Winter weather controls net influx of atmospheric CO2 on the north-west European shelf
Kitidis, V; Shutler, J; Ashton, I; et al.Warren, M; Brown, I; Findlay, H; Hartman, S; Sanders, R; Humphreys, M; Kivimäe, C; Greenwood, N; Hull, T; Pierce, D; McGrath, T; Stewart, B; Walsham, P; McGovern, E; Bozec, Y; Gac, J-P; van Heuven, S; Hoppema, M; Schuster, U; Johannessen, T; Omar, A; Lauvset, S; Skjelvan, I; Olsen, A; Steinhoff, T; Körtzinger, A; Becker, M; Lefèvre, N; Diverres, D; Gkritzalis, T; Cattrijsse, A; Petersen, W; Voynova, Y; Chapron, B; Grouazel, A; Land, P; Sharples, J; Nightingale, P
Date: 27 December 2019
Journal
Scientific Reports
Publisher
Nature Research
Publisher DOI
Related links
Abstract
Shelf seas play an important role in the global carbon cycle, absorbing atmospheric carbon
dioxide (CO2) and exporting carbon (C) to the open ocean and sediments. The magnitude of
these processes is poorly constrained, because observations are typically interpolated over
multiple years. Here, we used 298500 observations of CO2 ...
Shelf seas play an important role in the global carbon cycle, absorbing atmospheric carbon
dioxide (CO2) and exporting carbon (C) to the open ocean and sediments. The magnitude of
these processes is poorly constrained, because observations are typically interpolated over
multiple years. Here, we used 298500 observations of CO2 fugacity (fCO2) from a single year
(2015), to estimate the net influx of atmospheric CO2 as 26.2 ± 4.7 Tg C yr-1 over the open NW
European shelf. CO2 influx from the atmosphere was dominated by influx during winter as a
consequence of high winds, despite a smaller, thermally-driven, air-sea fCO2 gradient compared
to the larger, biologically-driven summer gradient. In order to understand this climate regulation
service, we constructed a carbon-budget supplemented by data from the literature, where the NW
European shelf is treated as a box with carbon entering and leaving the box. This budget showed
that net C-burial was a small sink of 1.3 ± 3.1 Tg C yr-1, while CO2 efflux from estuaries to the
atmosphere, removed the majority of river C-inputs. In contrast, the input from the Baltic Sea
likely contributes to net export via the continental shelf pump and advection (34.4 ± 6.0 Tg C yr-
1).
Geography - old structure
Collections of Former Colleges
Item views 0
Full item downloads 0