Detecting the anthropogenic influences on recent changes in ocean carbon uptake

Type Article
Date 2014-08-28
Language English
Author(s) Seferian Roland1, 2, Ribes Aurelien1, Bopp Laurent2
Affiliation(s) 1 : CNRM GAME GMGEC, Toulouse, France.
2 : IPSL LSCE, Gif Sur Yvette, France.
Source Geophysical Research Letters (0094-8276) (Amer Geophysical Union), 2014-08-28 , Vol. 41 , N. 16 , P. 5968-5977
DOI 10.1002/2014GL061223
WOS© Times Cited 17
Keyword(s) detection and attribution, ocean carbon uptake, internal variability, climate change
Abstract Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have modified the rate at which oceans have absorbed atmospheric CO2 over the last centuries through rising atmospheric CO2 and modifications in climate. However, there are still missing pieces in our understanding of the recent evolution of air-sea CO2 exchanges related to the magnitude of their response to anthropogenic forcings versus that controlled by the internal variability. Here, to detect and attribute anthropogenic influences on oceanic CO2 uptake between 1960 and 2005, we compare an ensemble of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) climate model simulations forced by individual drivers to ocean-only model reconstructions. We demonstrate that the evolution of the global oceanic carbon sink over the last decades can be understood without invoking climate change, attributing rising atmospheric CO2 as prominent driver of the oceanic sink. Nonetheless, at regional scale, the influence of climate change on air-sea CO2 exchanges seems to emerge from the internal variability within the low-latitude oceans.
Full Text
File Pages Size Access
Publisher's official version 10 585 KB Open access
Suppl Info_Readme 1 KB Open access
Suppl Info_Text S1 12 303 KB Open access
Top of the page