Oceanic uptake of CO₂ enhanced by mesoscale eddies.

ABSTRACT: Oceanic mesoscale eddies play a crucial but underexplored role in regulating carbon fluxes and climate change. While they redistribute heat, salt, nutrients, and other tracers, their effects on CO₂ uptake remain uncertain. Using observation-based machine learning to estimate CO₂ fluxes throughout the lifetimes of thousands of eddies, we show that anticyclonic eddies substantially enhance CO₂ uptake on average, while cyclonic eddies marginally diminish it. This asymmetry yields an overall net increase in CO₂ absorption by 9.98 ± 2.28 and 13.82 ± 9.94% in the Kuroshio Extension and Gulf Stream, respectively, major carbon sequestration regions. The primary driver of this enhanced uptake is the downward pumping of dissolved inorganic carbon within an

SUBMITTER: Li X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12154178 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature