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Arctic Carbon Cycle: Patterns, Impacts and Possible Changes

  • Chapter
The New Arctic

Abstract

Land and ocean uptake and release of carbon dioxide and methane play important roles for regulating their atmospheric concentrations. For example, over the industrialised period the terrestrial biosphere and global oceans have acted as net sinks of carbon dioxide, having absorbed CO2 corresponding to more than 50 % of the accumulated emissions from fossil fuel burning, cement production and land-use change. This uptake has clearly reduced the human footprint on climate development. However, we cannot expect that the strength of these sinks will remain unaltered in the future as the processes that are involved are sensitive to climate change. This is in particular the case for the Arctic where ocean circulation changes, sea-ice and permafrost thaw and increased land and ocean primary production—all excerting direct influence on CO2 and methane—are expected to occur. Further, the ocean uptake of CO2 leads to ocean acidification that may have deletorious effects on many marine organisms. The Arctic Ocean appears particularly vulnerable to this threat. In this contribution we provide an overview of the land and ocean components of the Arctic carbon cycle and their climate change sensitivities.

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Acknowledgement

Figure 8.2 kindly prepared by Miss. Kristin Linga

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Geophysical Institute, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Are Olsen PhD & Christoph Heinze PhD

  2. Uni Climate, Uni Research AS, Bergen, Norway

    Are Olsen PhD & Christoph Heinze PhD

  3. Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, Bergen, Norway

    Are Olsen PhD & Christoph Heinze PhD

  4. Department of Marine Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Medicinaregatan 9 c, Göteborg, 40530, Sweden

    Leif G. Anderson PhD

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Correspondence to Are Olsen PhD .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical Microbiology, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden

    Birgitta Evengård

  2. Stefansson Arctic Institute, Akureyri, Iceland

    Joan Nymand Larsen

  3. Department of Research Management, University of Bergen Bergen Marine Research Cluster, Bergen, Norway

    Øyvind Paasche

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Olsen, A., Anderson, L.G., Heinze, C. (2015). Arctic Carbon Cycle: Patterns, Impacts and Possible Changes. In: Evengård, B., Nymand Larsen, J., Paasche, Ø. (eds) The New Arctic. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17602-4_8

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