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| Titel |
The ocean carbon sink – impacts, vulnerabilities and challenges |
| VerfasserIn |
C. Heinze, S. Meyer, N. Goris, L. Anderson, R. Steinfeldt, N. Chang, C. Quéré, D. C. E. Bakker |
| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| ISSN |
2190-4979
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| Digitales Dokument |
URL |
| Erschienen |
In: Earth System Dynamics ; 6, no. 1 ; Nr. 6, no. 1 (2015-06-09), S.327-358 |
| Datensatznummer |
250115427
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 copernicus.org/esd-6-327-2015.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Carbon dioxide (CO2) is, next to water vapour, considered to be the
most important natural greenhouse gas on Earth. Rapidly rising atmospheric
CO2 concentrations caused by human actions such as fossil fuel
burning, land-use change or cement production over the past 250 years have
given cause for concern that changes in Earth's climate system may progress
at a much faster pace and larger extent than during the past 20 000 years.
Investigating global carbon cycle pathways and finding suitable adaptation
and mitigation strategies has, therefore, become of major concern in many
research fields. The oceans have a key role in regulating atmospheric
CO2 concentrations and currently take up about 25% of annual
anthropogenic carbon emissions to the atmosphere. Questions that yet need to
be answered are what the carbon uptake kinetics of the oceans will be in the
future and how the increase in oceanic carbon inventory will affect its
ecosystems and their services. This requires comprehensive investigations,
including high-quality ocean carbon measurements on different spatial and
temporal scales, the management of data in sophisticated databases, the
application of Earth system models to provide future projections for given
emission scenarios as well as a global synthesis and outreach to policy
makers. In this paper, the current understanding of the ocean as an
important carbon sink is reviewed with respect to these topics. Emphasis is
placed on the complex interplay of different physical, chemical and
biological processes that yield both positive and negative air–sea flux
values for natural and anthropogenic CO2 as well as on increased
CO2 (uptake) as the regulating force of the radiative warming of the
atmosphere and the gradual acidification of the oceans. Major future ocean
carbon challenges in the fields of ocean observations, modelling and
process research as well as the relevance of other biogeochemical cycles and
greenhouse gases are discussed. |
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