PARIS: The enormous uptake of greenhouse gases is roughly equivalent to the European Union’s annual carbon output
The Southern Ocean has started to absorb more greenhouse gases after a period when the vast ocean’s uptake had slumped by about a half, a study has found.
The ocean’s role as a crucial carbon “sink” appeared to be waning throughout the 1990s, but after 2002 it began to rebound to its previous level, absorbing 1.2bn tonnes of carbon in 2011.
This enormous uptake, double that of its lowest point in the 1990s, is roughly equivalent to the European Union’s annual carbon output.
The huge Southern Ocean, which encircles Antarctica, accounts for 40% of all the carbon soaked up by the world’s oceans. In turn, all the oceans suck up a quarter of all the carbon emitted through human activity, including burning fuels such as coal, gas and oil.
Research by scientists based in Switzerland, France, the US and Australia, published in Science, found the Southern Ocean had “regained its expected strength”. Changes in winds and temperatures were given as a reason.
Its gargantuan carbon intake is due to its pattern of seawater circulation, which effectively takes carbon from the surface and buries it deep underwater.
“The evidence that the sink efficiency was decreasing was a concern, because it means that carbon dioxide accumulates more heavily in the atmosphere,” said a co-author, Bronte Tilbrook, who is a research scientist at CSIRO and the Antarctic and Climate Systems CRC.
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