High-Resolution Mapping Reveals Carbon Sink Details

A new satellite-based product can now map the ocean carbon sink at unprecedented resolution.

Although the oceanic sink for the human-induced carbon dioxide reduces global warming, there are significant biogeochemical consequences. This uptake leads to a reduction in seawater pH and alters the carbonate chemistry of the ocean. These changes in ocean chemistry, often collectively referred to as ocean acidification, impact marine organisms and alter marine ecosystems.

Although scientists have made significant progress in understanding how the global ocean carbon sink changes over seasons and decades, its short-term variability is still not well understood.

Most global datasets currently used to study the ocean carbon sink only provide monthly data and have a resolution of about 100 by 100 kilometers. This limited temporal and spatial resolution makes it difficult to capture the finer, more dynamic changes governing the ocean sink.

Nicolas Gruber, from the ETH Zurich University in Switzerland, said: “Increasing the resolution of these global datasets is challenging because the number of direct measurements of carbon dioxide at the ocean’s surface is rather sparse across all regions and times.

“To address this, we came up with a creative mix of machine learning methods to develop a new version of our OceanSODA-ETHZ