Abstract. The air-sea exchanges of CO 2 in the world's 165 estuaries and 87 continental shelves are evaluated. Generally and in all seasons, upper estuaries with salinities of less than two are strong sources of CO 2 (39 ± 56 mol C m −2 yr −1 , positive flux indicates that the water is losing CO 2 to the atmosphere); mid-estuaries with salinities of between 2 and 25 are moderate sources (17.5 ± 34 mol C m −2 yr −1 ) and lower estuaries with salinities of more than 25 are weak sources . Mixing with low-pCO 2 shelf waters, water temperature, residence time and the complexity of the biogeochemistry are major factors that govern the pCO 2 in estuaries, but wind speed, seldom discussed, is critical to controlling the air-water exchanges of CO 2 . The total annual release of CO 2 from the world's estuaries is now estimated to be 0.10 Pg C yr −1 , which is much lower than published values mainly because of the contribution of a considerable amount of heretofore unpublished or new data from Asia and the Arctic. The Asian data, although indicating high pCO 2 , are low in sea-to-air fluxes because of low wind speeds. Previously determined flux values rely heavily on data from Europe and North America, where pCO 2 is lower but wind speeds are much higher, such that the CO 2 fluxes are higher than in Asia. Newly emerged CO 2 flux data in the Arctic reveal that estuaries there mostly absorb rather than release CO 2 .Most continental shelves, and especially those at high latitude, are undersaturated in terms of CO 2 and absorb CO 2 from the atmosphere in all seasons. Shelves between 0 and 23.5 • S are on average a weak source and have a small flux per unit area of CO 2 to the atmosphere. Water temperature, the spreading of river plumes, upwelling, and biological production seem to be the main factors in determining pCO 2 in the shelves. Wind speed, again, is critical because at high latitudes, the winds tend to be strong. Since the surface water pCO 2 values are low, the air-to-sea fluxes are high in regions above 50 • N and below 50 • S. At low latitudes, the winds tend to be weak, so the sea-to-air CO 2 flux is small. Overall, the world's continental shelves absorb 0.4 Pg C yr −1 from the atmosphere.
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