Séminaire
The ocean currently absorbs between one-third and one-fourth of the CO2 emitted to the atmosphere from human activities. However, there are still large uncertainties in ocean carbon uptake and storage of anthropogenic CO2.
To better understand the ocean changes, we use two basic observational approaches: surface ocean carbon measurements to quantify ocean carbon uptake and interior ocean carbon measurements to quantify ocean carbon storage. For the ocean interior we are collecting new data through the CLIVAR/CO2 Repeat Hydrography cruises.
The goal of this program is to quantify decadal changes in the inventory and transport of heat, fresh water, carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbon tracers and related parameters in the oceans by repeating sections first occupied as part of the WOCE/JGOFS global survey in the 1990s. The goals of the surface CO2 effort are to quantify the daily to inter-annual variability in air-sea CO2 fluxes and understand the mechanisms controlling these fluxes. This is accomplished by making autonomous surface pCO2 measurements using research and volunteer observing ships (VOS) to get spatial coverage at seasonal time scales and using a network of surface moorings and drifters to get high frequency temporal resolution. The ocean carbon observing network is now being augmented to address concerns over ocean acidification and new technologies are being developed to improve our ability to monitor variability over a range of timescales. This talk will briefly describe the current observational approaches for ocean carbon and how they are evolving over time.
galod@locean-ipsl.upmc.fr