Do we have enough pieces of the jigsaw to integrate CO2 fluxes in the coastal ocean?

Abstract

Annually integrated air-water CO2 flux data in 44 coastal environments were compiled from literature. Data were gathered in 8 major ecosystems (inner estuaries, outer estuaries, whole estuarine systems, mangroves, salt marshes, coral reefs, upwelling systems, and open continental shelves), and up-scaled in the first attempt to integrate air-water CO 2 fluxes over the coastal ocean (26 × 106 km 2), taking into account its geographical and ecological diversity. Air-water CO2 fluxes were then up-scaled in global ocean (362 × 106 km2) using the present estimates for the coastal ocean and those from Takahashi et al. (2002) for the open ocean (336 × 106 km2). If estuaries and salt marshes are not taken into consideration in the up-scaling, the coastal ocean behaves as a sink for atmospheric CO2 (-1.17 mol C m-2 yr-1) and the uptake of atmospheric CO2 by the global ocean increases by 24% (-1.93 versus -1.56 Pg C yr-1). The inclusion of the coastal ocean increases the estimates of CO2 uptake by the global ocean by 57% for high latitude areas (-0.44 versus -0.28 Pg C yr-1) and by 15% for temperate latitude areas (-2.36 versus -2.06 Pg C yr-1). At subtropical and tropical latitudes, the contribution from the coastal ocean increases the CO2 emission to the atmosphere from the global ocean by 13% (0.87 versus 0.77 Pg C yr-1). If estuaries and salt marshes are taken into consideration in the up-scaling, the coastal ocean behaves as a source for atmospheric CO2 (0.38 mol C m-2 yr -1) and the uptake of atmospheric CO2 from the global ocean decreases by 12% (-1.44 versus -1.56 Pg C yr-1). At high and subtropical and tropical latitudes, the coastal ocean behaves as a source for atmospheric CO2 but at temperate latitudes, it still behaves as a moderate CO2 sink. A rigorous up-scaling of air-water CO2 fluxes in the coastal ocean is hampered by the poorly constrained estimate of the surface area of inner estuaries. The present estimates clearly indicate the significance of this biogeochemically, highly active region of the biosphere in the global CO2 cycle. © 2005 Estuarine Research Federation.