What role does the Southern Ocean play in the contemporary global carbon cycle?
Present estimates of the Austral annual sink of atmospheric CO2 vary between -0.1 to 0.6 GTC yr-1 for the part of the SO >50S. Up to day this negative air-sea d pCO2 fluxes are not reconcilable with outputs of atmospheric inversion models validated from the few CO2 Southern Hemisphere land stations. Increasing the number of land stations is requested. New approaches for a better integration of ocean and atmospheric data of CO2 and O2 are also strongly recommended. The modelled penetration of anthropogenic CO2 is very active south of 50S but its storage is low because anthropogenic carbon is rapidly transported northward isopycnally into the SubTropical Convergence. The modelled interannual variability of the net atmospheric CO2 sink, due to the 7-year cycle Antarctic Circumpolar Wave (linked to ENSO), is estimated at 0.2 GT C yr-1. Question 2: What controls the magnitude and variability of primary production and export production? Substantial uncertainty remains about the processes/fac
