Quantifying and predicting Canada's ocean carbon sink

The ocean absorbs about one third of the carbon dioxide produced by human activities, resulting in*substantially lower atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and slower rates of climate change. However, the ocean's*carbon absorption rate is vulnerable to climate change and is likely to decrease in the future. Despite its*importance and vulnerability, the rate at which the ocean absorbs carbon is surprisingly poorly known,*especially how variable it may be on smaller regional scales. Canada has been investing significantly in new*technologies to observe the ocean and in expanded numerical modelling resources. Our proposed Marine*Carbon Sink project seeks to capitalize on these investments by developing techniques to transform new*observations of marine carbon into reliable estimates of the ocean's carbon absorption rate. This will involve*calibrating and quality controlling the observations, determining air-sea fluxes from the observations,*quantifying the impact of biological processes on carbon, and integrating different measurements into a single*regional average. Our project also seeks to improve predictions from numerical computer models. This will*involve determining the strengths and weaknesses of different models, quantifying the extent to which*observed changes are driven by long-term climate change as opposed to natural variability, and establishing*which marine processes need to be included in models to obtain the most accurate predictions of future ocean*carbon absorption. We will accomplish these objectives by forming a network of students and a postdoctoral*researcher with academic and government scientists across Canada to advance our understanding of carbon*dynamics in Canada's three ocean regions and to develop integrated observational/modelling techniques to*quantify and predict the ocean's natural role as an important carbon sink.