• DOI:10.1126/science.1189338
• Corpus ID: 206526452

Decrease in the CO2 Uptake Capacity in an Ice-Free Arctic Ocean Basin

@article{Cai2010DecreaseIT,
  title={Decrease in the CO2 Uptake Capacity in an Ice-Free Arctic Ocean Basin},
  author={Wei-jun Cai and Liqi Chen and Baoshan Chen and Zhongyong Gao and Sang Heon Lee and Jianfang Chen and Denis Pierrot and Kevin F. Sullivan and Yongchen Wang and Xinping Hu and Wei‐Jen Huang and Yuanhui Zhang and Suqing Xu and Akihiko M. Murata and Jacqueline M. Grebmeier and E. Peter Jones and Haisheng Zhang},
  journal={Science},
  year={2010},
  volume={329},
  pages={556 - 559}
}

• W. Cai, Liqi Chen, +14 authors Haisheng Zhang
• Published 30 July 2010
• Environmental Science
• Science

Sinking in Slowly As the Arctic warms and its sea ice continues to melt, more of the ocean surface will be exposed, creating the potential for greater uptake of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Cai et al. (p. 556, published online 22 July) present results from a series of Arctic Ocean transects that show that the amount of CO2 in the surface waters has increased greatly recently. This will act as a barrier to future CO2 uptake and suggests that the Arctic Ocean will not become the large CO2 sink that some have predicted. The current carbon dioxide levels in the Arctic Ocean basin will limit further uptake under ice-free conditions. It has been predicted that the Arctic Ocean will sequester much greater amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere as a result of sea ice melt and increasing primary productivity. However, this prediction was made on the basis of observations from either highly productive ocean margins or ice-covered basins before the recent major ice retreat. We report here a high-resolution survey of sea-surface CO2 concentration across the Canada Basin, showing a great increase relative to earlier observations. Rapid CO2 invasion from the atmosphere and low biological CO2 drawdown are the main causes for the higher CO2, which also acts as a barrier to further CO2 invasion. Contrary to the current view, we predict that the Arctic Ocean basin will not become a large atmospheric CO2 sink under ice-free conditions.