Interannual and decadal changes in the sea-air CO2 flux from atmospheric CO2 inverse modeling

Type Article
Date 2005-11
Language English
Author(s) Patra Pk1, Maksyutov S1, Ishizawa M1, Nakazawa T2, Takahashi T3, Ukita J3
Affiliation(s) 1 : Japan Agcy Marine Earth Sci & Technol, Frontier Res Ctr Global Change, Yokohama, Kanagawa 2360001, Japan.
2 : Tohoku Univ, Grad Sch Sci, Ctr Atmosph & Ocean Studies, Sendai, Miyagi 9808578, Japan.
3 : Columbia Univ, Lamont Doherty Earth Observ, Palisades, NY 10964 USA.
Source Global Biogeochemical Cycles (0886-6236) (Amer Geophysical Union), 2005-11 , Vol. 19 , N. GB4013 , P. 1-13
DOI 10.1029/2004GB002257
WOS© Times Cited 92
Abstract The atmosphere-land-ocean fluxes of CO2 were derived for 64 partitioned areas of the globe (22 over the ocean and 42 over the land) using a time-dependent inverse (TDI) model for the period of January 1988 to December 2001. The model calculation partially follow the TransCom-3 protocol, and is constrained by atmospheric CO2 concentration data from 87 stations and fully time-dependent atmospheric transport model simulations. The air-to-land and air-to-sea fluxes averaged over the 1990s are estimated at 1.15 +/- 0.74 and 1.88 +/- 0.53 Pg-C yr(-1), respectively. These estimates, however, remain uncertain owing to sampling biases arising from the sparse distribution of atmospheric CO2 data, are compared with other estimates by various methods. The sensitivity analysis indicates that the differences in fluxes and flux variability caused by the choices of initial conditions for the TDI model are smaller compared to those due to the selection of measurement networks. Our model results capture interannual variations in global and regional CO2 fluxes realistically. The estimated oceanic CO2 flux anomalies appear to be closely related to prominent climate modes such as El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). The results from the correlation analyses show that the oceanic CO2 flux in the tropics is strongly influenced by the ENSO dynamical cycle, and that in the sub-polar regions by upwelling of sub-surface waters in the winter and plankton blooms in the spring.
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