Abstract
Ocean ventilation as a driver of interannual variability in atmospheric potential oxygen
Highlights
The Scripps Institution of Oceanography global flask sampling network has produced time-series records of the variation in atmospheric O2 concentrations, reported as O2/N2 ratios, at a growing number of sampling sites dating to the early 1990s
We present observations of interannual variability on 2–5 yr timescales in atmospheric potential oxygen (APO ≈ O2 +CO2) from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography global flask sampling network
We have presented observations of interannual variability in APO from atmospheric measurements of O2 and CO2, which must be related to variability in air–sea fluxes of this tracer
Summary
The Scripps Institution of Oceanography global flask sampling network has produced time-series records of the variation in atmospheric O2 concentrations, reported as O2/N2 ratios, at a growing number of sampling sites dating to the early 1990s. A companion paper, Rodenbeck et al (2008), uses the Scripps flask network observations and an inversion of an atmospheric transport model to derive spatial information on interannual variability in air–sea fluxes. The annual-mean spatial gradient in APO has been used as a validation test of the air–sea O2 and CO2 fluxes generated by global ocean carbon models (Stephens et al, 1998; Gruber et al, 2001; Battle et al, 2006; Naegler et al, 2007). In a companion paper, Rodenbeck et al (2008) show that the OPA-PISCES-T model, a state-of-the-art combined ocean circulation and biogeochemistry model (Le Quereet al., 2007), underestimates the interannual variability in air–sea APO fluxes by a factor of two or more, a deficiency likely shared by other existing models. We conclude that variability in ventilation rates is the most likely driver of the largest variations observed so far in the APO record
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