The JPI Oceans Knowledge Hub on Ocean Carbon Capacities focuses on the Ocean's role in absorbing carbon emissions. It assimilates around 25% of anthropogenic CO2, a reversal of the pre-industrial revolution flux. The uptake regulates the timing, scale, and cost of mitigation and adaptation measures, making it crucial to measure its strength and understand its mechanisms. The Knowledge Hub addresses three key areas: the supply of reference materials, the undersampling of surface CO2 concentrations in crucial Ocean areas, and the need for regular audits.
Addressing these areas will make key contributions to a wide range of activities undertaken within Europe and globally to strengthen Ocean carbon observation and the quality and quantity of advice being offered to policymakers regarding the status of the Ocean CO2 sink.
As an outcome of this networking and information exchange, the JPI Oceans Knowledge Hub on Ocean Carbon Capacities will result in the following outcomes linked to the three core areas:
- A roadmap for a European Hub for ocean carbon reference materials will be available
by mid-2025 on the basis of which an implementation plan is foreseen to be produced in
consultation with the science community, funding agencies and metrological laboratories - Existing observing systems on research vessels are being used more efficiently, aiming
at new data flowing to the Surface Ocean CO₂ Atlas (SOCAT) in 2025 in time for inclusion in
the Global Carbon Budget in 2026. - An evaluation of the state of surface ocean CO₂ observation in Europe for 2024 with
the ambition of annual updates thereafter. This will use a traffic light system where green
represents actions that are secure, amber ones that are under threat and red ones require
attention. The updates will provide recommendations for follow-up actions by JPI Oceans or
other players.
- The Knowledge Hub will contribute to and draw support from the current broad range of national actions underway in Ocean carbon cycle science and European metrology expertise, as gathered in the EU-funded MINKE project.
- The Knowledge Hub will connect small-scale initiatives by creating a European reference material production capacity and exploring potential solutions, contributing to a continental-scale solution.
- Using a collaborative approach by using observing systems on research vessels more efficiently and installing new ones will help address key observation gaps and enable the JPI Oceans' countries to work together while allowing each country to progress at its own pace and utilise its resources. Additionally, this approach will enable JPI Oceans' countries to report data regularly, including new data flowing to SOCAT for inclusion in the Global Carbon Budget.
- The Knowledge Hub will play a crucial role in various initiatives across Europe and worldwide aimed at enhancing the monitoring of Ocean carbon and improving the accuracy and amount of guidance provided to policymakers on the state of the Ocean CO2 sink.
The Scientific Lead Expert of the Ocean Carbon Capacities Knowledge Hub is Richard Sanders, NORCE, Norway.
- Thanos Gkritzalis, VLIZ, Belgium
- Peter Landschützer, VLIZ, Belgium
- Steve Jones, VLIZ, Belgium
- Toste Tanhua, GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Germany
- Steffen Seitz, PTB, Germany
- Yoana Voynova, Hereon, Germany
- Tobias Steinhoff, GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Germany
- Constantine Parinos, HCMR, Greece
- Louisa Giannoudi, HCMR, Greece
- Constantin Frangoulis, HCMR, Greece
- Evin Mc Govern, Marine Institute, Ireland
- Peter Croot, NUI Galway, Ireland
- Karol Kulinski, IOPAN, Poland
- Marcos Morente Fontela, UALG, Portugal
External experts:
- Maribel Garcia-Ibanez, Spanish Institute of Oceanography, Spain
- Dorothee Bakker, University of East Anglia, United Kingdom
The ocean assimilates approximately 25% of the CO2 we emit into the atmosphere, termed anthropogenic CO2. This represents a reversal of the natural pre-industrial revolution flux, i.e. before industrialisation, the ocean was a small net source of CO2 to the atmosphere. The future evolution of this uptake will partially regulate the timing, scale and cost of mitigation and adaptation measures. Hence, considerable interest is in measuring its strength and understanding the mechanisms that control it. Net Ocean CO2 uptake is the slight difference between two much larger terms: gross uptake from the atmosphere and emissions to the atmosphere, which are geographically and temporally segregated. Hence, measuring net uptake requires a dense measuring network, data management, synthesis and reporting activities. This so-called ‘value chain’ exists, with its ultimate end product being an estimate of ocean carbon uptake delivered to the COP each year via the Global Carbon Budget. In recent years, a divergence has emerged between the data-based estimate of ocean carbon uptake and parallel model estimates, with the scale of the divergence being equivalent in size to annual European CO2 emissions. The JPI Oceans Knowledge Hub on Ocean Carbon Capacities will address these uncertainties, which have become a central theme of contemporary Ocean carbon cycle science.