Articles | Volume 22, issue 20
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-6017-2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-6017-2025
Research article
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24 Oct 2025
Research article | Highlight paper |  | 24 Oct 2025

A fresh look at the pre-industrial air–sea carbon flux using the alkalinity budget

Alban Planchat, Laurent Bopp, and Lester Kwiatkowski

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Cited articles

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Editorial statement
Disparities in ocean carbon sink estimates derived from observations and models raise questions about our ability to accurately assess its magnitude and trend. Surface ocean pCO2-data based carbon uptake inferences are systematically higher than estimates based on global ocean biogeochemical models. River carbon inputs and carbon burial in sediments contribute largely to this difference. Hence, it is critical to accurately constrain riverine carbon inputs (in the form of inorganic and organic carbon) and burial of organic and inorganic carbon in oceanic sediments. These are non-trivial task because part, but not all, of the organic carbon delivered by rivers is degraded to inorganic carbon and because of carbonate-system re-equilibrations, including calcium carbonate precipitation and dissolution. The Planchat et al. paper presents a simple conceptual model and explores its value using full scale ocean biogeochemical models. The resulting framework is useful for future model intercomparisons and for revising pre-industrial air-sea carbon fluxes when new carbon and alkalinity budgets become available.
Short summary
Disparities between observational and model-based estimates of the ocean carbon sink persist, highlighting the need for improved understanding and methodologies to reconcile differences in both magnitude and trends over recent decades. A potential key source of uncertainty lies in the pre-industrial air–sea carbon flux, which is essential for isolating the anthropogenic component from observations. Thus, we take a fresh look at this flux using the alkalinity budget, alongside the carbon budget.
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