Separating the natural and anthropogenic air-sea flux of CO
2
: The Indian Ocean
Abstract
We estimate the natural and anthropogenic components of the air-sea flux of CO2 in the Indian Ocean. The increase in atmospheric CO2 driven by human activity has caused the air-sea CO2 disequilibrium, and consequently the flux, to increase significantly over the industrial era. We estimate the flux in the year 1780 to be approximately 0.2 Gt/yr, increasing by 0.26 Gt/yr to 0.5 Gt/yr in 2000. The estimate of the natural (preindustrial) flux is highly sensitive to uncertainties in modern-day CO2 disequilibrium measurements. By contrast, the estimate of the anthropogenic flux is only weakly sensitive to these measurements.
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