What drives the latitudinal gradient in open-ocean surface dissolved inorganic carbon concentration?

Wu, Yingxu; Hain, Mathis P.; Humphreys, Matthew P.; Hartman, Sue; Tyrrell, Toby

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-16-2661-2019

Articles | Volume 16, issue 13

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-16-2661-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-16-2661-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 16, issue 13

Research article

|

11 Jul 2019

Research article |

| 11 Jul 2019

What drives the latitudinal gradient in open-ocean surface dissolved inorganic carbon concentration?

Yingxu Wu, Mathis P. Hain, Matthew P. Humphreys, Sue Hartman, and Toby Tyrrell

Data sets

Global Ocean Data Analysis Project R. M. Key, A. Olsen, S. van Heuven, S. K. Lauvset, A. Velo, X. Lin, C. Schirnick, A. Kozyr, T. Tanhua, and M. Hoppema https://doi.org/10.3334/CDIAC/OTG.NDP093_GLODAPv2

The Global Ocean Data Analysis Project version 2 (GLODAPv2) - an internally consistent data product for the world ocean A. Olsen, R. M. Key, S. van Heuven, S. K. Lauvset, A. Velo, X. Lin, C. Schirnick, A. Kozyr, T. Tanhua, M. Hoppema, S. Jutterstr\"{o}m, R. Steinfeldt, E. Jeansson, M. Ishii, F. F. P\'{e}rez, and T. Suzuki https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-8-297-2016

Short summary

This study takes advantage of the GLODAPv2 database to investigate the processes driving the surface ocean dissolved inorganic carbon distribution, with the focus on its latitudinal gradient between the polar oceans and the low-latitude oceans. Based on our quantitative study, we find that temperature-driven CO₂ gas exchange and high-latitude upwelling of DIC- and TA-rich deep waters are the two major drivers, with the importance of the latter not having been previously realized.