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，导致**大气二氧化碳水平大幅降低，气候变化速度变慢。然而，海洋的碳吸收速率很容易受到气候变化的影响，而且未来可能会下降。尽管海洋的重要性和脆弱性，但海洋吸收碳的速度却出人意料地鲜为人知，**特别是它在较小的区域尺度上可能是多么多变。加拿大一直在大力投资于观测海洋的新**技术和扩大数值模拟资源。我们提议的海洋碳汇项目寻求通过开发技术来利用这些投资，将对海洋碳的新**观测转化为对海洋碳吸收率的可靠估计。这将涉及**校准和质量控制观测，根据观测确定海-气通量，**量化生物过程对碳的影响，以及将不同的测量结果合并为一个**区域平均值。我们的项目还试图改善数字计算机模型的预测。这将**涉及确定不同模型的优点和缺点，量化**观察到的变化在多大程度上是由长期气候变化而不是自然变异性驱动的，以及确定**哪些海洋过程需要包括在模型中以获得对未来海洋**碳吸收的最准确预测**。我们将通过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人员组成的网络来实现这些目标，以促进我们对加拿大三个海洋地区的碳动态**的了解，并开发综合的观测/建模技术来**量化和预测海洋作为重要碳汇的自然角色。

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.