An assessment of the role of the North Atlantic as a CO2 sink

• Published in: Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological sciences 1995-05, Vol.348 (1324), p.143-152
• Main Authors: Takahashi, T., Takahashi, Timothy T., Sutherland, Stewart C.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0962-8436; 1471-2970
• DOI: 10.1098/rstb.1995.0056

A numerical interpolation scheme based upon the lateral diffusive and advective transport of ocean surface waters has been developed to interpolate measurements made in irregular time and space over the oceans. This has been applied to about 2700 surface ocean PCO2 measurements observed during the period 1972-1992 in the North Atlantic to give the distribution of sea-air PCO2 difference (ΔPCO2) over the Atlantic. Although the atmospheric CO2 concentration has increased by about 28 ppm over this period, the PCO2 values in the surface waters of subarctic regions have increased little because they are dictated primarily by the properties of underlying deep waters through vertical mixing. Accordingly, ΔPCO2 values measured north of 50° N have been corrected to the year 1990 using the secular increase of atmospheric CO2. Because the surface water PCO2value in temperate waters tracks the secular increase in atmospheric CO2 with a time lag of about two years, no correction was applied to the warm water ΔpCO2 data. It has been assumed that seasonal variations are the same for each year. The net CO2 flux across the sea surface has been computed over a 4° latitude x 5° longitude grid using the mean monthly ApCO2values and the gas transfer coefficients estimated using the mean monthly wind speed. It has been found that the areas of the high latitude North Atlantic and the adjacent seas north of 42° N are net CO2 sinks of 0.2 to 0.5 Gt G a-1. The total sink flux of CO2 over the temperate North Atlantic areas between 18° N and 42° N is balanced approximately by the source flux over the tropical Atlantic between 18° N and 18° S.