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Down‐welling circulation of the northwest European continental shelf: A driving mechanism for the continental shelf carbon pump
Author(s) -
Holt Jason,
Wakelin Sarah,
Huthnance John
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2009gl038997
Subject(s) - pycnocline , continental shelf , oceanography , sink (geography) , carbon sink , environmental science , geology , temperate climate , ocean current , carbon cycle , climate change , geography , ecosystem , ecology , cartography , biology , botany
Annually integrated measurements of pCO 2 have demonstrated that seasonally stratified regions of temperate shelf seas can be an important sink of atmospheric CO 2 . A key process to support this sink is the transport of carbon from shelf seas to below the permanent pycnocline of the deep ocean. Using a hydrodynamic model simulation of the northwest European Continental shelf, we find that both the large scale circulation and frictional processes support the off‐shelf transport of carbon sufficiently quickly to remove ∼40% of the carbon sequestered by one growing season before the onset of the next. This transport is highly heterogeneous, with some regions being only weakly flushed. Only 52% of this exported carbon is transported below the permanent pycnocline, hence the shelf sea and open ocean carbon cycles are intrinsically coupled.