Interannual variability of air-sea fluxes of carbon dioxide and oxygen

The currently observed increase in atmospheric CO2 due anthropogenic emissions is substantially slowed by natural processes that incorporate CO2 into the terrestrial biota and the ocean. Year-to-year changes in the CO2 growth rate that exceed variations in the fossil fuel source indicate a significant variability in these global CO2 sinks. However, the enormous complexity of the terrestrial and oceanic biogeochemical systems that absorb atmospheric CO2 makes these sinks extremely difficult to understand and precisely quantify. Many techniques, including the interpretation of the relative changes in atmospheric CO2 and O2/N2, ocean modeling, and atmospheric data inversions, have been employed to estimate the mean and variability of global CO2 sinks. However, uncertainty remains large. The goal of this thesis is to improve understanding of global CO2 sinks by considering (1) the error in the atmospheric O2/N2 partitioning method due to the neglect of interannual variability in the air-sea fluxes of 02, and (2) the interannual variability of the ocean CO2 sink.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2002

Author dc:creator

• McKinley, Galen Anile, 1973-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• John C. Marshall.

• Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/16824
• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Identifier URI

http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/16824

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/16824