Reconciling opposing views on carbon cycling in the coastal ocean: Continental shelves as sinks and near-shore ecosystems as sources of atmospheric CO2
Chen, C.T.A.; Borges, A.V. (2009). Reconciling opposing views on carbon cycling in the coastal ocean: Continental shelves as sinks and near-shore ecosystems as sources of atmospheric CO2. Deep-Sea Res., Part 2, Top. Stud. Oceanogr. 56(8-10): 578-590. dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dsr2.2009.01.001
In: Deep-Sea Research, Part II. Topical Studies in Oceanography. Pergamon: Oxford. ISSN 0967-0645; e-ISSN 1879-0100
Despite their moderately sized surface area, continental marginal seas play a significant role in the biogeochemical cycles of carbon, as they receive huge amounts of upwelled and riverine inputs of carbon and nutrients, sustaining a disproportionate large biological activity compared to their relative surface area. A synthesis of worldwide measurements of the partial pressure Of CO2 (pCO2) indicates that most open shelves in the temperate and high-latitude regions are under-saturated with respect to atmospheric CO2 during all seasons, although the low-latitude shelves seem to be over-saturated. Most inner estuaries and near-shore coastal areas on the other hand are over-saturated with respect to atmospheric CO2. The scaling of air-sea CO2 fluxes based on pCO2 measurements and carbon mass-balance calculations indicate that the continental shelves absorb atmospheric CO2 ranging between 0.33 and 0.36 Pg C yr-1 that corresponds to an additional sink of 27% to similar to 30% of the CO2 uptake by the open oceans based on the most recent pCO2 climatology [Takahashi, T., Sutherland, S.C., Wanninkhof, R., Sweeney, C., Feely, R.A., Chipman, D., Hales, B., Friederich, G., Chavez, F., Watson, A., Bakker, D., Schuster, U., Metzl, N., Inoue, H.Y., Ishii, M., Midorikawa, T., Sabine, C., Hoppema, M., Olafsson, J., Amarson, T., Tilbrook, B., Johannessen, T., Olsen, A., Bellerby, R., De Baar, H., Nojiri, Y., Wong. C.S., Delille, B., Bates, N., 2009. Climatological mean and decadal change in surface ocean pCO2, and net sea-air CO2 flux over the global oceans. Deep-Sea Research 11, this issue [doi: 10.1016/j.dsr2.2008.12.009].]. Inner estuaries, salt marshes and mangroves emit up to 0.50 Pg C yr-1, although these estimates are prone to large uncertainty due to poorly constrained ecosystem surface area estimates. Nevertheless, the view of continental shelves as sinks and near-shore ecosystems as sources of atmospheric CO2 allows reconciling long-lived opposing views on carbon cycling in the coastal ocean.
All data in the Integrated Marine Information System (IMIS) is subject to the VLIZ privacy policy
Web site hosted and maintained by Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ)
Webmaster info@vliz.be Number of visitors: 1093017 - Total hits: 7338580 (since 2006-01-17)
