Southern Ocean Air-Sea Carbon Fluxes from Aircraft Observations: Modeling Datasets

The Southern Ocean plays an important role in determining atmospheric CO2, yet estimates of air-sea CO2 flux for the region diverge widely. We constrain Southern Ocean air-sea CO2 exchange by relating fluxes to horizontal and vertical CO2 gradients in atmospheric transport models and then apply atmospheric observations of these gradients to estimate fluxes. Aircraft-based measurements of the vertical atmospheric CO2 gradient provide robust flux constraints. We find an annual-mean flux of –0.55±0.23 Pg C yr–1 (net uptake) south of 45°S during 2009–2018. This is consistent with the mean of atmospheric-inversion estimates and surface-ocean pCO2-based products, but our data indicate stronger annual-mean uptake than suggested by recent interpretations of profiling-float observations.

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Questions? Email Resource Support Contact:

  • Matthew Long
    mclong@ucar.edu
    UCAR/NCAR - Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory

Keywords

Resource Type dataset
Temporal Range Begin N/A
Temporal Range End N/A
Temporal Resolution N/A
Bounding Box North Lat N/A
Bounding Box South Lat N/A
Bounding Box West Long N/A
Bounding Box East Long N/A
Spatial Representation N/A
Spatial Resolution N/A
Related Links N/A
Additional Information N/A
Resource Format Gzip Compressed Archive (application/gzip)
text/plain
Standardized Resource Format ASCII
Archive
Asset Size N/A
Legal Constraints

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Access Constraints None
Software Implementation Language N/A

Resource Support Name Matthew Long
Resource Support Email mclong@ucar.edu
Resource Support Organization UCAR/NCAR - Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory
Distributor N/A
Metadata Contact Name GDEX Curator
Metadata Contact Email datahelp@ucar.edu
Metadata Contact Organization UCAR/NCAR - GDEX

Author Long, Matthew
Stephens, Britton B.
McKain, Kathryn
Sweeney, Colm
Chandra, Naveen
Chevallier, Frederic
Luijkx, Ingrid T.
Patra, Prabir
Peters, Wouter
Rödenbeck, Christian
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - GDEX
Publication Date 2021-08-26
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) https://doi.org/10.5065/fepv-0z52
Alternate Identifier N/A
Resource Version N/A
Topic Category N/A
Progress N/A
Metadata Date 2022-10-20T10:12:05-06:00
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.gdex::01534217-c94f-45ff-8a16-ba05408df347
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Long, Matthew, Stephens, Britton B., McKain, Kathryn, Sweeney, Colm, Chandra, Naveen, Chevallier, Frederic, Luijkx, Ingrid T., Patra, Prabir, Peters, Wouter, Rödenbeck, Christian. (2021). Southern Ocean Air-Sea Carbon Fluxes from Aircraft Observations: Modeling Datasets. UCAR/NCAR - GDEX. https://doi.org/10.5065/fepv-0z52. Accessed 25 October 2025.

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