Ocean Carbon Dioxide Uptake in the Tailpipe of Industrialized Continents
Document Type
Article
Date of Original Version
11-16-2023
Abstract
A simplifying assumption in many studies of ocean carbon uptake is that the atmosphere is well-mixed, such that zonal variations in its carbon dioxide (CO2) content can be neglected in the calculation of air-sea fluxes. Here, we examine this assumption at various scales to quantify the errors it introduces. For global annual averages, we find that positive and negative errors effectively cancel, so the use of atmospheric zonal-average CO2 introduces reassuringly small errors in fluxes. However, for millions of square kilometers of the North Pacific and Atlantic that are downwind of the highly industrialized northern hemisphere continents, these biases average to over 6% of the annual ocean uptake and can cause errors of up to 30% on a given day. This work highlights the need to use a high quality, spatially-resolved atmospheric CO2 product for process studies and for accurate long-term average maps of ocean carbon uptake.
Publication Title, e.g., Journal
Geophysical Research Letters
Volume
50
Issue
21
Citation/Publisher Attribution
Palter, J. B., S. Nickford, and L. Mu. "Ocean Carbon Dioxide Uptake in the Tailpipe of Industrialized Continents." Geophysical Research Letters 50, 21 (2023). doi: 10.1029/2023GL104822.