Quantifying and predicting Canada's ocean carbon sink

海洋吸收了人类活动产生的大约三分之一的二氧化碳，从而大大降低了大气中的二氧化碳水平，减缓了气候变化的速度。然而，海洋的碳吸收率很容易受到气候变化的影响，未来可能会下降。尽管海洋的重要性和脆弱性令人惊讶，但人们对海洋吸收碳的速度知之甚少，尤其是在较小的区域尺度上，海洋吸收碳的速度有多大的变化。加拿大一直在大力投资新的海洋观测技术和扩大数值模拟资源。我们提出的海洋碳汇项目旨在通过开发技术将海洋碳的新观测结果转化为对海洋碳吸收率的可靠估计，从而利用这些投资。这将涉及对观测数据进行校准和质量控制，从观测数据中确定海气通量，对生物过程对碳的影响进行量化，并将不同的测量结果整合为一个单一的区域平均值。我们的项目还寻求改进数值计算机模型的预测。这将包括确定不同模式的优缺点，量化观测到的变化在多大程度上是由长期气候变化（而非自然变率）驱动的，并确定需要将哪些海洋过程纳入模式，以获得对未来海洋碳吸收的最准确预测。为了实现这些目标，我们将与加拿大各地的学术和政府科学家组成一个由学生和博士后研究员组成的网络，以推进我们对加拿大三个海洋区域碳动态的理解，并开发综合观测/建模技术，以量化和预测海洋作为重要碳汇的自然作用。

The ocean absorbs about one third of the carbon dioxide produced by human activities, resulting in**substantially lower atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and slower rates of climate change. However, the ocean's**carbon absorption rate is vulnerable to climate change and is likely to decrease in the future. Despite its**importance and vulnerability, the rate at which the ocean absorbs carbon is surprisingly poorly known,**especially how variable it may be on smaller regional scales. Canada has been investing significantly in new**technologies to observe the ocean and in expanded numerical modelling resources. Our proposed Marine**Carbon Sink project seeks to capitalize on these investments by developing techniques to transform new**observations of marine carbon into reliable estimates of the ocean's carbon absorption rate. This will involve**calibrating and quality controlling the observations, determining air-sea fluxes from the observations,**quantifying the impact of biological processes on carbon, and integrating different measurements into a single**regional average. Our project also seeks to improve predictions from numerical computer models. This will**involve determining the strengths and weaknesses of different models, quantifying the extent to which**observed changes are driven by long-term climate change as opposed to natural variability, and establishing**which marine processes need to be included in models to obtain the most accurate predictions of future ocean**carbon absorption. We will accomplish these objectives by forming a network of students and a postdoctoral**researcher with academic and government scientists across Canada to advance our understanding of carbon**dynamics in Canada's three ocean regions and to develop integrated observational/modelling techniques to**quantify and predict the ocean's natural role as an important carbon sink.