 30 July 2018
e-pub ahead of print date: 6 August 2018

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 423550
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/423550
ISSN: 0094-8276
PURE UUID: af6a3d47-aa80-4ac0-9061-78e8afc044c1
ORCID for Matthew P. Humphreys: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-9371-7128

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Date deposited: 26 Sep 2018 16:30
Last modified: 05 Jun 2024 17:57

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Contributors

Author: Matthew P. Humphreys ORCID iD
Author: Peter E. Land
Author: Jamie D. Shutler
Author: Lonneke Goddijn-Murphy
Author: Mark Warren

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