Utilizing the Drake Passage Time-series to understand variability and change in subpolar Southern Ocean p CO 2

• Published in: Biogeosciences
• Main Authors: A. R. Fay, N. S. Lovenduski, G. A. McKinley, D. R. Munro, C. Sweeney, A. R. Gray, P. Landschützer, B. B. Stephens, T. Takahashi, N. Williams
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus Publications 2018
• Subjects: Ecology; QH540-549.5; Life; QH501-531; Geology; QE1-996.5; Drake Passage; Southern Ocean
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-3841-2018; https://doaj.org/article/b1a01b716ed54dd8bd90e8331e1d2c1c

The Southern Ocean is highly under-sampled for the purpose of assessing total carbon uptake and its variability. Since this region dominates the mean global ocean sink for anthropogenic carbon, understanding temporal change is critical. Underway measurements of p CO 2 collected as part of the Drake Passage Time-series (DPT) program that began in 2002 inform our understanding of seasonally changing air–sea gradients in p CO 2 , and by inference the carbon flux in this region. Here, we utilize available p CO 2 observations to evaluate how the seasonal cycle, interannual variability, and long-term trends in surface ocean p CO 2 in the Drake Passage region compare to that of the broader subpolar Southern Ocean. Our results indicate that the Drake Passage is representative of the broader region in both seasonality and long-term p CO 2 trends, as evident through the agreement of timing and amplitude of seasonal cycles as well as trend magnitudes both seasonally and annually. The high temporal density of sampling by the DPT is critical to constraining estimates of the seasonal cycle of surface p CO 2 in this region, as winter data remain sparse in areas outside of the Drake Passage. An increase in winter data would aid in reduction of uncertainty levels. On average over the period 2002–2016, data show that carbon uptake has strengthened with annual surface ocean p CO 2 trends in the Drake Passage and the broader subpolar Southern Ocean less than the global atmospheric trend. Analysis of spatial correlation shows Drake Passage p CO 2 to be representative of p CO 2 and its variability up to several hundred kilometers away from the region. We also compare DPT data from 2016 and 2017 to contemporaneous p CO 2 estimates from autonomous biogeochemical floats deployed as part of the Southern Ocean Carbon and Climate Observations and Modeling project (SOCCOM) so as to highlight the opportunity for evaluating data collected on autonomous observational platforms. Though SOCCOM floats sparsely sample the Drake Passage region for ...