Air-Sea Carbon Exchange in the Southern Ocean

Taka ITo, Georgia Institute of Technology, taka.ito@eas.gatech.edu (Presenter)

The Southern Ocean is a major region of the oceanic uptake of anthropogenic CO2, however it is also the region where ocean carbon cycle models show the largest disagreements partly due to the poor representation of physical circulation at the scale of ocean fronts and eddies. To improve the realism and quantification the regional ocean carbon fluxes, we developed a high-resolution ocean carbon cycle model of the Southern Ocean. The model employs circulation fields that are determined by the Southern Ocean State Estimate in which the circulation fields are assimilated with a suite of satellite and in-situ physical observation for the late 2000s. The model's transport scheme is realistic and computationally efficient, allowing biogeochemical and ecological parameterizations to be implemented at eddy-permitting spatial resolution. The model fields are tested against in-situ tracer and satellite ocean color data, demonstrating that the model can reproduce the spatial and temporal variability of biogeochemical and ecological parameters. The energetic mesoscale eddies and jets dominate local fluxes of nutrients and carbon, but the large-scale tracer budget highlights the compensation between wind-driven and eddy-induced tracer fluxes. Diagnoses of tracer budgets guide our understanding in the factors controlling the regional biological productivity and carbon balance.

Presentation Type:  Poster

Session:  Coupled Processes at Land-Atmosphere-Ocean Interfaces   (Mon 4:00 PM)

Associated Project(s): 

• Ito, Taka: High-resolution modeling of the Southern Ocean carbon cycle based on ECCO state estimates ...details

Poster Location ID: 38