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Oceanography

Carbon streams into the deep Arctic Ocean

Nature Geoscience volume 16, pages 6–7 (2023)Cite this article

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Widespread injection of deep water from the Barents Sea into the Nansen Basin makes a substantial contribution to carbon sequestration in the Arctic Ocean, and feeds the deep sea community.

The polar oceans are particularly important for our climate and global ocean circulation because they are the formation sites of highly dense waters due to the intense cooling occurring during winter on the shallow shelf seas3. When formed, these dense waters tend to cascade into the deeper layers of the oceans, becoming an active part of the global circulation of our oceans4,5. The combination of biological and physical processes taking place in the polar oceans during different seasons make these regions very special. The oceans are responsible for the sequestration of carbon dioxide into the deep ocean at very long time scales, from centuries to millennia6, including the Arctic Ocean7. While more knowledge of the connection of these processes has been gained for the Southern Ocean8, much less is known on dense water formation and carbon sequestration in the Arctic Ocean.

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Fig. 1: Phytoplankton bloom in the surface waters of the Barents Sea in the Arctic Ocean.

NASA Earth Observatory.

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  1. Geosciences Research Division, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California – San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Manfredi Manizza

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  1. Manfredi Manizza
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Correspondence to Manfredi Manizza.

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Manizza, M. Carbon streams into the deep Arctic Ocean. Nat. Geosci. 16, 6–7 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-01102-1

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