edu.ucar.opensky::articles:6759 UCAR/NCAR - Library OpenSky Support PO Box 3000 Boulder CO 80307-3000 opensky@ucar.edu http://opensky.ucar.edu/ homepage pointOfContact 2025-12-26T15:39:27.813518 ISO 19115-2 Geographic Information - Metadata - Part 2: Extensions for Imagery and Gridded Data ISO 19115-2:2009(E) https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d72v2gbd Inverse estimates of the oceanic sources and sinks of natural CO₂ and the implied oceanic carbon transport 2007-02-10T00:00:00Z publication https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d72v2gbd https://doi.org/10.1029/2006GB002751 Mikaloff-Fletcher, S. author Gruber, N. author Jacobson, A. author Gloor, M. author Doney, S. author Dutkiewicz, S. author Gerber, M. author Follows, M. author Joos, F. author Lindsay, Keith author Menemenlis, D. author Mouchet, A. author Müller, S. author Sarmiento, J. author UCAR/NCAR - Library publisher We use an inverse method to estimate the global-scale pattern of the air-sea flux of natural CO₂, i.e., the component of the CO₂ flux due to the natural carbon cycle that already existed in preindustrial times, on the basis of ocean interior observations of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and other tracers, from which we estimate ΔC gasex , i.e., the component of the observed DIC that is due to the gas exchange of natural CO₂. We employ a suite of 10 different Ocean General Circulation Models (OGCMs) to quantify the error arising from uncertainties in the modeled transport required to link the interior ocean observations to the surface fluxes. The results from the contributing OGCMs are weighted using a model skill score based on a comparison of each model's simulated natural radiocarbon with observations. We find a pattern of air-sea flux of natural CO₂ characterized by outgassing in the Southern Ocean between 44°S and 59°S, vigorous uptake at midlatitudes of both hemispheres, and strong outgassing in the tropics. In the Northern Hemisphere and the tropics, the inverse estimates generally agree closely with the natural CO₂ flux results from forward simulations of coupled OGCM-biogeochemistry models undertaken as part of the second phase of the Ocean Carbon Model Intercomparison Project (OCMIP-2). The OCMIP-2 simulations find far less air-sea exchange than the inversion south of 20°S, but more recent forward OGCM studies are in better agreement with the inverse estimates in the Southern Hemisphere. The strong source and sink pattern south of 20°S was not apparent in an earlier inversion study, because the choice of region boundaries led to a partial cancellation of the sources and sinks. We show that the inversely estimated flux pattern is clearly traceable to gradients in the observed ΔC gasex , and that it is relatively insensitive to the choice of OGCM or potential biases in ∆C gasex . Our inverse estimates imply a southward interhemispheric transport of 0.31 ± 0.02 Pg C yr⁻¹, most of which occurs in the Atlantic. This is considerably smaller than the 1 Pg C yr⁻¹ of Northern Hemisphere uptake that has been inferred from atmospheric CO₂ observations during the 1980s and 1990s, which supports the hypothesis of a Northern Hemisphere terrestrial sink. UCAR/NCAR - Library OpenSky Support PO Box 3000 Boulder CO 80307-3000 opensky@ucar.edu http://opensky.ucar.edu/ homepage pointOfContact PDF Text theme Resource Type 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z publication Copyright 2007 American Geophysical Union. None eng geoscientificInformation