Studying CO2 processes in the ocean

The five-year “Carboocean” project studies processes related to the uptake of CO2 by the oceans.

This integrated EU project, which involves more than 40 research groups from all over Europe , and is also collaborating with a number of institutions in the USA , is coordinated by the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research.

Anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are currently equivalent to more than 6 million tonnes of carbon a year. Since 1995, the University of Bergen has been measuring CO2 pressure at the surface of the sea and in the atmosphere, mostly in the Greenland Sea , but also in the Norwegian Sea and around Iceland . One of the aims of “Carboocean” is to quantify the annual uptake of CO2 by the sea on the basis of the results obtained by a number of measurement stations, as well as to study future variations.

The results of the modelling process suggest that we will see a increase in CO2 uptake by the sea, and this will first be noticeable at great depths at high latitudes. However, these calculations are extremely complicated, because they deal with slow processes, and because we still do not know enough about how ocean biomass will react to the raised content of CO2.

It is also difficult to distinguish between the signal caused by human influences and natural variations. If we wish to be able to say anything about the future climate, then, we will need a better understanding of CO2 exchange between the atmosphere and the ocean, identify the most important processes and find out how these operate. As well as attempting to map the ocean carbon cycle for the past two hundred years, the scientists in the integrated project will also use models to study how the cycle is likely to change in the course of the next two hundred years. They also aim to study the consequences of a rise in ocean CO2 levels.

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