Quantifying
the uptake of anthropogenic carbon by the oceans is a crucial component of
understanding the global carbon cycle. Accordingly there has been considerable
research in the area, and recently global estimates of the inventory and
decadal uptake of anthropogenic carbon have been made using carbon measurements
[Sabine et al., 2004] and CFC
measurements [McNeil et al., 2003]. However, these methods introduce several
assumptions that may introduce systematic biases. In particular, both methods assume that
mixing plays a negligible role in the transport. Here we estimate the ocean uptake, inventory,
and distribution of anthropogenic carbon (Cant) in the oceans using
the transit-time distribution (TTD) method (see Hall et al. 2004, Waugh et al.
2004), which avoids the assumption of weak mixing.
Author: D.W. Waugh , T.M. Hall, and B.I McNeil (waugh at jhu dot edu)
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