Quantifying and predicting Canada's ocean carbon sink

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

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.