Theme 1 team
Team leaders
Team members
Sam Wilson (United States, stwilson@hawaii.edu)
Processes and impacts/stressors associated with long-lived greenhouse gases.
Research questions
Priorities
Planned activities
Current national and international programmes investigating ocean CO2 uptake in the Southern Ocean include the US National Science Foundation’s “Southern Ocean Carbon and Climate Observations and Modeling” (SOCCOM) project, the European Union’s "Integrated Carbon Observation System "(ICOS), the UK National Environmental Research Council funded projects “Role of the Southern Ocean in the Earth System” (RoSES), and “Ocean Regulation of Climate by Heat and Carbon Sequestration and Transports” (ORCHESTRA), and the European H2020 project “Southern Ocean Carbon and Heat Impact on Climate” (SO-CHIC). Further programmes investigating the ocean GHG fluxes include the “Atlantic Meridional Transect Ocean Flux from Satellite Campaign” (AMT4oceanSatFlux), “Role of Eddies in the Carbon Pump of Eastern Boundary Upwelling Systems” (REEBUS), "Biogeochemical processes and Air–sea exchange in the Sea-Surface microlayer" (BASS), "Exchange fluxes of climate-relevant trace gases off the Western Antarctic Peninsula" (EWARP), the Horizon Europe project Greenfeedback and the Boknis Eck time series station. Information on planned observational programmes and workshops can be found via the respective programme websites:
The community-led Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (www.socat.info) is used for quantification of ocean CO2 uptake and ocean acidification and for evaluation of climate models and sensor data. SOCAT has an annual release of quality-controlled in situ surface ocean fCO2 (fugacity of CO2) measurements for the global ocean and coastal seas from 1957 onwards. The value chain based on in situ inorganic carbon measurements of the ocean, of which SOCAT is part, provides policy makers with vital information in climate negotiations.
Following on the successes of the previous SOLAS/IMBER Carbon group (SIC), a new Integrated Ocean Carbon Research Group has been formed. This initiative is jointly sponsored by IOC, IMBER, SOLAS, IOCCP, GCP, CLIVAR, and WCRP. The group will identify the key research needs for ocean carbon science for the next decade, develop strategies to address these needs, and address the links to societal and policy applications. An initial expert group workshop was held at the International Oceanographic Commission, Paris, in October 2019; The group has published the report: “Integrated ocean carbon research: a summary of ocean carbon research, and vision of coordinated ocean carbon research and observations for the next decade” in 2021.