Temporal changes in natural and anthropogenic CO2 in the North Atlantic Ocean

Abstract

The carbon cycle in the ocean is affected by changes in climate and, at the same time, its alteration causes changes in other cycles or / and biogeochemical variables, bringing all this, adverse consequences for ocean ecosystems. The CO2 system in seawater has been characterized by four measurable carbonate system variables (total dissolved inorganic carbon (CT), total alkalinity (AT), fugacity of CO2 (fCO2) and pH) and by the thermodynamic relations, which involve the dissociation constants of carbonic acid. Thanks to the recent spectrophotometric method for measuring , a fifth carbonate variable can be considered. Knowing two of the five observables carbonate system variables, the remaining ones are computed using the thermodynamics constants. The analytical methodologies for each variable are detailed in subsection 2. Analytical methodologies to measure carbonate variables (pH, AT, CT y ) and O2 (inside II. Data and methodology), but, in order to get an internally consistent system, it is worth saying here the importance of precision and accuracy of these measurements.