| The North Atlantic is an important basin for the global ocean's uptake of anthropogenic and natural carbon dioxide (CO2), but the mechanisms controlling this carbon flux are not fully understood. The air-sea flux of CO2, F, is the product of a gas transfer velocity, k, the air-sea CO2 concentration gradient, Delta pCO(2), and the temperature-and salinity-dependent solubility coefficient, alpha, k is difficult to constrain, representing the dominant uncertainty in F on short (instantaneous to interannual) timescales. Previous work shows that in the North Atlantic, Delta pCO(2) and k both contribute significantly to interannual F variability but that k is unimportant for multidecadal variability. On some timescale between interannual and multidecadal, gas... |
