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Artificial Upwelling - A New Narrative
  • Malte Jürchott,
  • Andreas Oschlies,
  • Wolfgang Koeve
Malte Jürchott
GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Andreas Oschlies
Helmholtz-Zentrum für Ozeanforschung Kiel, GEOMAR
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Wolfgang Koeve
Helmholtz-Zentrum für Ozeanforschung Kiel, GEOMAR
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Abstract

The current narrative of artificial upwelling (AU) is to use ocean pipes to pump nutrient rich deep water to the ocean surface, thereby stimulating the biological carbon pump. This simplistic concept of AU does not take the response of the solubility pump or the CO2 emission scenario into account. Using global ocean-atmosphere model experiments and several idealized model tracers we show that the effectiveness of almost globally applied AU from the year 2020 to 2100 to draw down CO2 from the atmosphere is strongly dependent on the CO2 emission scenario and ranges from 1.01 Pg C / year under RCP 8.5 to 0.32 Pg C / year under RCP 2.6. The solubility pump becomes equally effective compared to the biological carbon pump under the highest emission scenario (RCP 8.5), but responds with CO2 outgassing under low CO2emission scenarios.