Reframing the carbon cycle of the subpolar Southern Ocean

MacGilchrist, Graeme A.; Naveira Garabato, Alberto C.; Brown, Peter J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1152-1114; Jullion, Loïc; Bacon, Sheldon ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2471-9373; Bakker, Dorothee C.E.; Hoppema, Mario; Meredith, Michael P. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7342-7756; Torres-Valdés, Sinhué. 2019 Reframing the carbon cycle of the subpolar Southern Ocean. Science Advances, 5 (8). 10.1126/sciadv.aav6410

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Text (Open Access) Copyright © 2019 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC). eaav6410.full.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial 4.0. Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract/Summary

Global climate is critically sensitive to physical and biogeochemical dynamics in the subpolar Southern Ocean, since it is here that deep, carbon-rich layers of the world ocean outcrop and exchange carbon with the atmosphere. Here, we present evidence that the conventional framework for the subpolar Southern Ocean carbon cycle, which attributes a dominant role to the vertical overturning circulation and shelf-sea processes, fundamentally misrepresents the drivers of regional carbon uptake. Observations in the Weddell Gyre—a key representative region of the subpolar Southern Ocean—show that the rate of carbon uptake is set by an interplay between the Gyre’s horizontal circulation and the remineralization at mid-depths of organic carbon sourced from biological production in the central gyre. These results demonstrate that reframing the carbon cycle of the subpolar Southern Ocean is an essential step to better define its role in past and future climate change.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.1126/sciadv.aav6410
Date made live:	29 Aug 2019 09:26 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/524939

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