RAGNARoCC: Radiatively active gases from the North Atlantic Region and Climate Change

我们的目标是了解从北大西洋排放到大气中的温室气体的源和汇有多大，变化有多大。我们的目标是能够描述这些在最近的过去发生了怎样的变化，以及在不同的气候情景下它们在未来将发生怎样的变化。大部分工作将集中在二氧化碳上，我们将提供北大西洋碳循环的自然和人为组成部分的全面预算，并了解为什么二氧化碳的海气通量在区域，季节性和多年性上有所不同。此外，还将对甲烷和氧化亚氮进行观测，并估计其区域通量。我们将与欧洲和美国的伙伴机构合作，从自愿观测船网络和固定地点对CO2海气通量进行地面测量。这些将与从水文剖面观测到的内部碳含量进行综合。因此，我们将获得准确的估计的吸收，目前的存储，和净运输的人为碳，和变化的自然吸收和释放的大气CO2的N。大西洋在根据这些观测结果进行直接估计的同时，还将建立这些通量的正向和反向模型（大气和海洋两种）。主要假设是：（1）该区域过去的二氧化碳吸收和变化可以通过检查大西洋的深层碳清单来量化;（2）目前观测到的二氧化碳吸收的变化是由气候变化驱动的生物和物理过程的组合造成的，主要因素是气候模型中的海洋碳模拟所捕获的，（3）这些变化（过去、现在和未来）是由于气候系统内部的变率和外部人为强迫的组合--比例我们将确定。目标是：（1）一个业务预测的温室气体流入和流出N。（2）对该汇的了解，可用于改进对海洋CO2汇今后将如何变化的预测;（3）对过去100年来大西洋吸收人为CO2的方式和原因因气候变化而发生变化的定量了解。

Our object is to understand how large, and how variable, are sources and sinks of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere from the North Atlantic. We aim to be able to describe how these have changed in the recent past and how they will change in the future under different climate scenarios. Most effort will be concentrated on carbon dioxide, and we will deliver a comprehensive budgeting of natural and anthropogenic components of the carbon cycle in the North Atlantic and understanding of why the air-sea fluxes of CO2 vary regionally, seasonally and multi-annually. Observations of CH4 and N2O and estimates of their regional fluxes will additionally be made. We, in collaboration with our partner institutions in Europe and the US, will undertake surface measurements of CO2 air-sea fluxes made from networks of voluntary observing ships and at fixed sites. These will be synthesised with observations from hydrographic sections of the interior carbon content. We will thus obtain accurate estimates of the uptake, present storage, and net transport of anthropogenic carbon, and variability in the natural uptake and release of atmospheric CO2 by the N. Atlantic. In parallel with direct estimates made from these observations, forward and inverse models (of both atmospheric and oceanic kinds) of these fluxes will be developed. The main hypotheses are (1) that past uptake and variability of CO2 in the region can be quantified by examination of the deep carbon inventory in the Atlantic, (2) that the present observed variability in CO2 uptake is due to a combination of biological and physical processes that are driven by climatic variations, the main factors being captured by ocean carbon simulations embedded in climate models, and (3) these variations (past, present and future) are due to a combination of variability internal to the climate system and external anthropogenic forcing - in proportions we will determine. Objectives are (1) a template for operational forecasting of the fluxes of GHGs into and out of the N. Atlantic, to be implemented as part of ICOS and in combination with ECMWF (2) an understanding of that sink that can be used to improve projections of how the ocean CO2 sink will change in the future, and (3) a quantitative understanding of how and why Atlantic Ocean uptake of anthropogenic CO2 has changed as a result of climate change over the last 100 years.