Not just going with the flow: does biological production rather than deep water formation drive the Southern Ocean carbon sink?

据认为，南大洋吸收了全球所有人为（人为）二氧化碳的约40%和人为热量的约75%，因此在减缓不断增加的大气二氧化碳水平和相关气候效应方面具有不成比例的影响。目前对SO碳吸收和历史气候转变的解释侧重于南极洲周围表层和深层海洋之间的相互作用，即作为全球翻转环流的一部分（浮力通量、海冰产生）影响中水和稠密水形成的过程，以及海洋碳系统如何响应这些过程。然而，新的研究结果表明，事实上，海洋生物生产/碳出口远离密集的水形成区是二氧化碳从大气中去除的关键过程，这迫使我们重新构建我们对SO碳系统如何运作的理解。该项目将使用卫星、研究巡航、自主生物地球化学浮动部署和生物地球化学海洋同化模型来测试这种改变后的范式，以反卷积南大洋大西洋部分的碳系统。重点将放在确定驱动SO碳吸收的物理和生物学之间的平衡，以及这些在未来可能如何变化。

The Southern Ocean (SO) is thought to have absorbed ~40% of all global human-derived (anthropogenic) carbon dioxide and >75% of anthropogenic heat, thus being disproportionately influential in mitigating increasing atmospheric CO2 levels and related climate effects. Current explanations of SO carbon uptake and historical climate transitions focus on the interaction between the surface and deep ocean around Antarctica, i.e. processes that impact intermediate and dense water formation as part of the global overturning circulation (buoyancy fluxes, sea ice production), and how the marine carbon system responds to them. However, new results suggest that in fact open-ocean biological production / carbon export away from dense water formation regions is the key process by which CO2 is removed from the atmosphere, forcing us to reframe our understanding of how the SO carbon system functions. This project will test this changed paradigm using new observations from satellites, research cruises, autonomous biogeochemical float deployments and a biogeochemical ocean assimilation model to deconvolve the carbon system in the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean. The focus will be on identifying the balance between physics and biology in driving SO carbon uptake, and how these are likely to change into the future.