Proceedings of the NATO ASI on Ocean Carbon Cycle and Climate, Ankara, Turkey, from 5 to 16 August 2002.
The great questions that challenge our understanding of the global carbon cycle are: What are the basic oceanic mechanisms that control the oceanic carbon reservoirs and the partitioning of carbon between the ocean and the atmosphere? How do these mechanisms depend on the state of the climate system and how does the carbon cycle feed back to the climate? What is the current rate at which fossil fuel carbon dioxide is absorbed by the oceans and how might this change in the future?
The 11 peer-reviewed chapters in this book, all written by acknowledged experts in their field, are all linked by the overarching questions. Many significant areas are touched on and the book provides the most up-to-date synthesis of the state-of-the-art research in ocean carbon cycle and climate related science.
Preface.- List of Contributors.- 1. Ocean carbonate chemistry: the aquatic chemistry fundamentals.- 2. A primer on dissolved organic material and heterotrophic prokaryotes in the ocean.- 3. Modelling the response of the biological pump to climate change.- 4. The dynamics of the marine nitrogen cycle and its influence on atmospheric CO2 variations.- 5. Exploration of biogeochemical temporal variability.- 6. Remote sensing of the ocean from space.- 7. Mechanisms controlling the air-sea flux of CO2 in the North Atlantic - 8. The role of the oceans in the global carbon cycle: an overview.- 9. Ocean carbon cycle in a changing climate: climate change detection.- 10. Glacial-interglacial CO2 variations.- 11. Data assimilation into marine carbon models.