Nsikak U. Benson¹ , Oladele O. Osibanjo² , Francis E. Asuquo³ , Winifred U. Anake¹

1. Environmental Chemistry Unit, Department of Chemistry, School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria
2. Department of Chemistry, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria
3. Institute of Oceanography, Marine Chemistry Unit, University of Calabar, Nigeria
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Marine Science, 2014, Vol. 4, No. 72   doi: 10.5376/ijms.2014.04.0072
Received: 22 Sep., 2014    Accepted: 20 Oct., 2014    Published: 10 Dec., 2014

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Benson et al., 2014, Observed trends of pCO2 and air-sea CO2 fluxes in the North Atlantic Ocean, International Journal of Marine Science, Vol.4, No.72 1-7 (doi: 10.5376/ijms.2014.04.0072)

Observed partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO₂) and temperature data in surface and mixed layer seawater of the Northeast (49^oN, 16.5^oW) and Northwest (56.5^oN, 52.6^oW) Atlantic Ocean time series sites have been analyzed for seasonal variability and air-sea CO₂ fluxes. The NE PAP data showed an annual mean pCO₂ of 335.9 ± 89.6 matm (2003), 286.7 ± 103.5 matm (2004), and 335.9 ± 89.6 matm (2005). The annual data for NW KI deployments indicated annual pCO₂ average of 336.6 ± 14.3 and 359.1 ± 25.3 matm for 2004 and 2005 respectively. The oceanic pCO₂distribution across the spatial gradients over a seasonal timescale is relatively homogeneous with marked seasonal variability. These data indicated consistently the undersaturation of oceanic surface water at the sites and thus a perennial carbon sink. Sea surface pCO₂ trend is marked by summertime minimum and wintertime maximum, while depicting anti-phase patterns with the observed temperature signals. Seasonal to annual CO₂ fluxes indicated a year-round CO₂ invasion of the NE and NW basins. Estimated net basin-scale CO₂ uptake fluxes of 2.96 ± 1.73 and 1.84 ± 1.3 mol m^-2 CO₂ a^-1 were obtained for NE PAP (2nd - 4th) and NW K1 deployments, respectively.

pCO₂; air-sea CO2 fluxes; seasonal variability; temperature trends; North Atlantic Ocean