Global analysis of surface ocean CO2 fugacity and air-sea fluxes with
low latency
Abstract
The Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT) of CO2 fugacity (fCO2) observations
is a key resource supporting annual assessments of CO2 uptake by the
ocean and its side effects on the marine ecosystem. SOCAT data are
usually released with a lag of up to 1.5 years which hampers timely
quantification of recent variations of carbon fluxes between the Earth
System components, not only with the ocean. This study uses a
statistical ensemble approach to analyse fCO2 with a latency of one
month only based on the previous SOCAT release and a series of
predictors. A retrospective prediction for the years 2021-2022 is made
to test the model skill, followed by the generation of fCO2 and fluxes
from January to August in 2023. Results indicate a modest degradation of
the model skill in prediction mode and open the possibility to provide
robust information about marine carbonate system variables with low
latency.