The
Southern Annular Mode (SAM) is the
leading mode of intraseasonal to interannual variability over the entire
Southern Hemisphere, yet the impact of the SAM
on the Southern Ocean carbon cycle is largely unknown. We investigate the
impact of the SAM on surface wind,
sea surface temperature (SST), chlorophyll concentration, and sea ice
concentration on the basis of 8-day averaged satellite observations. We find that Southern Ocean circulation and
biogeochemistry react quite sensitively to this mode of variability,
potentially resulting in air-sea CO2 flux anomalies. Since variations
in atmospheric CO2 congruent with the SAM
are small, we hypothesize that the SAM
produces anomalous air-sea fluxes of both natural and anthropogenic CO2,
which act to compensate each other.
Author: N.S. Lovenduski, N. Gruber, A. Hawes, and D.W.J. Thompson (nikki at atmos dot ucla dot edu)
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