We’re excited to share this immersive story of Ocean Carbon, developed using research from the OC4C project and sister project SCOPE
Link to story: click and start your own immersive journey through the story of Ocean Carbon
For millions of years, the ocean exhaled more CO2 than it absorbed because far more carbon was stored in its waters than in the atmosphere above. But, as countries industrialised, starting with the development of steam engines, this balance shifted. The widespread burning of fossil fuels caused atmospheric carbon levels to rise beyond what was naturally held in the ocean.
As a result, the ocean began absorbing more CO2 than it exhaled. Human activity has converted the entire ocean from a natural net carbon source to our planet’s largest carbon sink.
‘The ocean carbon sink is a forced system, says Jamie Shutler, a professor of Earth Observation and Climate at the University of Exeter and the scientific lead of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Ocean Carbon for Climate. The Earth system is always trying to equalise the gas concentrations. If more carbon is added to the atmosphere, this forces the ocean to try to absorb it to balance the concentration across the atmosphere and water interface.‘
Satellites have monitored the ocean for over four decades. Since 2008, ESA’s Climate Change Initiative (CCI) has combined data from successive missions to create the long-term records needed to track ocean change, something no single satellite can do alone.
OC4C and its partner project, SCOPE use this CCI data to produce research that feeds into major climate assessments, from the Global Carbon Budget and the Potsdam Institute’s Planetary Health Checks, to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports that shape global climate policy.”