Multidecadal accumulation of anthropogenic and remineralized dissolved inorganic carbon along the Extended Ellett Line in the northeast Atlantic Ocean

• Published in: Global Biogeochemical Cycles
• Main Authors: Humphreys, Matthew P., Griffiths, Alex M., Achterberg, Eric P., Holliday, N. Penny, Rérolle, Victoire, Barraqueta, Jan-Lukas Menzel, Couldrey, Matthew P., Oliver, Kevin I. C., Hartman, Susan E., Esposito, Mario, Boyce, Adrian J.
• Other Authors: Ocean and Earth Science Southampton, University of Southampton-National Oceanography Centre (NOC), Department of Earth Science and Technology Imperial College London, Imperial College London, Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR), National Oceanography Centre Southampton (NOC), University of Southampton, Austral, Boréal et Carbone (ABC), Laboratoire d'Océanographie et du Climat : Expérimentations et Approches Numériques (LOCEAN), Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut Pierre-Simon-Laplace (IPSL (FR_636)), École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut Pierre-Simon-Laplace (IPSL (FR_636)), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC), University of Glasgow-University of Edinburgh (Edin.)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2016
• Subjects: [SDU.STU.OC]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Oceanography; Nordic Seas; North Atlantic; Northeast Atlantic
• Online Access: https://hal.sorbonne-universite.fr/hal-01277306; https://hal.sorbonne-universite.fr/hal-01277306/document; https://hal.sorbonne-universite.fr/hal-01277306/file/gbc20392.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1002/2015GB005246

International audience Marine carbonate chemistry measurements have been carried out annually since 2009 during UK research cruises along the Extended Ellett Line (EEL), a hydrographic transect in the northeast Atlantic Ocean. The EEL intersects several water masses that are key to the global thermohaline circulation, and therefore the cruises sample a region in which it is critical to monitor secular physical and biogeochemical changes. We have combined results from these EEL cruises with existing quality-controlled observational data syntheses to produce a hydrographic time series for the EEL from 1981 to 2013. This reveals multidecadal increases in dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) throughout the water column, with a near-surface maximum rate of 1.80 ± 0.45 μmol kg -1 yr -1 . Anthropogenic CO 2 accumulation was assessed, using simultaneous changes in apparent oxygen utilization (AOU) and total alkalinity (TA) as proxies for the biogeochemical processes that influence DIC. The stable carbon isotope composition of DIC (δ 13 C DIC ) was also determined and used as an independent test of our method. We calculated a volume-integrated anthropogenic CO 2 accumulation rate of 2.8 ± 0.4 mg C m -3 yr -1 along the EEL, which is about double the global mean. The anthropogenic CO 2 component accounts for only 31 ± 6% of the total DIC increase. The remainder is derived from increased organic matter remineralization, which we attribute to the lateral redistribution of water masses that accompanies subpolar gyre contraction. Output from a general circulation ecosystem model demonstrates that spatiotemporal heterogeneity in the observations has not significantly biased our multidecadal rate of change calculations and indicates that the EEL observations have been tracking distal changes in the surrounding North Atlantic and Nordic Seas.