The carbon budget of the North Sea

• Published in: Biogeosciences
• Main Authors: Thomas, H., Bozec, Y., Baar, H.J.W. de, Elkalay, K., Frankignoulle, M., Schiettecatte, L.-S., Kattner, G., Borges, A.V.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2005
• Subjects: North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/11370/70bcbc9c-e90d-4a5e-a781-9d417febc406; https://research.rug.nl/en/publications/70bcbc9c-e90d-4a5e-a781-9d417febc406; https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-2-87-2005; https://pure.rug.nl/ws/files/9856029/2005BiogeosciThomas1.pdf

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.