The formation of the ocean's anthropogenic carbon reservoir.
The shallow overturning circulation of the oceans transports heat from the tropics to the mid-latitudes. This overturning also influences the uptake and storage of anthropogenic carbon (Cant). We demonstrate this by quantifying the relative importance of ocean thermodynamics, circulation and biogeochemistry in a global biochemistry and circulation model. Almost 2/3 of the Cantocean uptake enters via gas exchange in waters that are lighter than the base of the ventilated thermocline. However, almost 2/3 of the excess Cantis stored below the thermocline. Our analysis shows that subtropical waters are a dominant component in the formation of subpolar waters and that these water masses essentially form a common Cantreservoir. This new method developed and presented here is intrinsically Lagrangian, as it by construction only considers the velocity or transport of waters across isopycnals. More generally, our approach provides an integral framework for linking ocean thermodynamics with biogeochemistry.
Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, I-80121 Naples, Italy.
Daniele
D
Iudicone
AOS Program, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
Keith B
KB
Rodgers
Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3AN, UK.
Yves
Y
Plancherel
Sorbonne Universités, UPMC, Univ Paris 06-CNRS-IRD-MNHN, LOCEAN/IPSL, Paris, France.
Olivier
O
Aumont
School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
Takamitsu
T
Ito
AOS Program, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
Robert M
RM
Key
Sorbonne Universités, UPMC, Univ Paris 06-CNRS-IRD-MNHN, LOCEAN/IPSL, Paris, France.|National Oceanography Centre, Southampton SO14 3ZH, UK.
Gurvan
G
Madec
Oceanography and Geochemistry Department, Meteorological Research Institute, JMA, Tsukuba-city, Ibaraki 305-0052, Japan.
Masao
M
Ishii