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Science 16 July 2004:
Vol. 305. no. 5682, pp. 367 - 371
DOI: 10.1126/science.1097403
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Research Articles

The Oceanic Sink for Anthropogenic CO2

Christopher L. Sabine,1* Richard A. Feely,1 Nicolas Gruber,2 Robert M. Key,3 Kitack Lee,4 John L. Bullister,1 Rik Wanninkhof,5 C. S. Wong,6 Douglas W. R. Wallace,7 Bronte Tilbrook,8 Frank J. Millero,9 Tsung-Hung Peng,5 Alexander Kozyr,10 Tsueno Ono,11 Aida F. Rios12

Using inorganic carbon measurements from an international survey effort in the 1990s and a tracer-based separation technique, we estimate a global oceanic anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) sink for the period from 1800 to 1994 of 118 ± 19 petagrams of carbon. The oceanic sink accounts for ~48% of the total fossil-fuel and cement-manufacturing emissions, implying that the terrestrial biosphere was a net source of CO2 to the atmosphere of about 39 ± 28 petagrams of carbon for this period. The current fraction of total anthropogenic CO2 emissions stored in the ocean appears to be about one-third of the long-term potential.

1 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, 7600 Sand Point Way NE, Seattle, WA 98115, USA.
2 University of California–Los Angeles, Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics and Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.
3 Princeton University, Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, Forrestal Campus/Sayre Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
4 Pohang University of Science and Technology, San 31, Nam-gu, Hyoja-dong, Pohang 790-784, South Korea.
5 NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway, Miami, FL 33149, USA.
6 Institute of Ocean Sciences, Climate Chemistry Laboratory, Post Office Box 6000, Sidney, BC V8L 4B2, Canada.
7 Forschungsbereich Marine Biogeochemie, Leibniz Institut für Meereswissenschafte, an der Universität Kiel, (IFM-GEOMAR), Düsternbrooker Weg 20, D-24105 Kiel, Germany.
8 Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) Marine Research and Antarctic Climate and Ecosystem Cooperative Research Center, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia.
9 University of Miami, Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, Division of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, 4600 Rickenbacker Causeway, Miami, FL 33149, USA.
10 Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Mail Stop 6335, Oak Ridge, TN 37831–6335, USA.
11 Frontier Research System for Global Change/Institute for Global Change Research, Sumitomo Hamamatsu-cho, Building 4F, 1-18-16 Hamamatsutyo, Minato-ku, 105-0013, Japan.
12 Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas, Consejo Superior de Investigationes Cientificas, c/Eduardo Cabello, 6, 36208 Vigo, Spain.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: chris.sabine{at}noaa.gov

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