The Role of Ocean Carbon Transport in the Global Carbon Cycle

This issue addresses the present-day budget for anthropogenic CO 2 , and particularly the distribution and controlling factors of net terrestrial sinks for atmospheric CO 2 . The latter are of increasing political and economic importance under international CO2 mitigation agreements. Inverse modelling of meridional and zonal atmospheric, data(e.g. CO 2 , O 2, C), is one way to constrain terrestrial sources and sinks on large spatial and temporal scales. Such modelling benefits from carbon transport estimates because ocean transports create gradients in atmospheric CO 2 which must be diagnosed in order to resolve spatial gradients arising from fossil-fuel emissions and net terrestrial sinks.