You are currently viewing the abstract.
View Full TextLog in to view the full text
AAAS login provides access to Science for AAAS members, and access to other journals in the Science family to users who have purchased individual subscriptions.
Register for free to read this article
As a service to the community, this article is available for free. Existing users log in.
More options
Download and print this article for your personal scholarly, research, and educational use.
Buy a single issue of Science for just $15 USD.
Abstract
It has been predicted that the Arctic Ocean will sequester much greater amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere as a result of sea ice melt and increasing primary productivity. However, this prediction was made on the basis of observations from either highly productive ocean margins or ice-covered basins before the recent major ice retreat. We report here a high-resolution survey of sea-surface CO2 concentration across the Canada Basin, showing a great increase relative to earlier observations. Rapid CO2 invasion from the atmosphere and low biological CO2 drawdown are the main causes for the higher CO2, which also acts as a barrier to further CO2 invasion. Contrary to the current view, we predict that the Arctic Ocean basin will not become a large atmospheric CO2 sink under ice-free conditions.
