Sailing through the southern seas of air–sea CO 2 flux uncertainty
The Southern Ocean is among the largest contemporary sinks of atmospheric carbon dioxide on our planet; however, remoteness, harsh weather and other circumstances have led to an undersampling of the ocean basin, compared with its northern hemispheric counterparts. While novel data interpolation meth...
Published in: | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences |
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crroyalsociety:10.1098/rsta.2022.0064 2024-09-15T17:41:21+00:00 Sailing through the southern seas of air–sea CO 2 flux uncertainty Landschützer, Peter Tanhua, Toste Behncke, Jacqueline Keppler, Lydia Max-Planck-Förderstiftung Horizon 2020 Framework Programme 2023 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2022.0064 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsta.2022.0064 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full-xml/10.1098/rsta.2022.0064 en eng The Royal Society https://royalsociety.org/journals/ethics-policies/data-sharing-mining/ Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences volume 381, issue 2249 ISSN 1364-503X 1471-2962 journal-article 2023 crroyalsociety https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2022.0064 2024-09-02T04:21:03Z The Southern Ocean is among the largest contemporary sinks of atmospheric carbon dioxide on our planet; however, remoteness, harsh weather and other circumstances have led to an undersampling of the ocean basin, compared with its northern hemispheric counterparts. While novel data interpolation methods can in part compensate for such data sparsity, recent studies raised awareness that we have hit a wall of unavoidable uncertainties in air–sea CO 2 flux reconstructions. Here, we present results from autonomous observing campaigns using a novel platform to observe remote ocean regions: sailboats. Sailboats are at present a free of charge environmentally friendly platform that recurrently pass remote ocean regions during round-the-globe racing events. During the past 5 years, we collected > 350 000 measurements of the sea surface partial pressure of CO 2 (p CO 2 ) around the globe including the Southern Ocean throughout an Antarctic circumnavigation during the Vendée Globe racing event. Our analysis demonstrates that the sailboat tracks pass regions where large uncertainty in the air–sea CO 2 flux reconstruction prevails, with regional oversaturation or undersaturation of the sea surface p CO 2 . Sailboat races provide an independent cross-calibration platform for autonomous measurement devices, such as Argo floats, ultimately strengthening the entire Southern Ocean observing system. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Heat and carbon uptake in the Southern Ocean: the state of the art and future priorities’. Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctic Southern Ocean The Royal Society Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 381 2249 |
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English |
description |
The Southern Ocean is among the largest contemporary sinks of atmospheric carbon dioxide on our planet; however, remoteness, harsh weather and other circumstances have led to an undersampling of the ocean basin, compared with its northern hemispheric counterparts. While novel data interpolation methods can in part compensate for such data sparsity, recent studies raised awareness that we have hit a wall of unavoidable uncertainties in air–sea CO 2 flux reconstructions. Here, we present results from autonomous observing campaigns using a novel platform to observe remote ocean regions: sailboats. Sailboats are at present a free of charge environmentally friendly platform that recurrently pass remote ocean regions during round-the-globe racing events. During the past 5 years, we collected > 350 000 measurements of the sea surface partial pressure of CO 2 (p CO 2 ) around the globe including the Southern Ocean throughout an Antarctic circumnavigation during the Vendée Globe racing event. Our analysis demonstrates that the sailboat tracks pass regions where large uncertainty in the air–sea CO 2 flux reconstruction prevails, with regional oversaturation or undersaturation of the sea surface p CO 2 . Sailboat races provide an independent cross-calibration platform for autonomous measurement devices, such as Argo floats, ultimately strengthening the entire Southern Ocean observing system. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Heat and carbon uptake in the Southern Ocean: the state of the art and future priorities’. |
author2 |
Max-Planck-Förderstiftung Horizon 2020 Framework Programme |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Landschützer, Peter Tanhua, Toste Behncke, Jacqueline Keppler, Lydia |
spellingShingle |
Landschützer, Peter Tanhua, Toste Behncke, Jacqueline Keppler, Lydia Sailing through the southern seas of air–sea CO 2 flux uncertainty |
author_facet |
Landschützer, Peter Tanhua, Toste Behncke, Jacqueline Keppler, Lydia |
author_sort |
Landschützer, Peter |
title |
Sailing through the southern seas of air–sea CO 2 flux uncertainty |
title_short |
Sailing through the southern seas of air–sea CO 2 flux uncertainty |
title_full |
Sailing through the southern seas of air–sea CO 2 flux uncertainty |
title_fullStr |
Sailing through the southern seas of air–sea CO 2 flux uncertainty |
title_full_unstemmed |
Sailing through the southern seas of air–sea CO 2 flux uncertainty |
title_sort |
sailing through the southern seas of air–sea co 2 flux uncertainty |
publisher |
The Royal Society |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2022.0064 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsta.2022.0064 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full-xml/10.1098/rsta.2022.0064 |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Southern Ocean |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Southern Ocean |
op_source |
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences volume 381, issue 2249 ISSN 1364-503X 1471-2962 |
op_rights |
https://royalsociety.org/journals/ethics-policies/data-sharing-mining/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2022.0064 |
container_title |
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences |
container_volume |
381 |
container_issue |
2249 |
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1810487508184596480 |