The carbon budget of the North Sea

• Main Authors: H. Thomas, Y. Bozec, H. J. W. De Baar, K. Elkalay, M. Frankignoulle, L. -s. Schiettecatte, G. Kattner, A. V. Borges
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2005
• Subjects: North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.391.3182; http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/29/75/13/PDF/bg-2-87-2005.pdf

Abstract. A carbon budget has been established for the North Sea, a shelf sea on the NW European continental shelf. The carbon exchange fluxes with the North Atlantic Ocean dominate the gross carbon budget. The net carbon budget – more relevant to the issue of the contribution of the coastal ocean to the marine carbon cycle – is dominated by the carbon inputs from rivers, the Baltic Sea and the atmosphere. The North Sea acts as a sink for organic carbon and thus can be characterised as a heterotrophic system. The dominant carbon sink is the final export to the North Atlantic Ocean. More than 90 % of the CO2 taken up from the atmosphere is exported to the North Atlantic Ocean making the North Sea a highly efficient continental shelf pump for carbon. 1