Missing ocean data is biggest climate ‘misjudgement’
The North Atlantic is the planet’s most intense carbon sink with around 30% of the world’s oceans harvested of carbon dioxide.
It stores 50 times more carbon than the atmosphere, and takes up as much carbon as all global rainforests put together.
Today’s climate goals, however, do not capture the effect of our changing ocean, which recognizes its capacity.
Jonathan Wilkinson, Honourable Secretary for the Environment and Climate Change
For carbon removal technologies in the oceans, for instance, it is important to have the capacity to quantify the data credibly.
The biogeochemical carbon pump that supports the North Atlantic carbon sink is changing, with reasonable concern that climate estimates may not be valid if they fail to take this into account.
However, a critical underestimate continues to be made of the vital carbon-absorptive function of the north Atlantic Ocean.
