Atmospheric O2/N2 changes, 1993–2002: Implications for the partitioning of fossil fuel CO2 sequestration

Bender, Michael L.; Ho, David T.; Hendricks, M. B.; Mika, R.; Battle, Mark; Tans, Pieter P.; Conway, T. J.; Sturtevant, Blake T.; Cassar, Nicolas

doi:10.1029/2004gb002410

Cited by 98 publications

(114 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…Bender et al, 2005;Manning and Keeling, 2006;Ishidoya et al, 2012aIshidoya et al, , 2012bTohjima et al, 2015). These observations revealed spatio-temporal variations in atmospheric δ(O 2 /N 2 ) and APO.…”

Section: Observation Site and Measurement Systemmentioning

confidence: 86%

Seasonal and short-term variations in atmospheric potential oxygen at Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard

Goto

Morimoto

Aoki

et al. 2017

Tellus B: Chemical and Physical Meteorology

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Oxygen in the atmosphere undergoes variations and changes in response to biospheric activities, ocean-atmosphere exchange and fossil fuel combustion. Continuous in situ measurements of atmospheric δ(O 2 /N 2 ) and CO 2 mole fraction were started at Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard (78.93°N, 11.83°E, 40 m a.s.l.) in November 2012. Atmospheric potential oxygen (APO) calculated from the measured O 2 and CO 2 values during November 2012-January 2015 show a clear seasonal cycle with a peak-to-peak amplitude of approximately 50 per meg. The seasonal cycle of APO simulated using an atmospheric transport model, with prescribed oceanic O 2 , N 2 and CO 2 fluxes at monthly time intervals, is in excellent agreement with the observed APO. However, in spring and early summer, high values of APO are observed irregularly on a timescale of hours to days. By comparing backward trajectories of air parcels released from the site with distributions of marine net primary production (NPP), and tagged tracer experiments made using the atmospheric transport model for APO, it is found that these high APO fluctuations are primarily attributable to O 2 emissions from the Greenland Sea, the Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea, due to marine biological productivity. Marine net community production, estimated based on the sea-to-air O 2 flux derived from observed APO fluctuations, agrees with NPP obtained from satellite observations within an order of magnitude. The results obtained in this study have still some uncertainties, but our continuous observations of atmospheric δ(O 2 /N 2 ) and CO 2 mole fraction at Ny-Ålesund can play an important role in detecting possible changes in the carbon cycle in the near future.

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Section: Observation Site and Measurement Systemmentioning

confidence: 86%

Seasonal and short-term variations in atmospheric potential oxygen at Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard

Goto

Morimoto

Aoki

et al. 2017

Tellus B: Chemical and Physical Meteorology

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“…Atmospheric Data-Based Techniques CO 2 Inversions (Ciais et al, 1995;Francey et al, 1995;DIC Net Bousquet et al, 2000;Patra et al, 2005;Le Quéré et al, 2007) O 2 /N 2 Measurements (Keeling et al, 1996;Battle et al, 2000; DIC Net Keeling and Garcia, 2002;Bender et al, 2005;Manning and Keeling, 2006) 0.5 Pg C yr −1 (Table 2). If we assume uncertainties are independent between the different methods (Table 2) within a range of ±0.4-0.6 Pg C yr −1 , a simple propagation of the uncertainties within a combination of any two of these methods implies a total uncertainty on the multi-method approach of about ±0.6-0.8 Pg C yr −1 .…”

Section: The Multi-methods Approach To Estimate the Non-steady State Smentioning

confidence: 99%

The non-steady state oceanic CO2 signal: its importance, magnitude and a novel way to detect it

McNeil

Matear

2013

Biogeosciences

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Abstract. The role of the ocean has been pivotal in modulating rising atmospheric CO2 levels since the industrial revolution, sequestering nearly half of all fossil-fuel derived CO2 emissions. Net oceanic uptake of CO2 has roughly doubled between the 1960s (~1 Pg C yr−1) and 2000s (~2 Pg C yr−1), with expectations that it will continue to absorb even more CO2 with rising future atmospheric CO2 levels. However, recent CO2 observational analyses along with numerous model predictions suggest the rate of oceanic CO2 uptake is already slowing, largely as a result of a natural decadal-scale outgassing signal. This recent CO2 outgassing signal represents a significant shift in our understanding of the oceans role in modulating atmospheric CO2. Current tracer-based estimates for the ocean storage of anthropogenic CO2 assume the ocean circulation and biology is in steady state, thereby missing the new and potentially important "non-steady state" CO2 outgassing signal. By combining data-based techniques that assume the ocean is in a steady state, with techniques that constrain the net oceanic CO2 uptake signal, we show how to extract the non-steady state CO2 signal from observations. Over the entire industrial era, the non-steady state CO2 outgassing signal (~13 ± 10 Pg C) is estimated to represent about 9% of the total net CO2 inventory change (~142 Pg C). However, between 1989 and 2007, the non-steady state CO2 outgassing signal (~6.3 Pg C) has likely increased to be ~18% of net oceanic CO2 storage over that period (~36 Pg C). The present uncertainty of our data-based techniques for oceanic CO2 uptake limit our capacity to quantify the non-steady state CO2 signal, however with more data and better certainty estimates across a range of diverse methods, this important and growing CO2 signal could be better constrained in the future.

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“…For example, O 2 /N 2 ratios in the atmosphere can be used to infer partitioning of CO 2 between land and ocean sinks (e.g. McKinley et al, 2003;Bender et al, 2005) and O 2 measurements in the ocean can be used to infer net community production (e.g. Jenkins and Goldman, 1985;Craig and Hayward, 1987;Emerson, 1987).…”

Section: Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Air-sea gas exchange parameterizations are used in order to estimate CO 2 fluxes from maps of surface ocean pCO 2 , (Takahashi et al, 1997). Additionally, quantification of air-sea gas exchange fluxes is necessary for many types of biogeochemical research, such as in studies of euphotic zone oxygen measurements for determining net production (Craig and Hayward, 1987;Emerson, 1987;Spitzer and Jenkins, 1989), 3 He measurements for determining new production (Jenkins, 1988b;Jenkins and Doney, 2003), and O 2 /N 2 and APO calculations McKinley et al, 2003;Bender et al, 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A determination of air-sea gas exchange and upper ocean biological production from five noble gases and tritiugenic helium-3

Stanley¹

2007

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The five noble gases (helium, neon, argon, krypton, and xenon) are biologically and chemically inert, making them ideal oceanographic tracers. Additionally, the noble gases have a wide range of solubilities and molecular diffusivities, and thus respond differently to physical forcing. Tritium, an isotope of hydrogen, is useful in tandem with its daughter helium-3 as a tracer for water mass ages. In this thesis, a fourteen month time-series of the five noble gases, helium-3 and tritium was measured at the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) site. The time-series of five noble gases was used to develop a parameterization of air-sea gas exchange for oligotrophic waters and wind speeds between 0 and 13 m s −1 that explicitly includes bubble processes and that constrains diffusive gas exchange to ± 6% and complete and partial air injection processes to ± 15%. Additionally, the parameterization is based on weeks to seasonal time scales, matching the time scales of many relevant biogeochemical cycles. The time-series of helium isotopes, tritium, argon, and oxygen was used to constrain upper ocean biological production. Specifically, the helium flux gauge technique was used to estimate new production, apparent oxygen utilization rates were used to quantify export production, and euphotic zone seasonal cycles of oxygen and argon were used to determine net community production. The concurrent use of these three methods allows examination of the relationship between the types of production and begins to address a number of apparent inconsistencies in the elemental budgets of carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen.

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Atmospheric O₂/N₂ changes, 1993–2002: Implications for the partitioning of fossil fuel CO₂ sequestration

Cited by 98 publications

References 56 publications

Seasonal and short-term variations in atmospheric potential oxygen at Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard

Seasonal and short-term variations in atmospheric potential oxygen at Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard

The non-steady state oceanic CO<sub>2</sub> signal: its importance, magnitude and a novel way to detect it

A determination of air-sea gas exchange and upper ocean biological production from five noble gases and tritiugenic helium-3

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Atmospheric O2/N2 changes, 1993–2002: Implications for the partitioning of fossil fuel CO2 sequestration

Cited by 98 publications

References 56 publications

Seasonal and short-term variations in atmospheric potential oxygen at Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard

Seasonal and short-term variations in atmospheric potential oxygen at Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard

The non-steady state oceanic CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; signal: its importance, magnitude and a novel way to detect it

A determination of air-sea gas exchange and upper ocean biological production from five noble gases and tritiugenic helium-3

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Product

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Atmospheric O₂/N₂ changes, 1993–2002: Implications for the partitioning of fossil fuel CO₂ sequestration

The non-steady state oceanic CO<sub>2</sub> signal: its importance, magnitude and a novel way to detect it