Decadal variations and trends of the global ocean carbon sink

Abstract We investigate the variations of the ocean CO 2 sink during the past three decades using global surface ocean maps of the partial pressure of CO 2 reconstructed from observations contained in the Surface Ocean CO 2 Atlas Version 2. To create these maps, we used the neural network‐based data interpolation method of Landschützer et al. (2014) but extended the work in time from 1998 to 2011 to the period from 1982 through 2011. Our results suggest strong decadal variations in the global ocean carbon sink around a long‐term increase that corresponds roughly to that expected from the rise in atmospheric CO 2 . The sink is estimated to have weakened during the 1990s toward a minimum uptake of only −0.8 ±…

• ET
  Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich
• SF
  Seventh Framework Programme

  Awards: 283080, 264879