Revised estimates of ocean-atmosphere CO2 flux accounting for near-surface temperature and salinity deviations from 1985-01-01 to 2019-12-31 (NCEI Accession 0301544)

Published by NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce | Metadata Last Checked: October 13, 2025 | Last Modified: 2025-02-05T00:00:00.000+00:00

The ocean is a sink for ~25% of the atmospheric CO2 emitted by human activities, an amount in excess of 2 petagrams of carbon per year (PgC yr−1). Time-resolved estimates of global ocean-atmosphere CO2 flux provide an important constraint on the global carbon budget. However, previous estimates of this flux, derived from surface ocean CO2 concentrations, have not corrected the data for temperature gradients between the surface and sampling at a few meters depth, or for the effect of the cool ocean surface skin. Here we calculate a time history of ocean-atmosphere CO2 fluxes from 1992 to 2018, corrected for these effects. These increase the calculated net flux into the oceans significantly.

Find Related Datasets

Click any tag below to search for similar datasets

Complete Metadata

describedByType	application/octet-steam
identifier	gov.noaa.nodc:0301544
issued	2025-02-05T00:00:00.000+00:00
landingPage	https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/contact
language	[]
references	[ "https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/ocean-carbon-acidification-data-system", "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18203-3", "https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/ocean-carbon-acidification-data-system/oceans/" ]
rights	otherRestrictions
spatial	180.0,-90.0,-180.0,90.0
temporal	1985-01-01T00:00:00+00:00/2019-12-31T00:00:00+00:00