Nature – Wang et al. (2023): Biological carbon pump estimate based on multidecadal hydrographic data

Wei-Lei Wang, Weiwei Fu, Frédéric A. C. Le Moigne, Robert T. Letscher, Yi Liu, Jin-Ming Tang, François W. Primeau IN: Nature, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06772-4

The transfer of photosynthetically produced organic carbon from surface to mesopelagic waters draws carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. However, current observation-based estimates disagree on the strength of this biological carbon pump (BCP). Earth system models (ESMs) also exhibit a large spread of BCP estimates, indicating limited representations of the known carbon export pathways. Here the authors use several decades of hydrographic observations to produce a top-down estimate of the strength of the BCP with an inverse biogeochemical model that implicitly accounts for all known export pathways.

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