Southern Ocean carbon-wind stress feedback
The Southern Ocean is the largest sink of anthropogenic carbon in the present-day climate. Here, Southern Ocean pCO 2 pCO2 and its dependence on wind forcing are investigated using an equilibrium mixed layer carbon budget. This budget is used to derive an expression for Southern Ocean pCO 2 pCO2 sen...
| Published in: | Climate Dynamics |
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| Main Authors: | , , , |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Springer
2018
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/521167/ https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/521167/1/Bronselaer.pdf https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-017-4041-y |
| Summary: | The Southern Ocean is the largest sink of anthropogenic carbon in the present-day climate. Here, Southern Ocean pCO 2 pCO2 and its dependence on wind forcing are investigated using an equilibrium mixed layer carbon budget. This budget is used to derive an expression for Southern Ocean pCO 2 pCO2 sensitivity to wind stress. Southern Ocean pCO 2 pCO2 is found to vary as the square root of area-mean wind stress, arising from the dominance of vertical mixing over other processes such as lateral Ekman transport. The expression for p\hbox {CO}_{2} is validated using idealised coarse-resolution ocean numerical experiments. Additionally, we show that increased (decreased) stratification through surface warming reduces (increases) the sensitivity of the Southern Ocean pCO 2 pCO2 to wind stress. The scaling is then used to estimate the wind-stress induced changes of atmospheric pCO 2 pCO2 in CMIP5 models using only a handful of parameters. The scaling is further used to model the anthropogenic carbon sink, showing a long-term reversal of the Southern Ocean sink for large wind stress strength. |
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