Recent increase of DIC in the western North Pacific

• Published in: Marine chemistry Vol. 72; no. 2; pp. 317 - 328
• Main Authors: Ono, Tsuneo, Watanabe, Yutaka W, Watanabe, Shuichi
• Format: Journal Article Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 01.12.2000; Elsevier Science
• Subjects: Anthropogenic effects; Carbon cycles; Earth sciences; Earth, ocean, space; Exact sciences and technology; External geophysics; Geochemistry; Marine; Mineralogy; North Pacific; Physical and chemical properties of sea water; Physics of the oceans; Silicates; Total dissolved inorganic carbon; Water geochemistry; Far East; Northwest Pacific; Japan; INW, North Pacific; Carbon cycles; Anthropogenic effects; Total dissolved inorganic carbon; North Pacific; sea water; carbon dioxide; time variations; hydrochemistry; Asia; carbon; Pacific Ocean; dissolved materials; middens; carbon cycle; GEOSECS
• ISSN: 0304-4203; 1872-7581
• DOI: 10.1016/S0304-4203(00)00093-1

The temporal variation of the total dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) content in the western North Pacific is investigated by comparing the DIC distribution obtained from the data sets of three different periods, the GEOSECS data observed in 1973, the CO 2 dynamics Cruise data observed in 1982, and recent Japanese data sets observed during the early 1990s. The overall feature of the signal of temporal DIC change during 1973 and early 1990s agreed with that of former studies, and did not significantly change with the calculation scheme (the grid-selection method vs. the multiple regression method). The observed increase in DIC among the different time scales showed a good inner consistency, which also indicates the stability of the method used in the DIC change calculation. The apparent rate of increase of the DIC inventory in the upper 1000 m water column, however, differed significantly by the data set used for the calculation: It was 5.6±2.4 g C/m 2/year, based on the data comparison between 1982 and the early 1990s, while it became 7.6±2.4 g C/m 2/year when based on the data between 1973 and the early 1990s. This result provides us an information about the data-dependency on the former estimation of temporal DIC change.