HENSON , Stephanie A.

The ocean contributes to regulating atmospheric CO2 levels, partly via variability in the fraction of primary production (PP) which is exported out of the surface layer (i.e., theeratio). Southern Ocean studies have found that contrary to global-scale analyses, an inverse relationship exists betweeneratio and PP. This relationship remains...

The biological carbon pump, driven principally by the surface production of sinking organic matter and its subsequent remineralization to carbon dioxide (CO2) in the deep ocean, maintains atmospheric CO2 concentrations around 200 ppm lower than they would be if the ocean were abiotic. One important driver of the magnitude of this effect is the...