Quantifying the uptake of anthropogenic CO2 in coastal East Antarctica

Supervisory Team:

Zanna Chase

Elizabeth Shadwick

Brief project description:

Southern Ocean waters are becoming warmer, fresher, less oxygenated and more acidic (“heating up, losing breath and turning sour”). Changes are happening both from the north as warming boundary currents push further southward, and from the south as the Antarctic cryosphere melts. The implications of these changes for global and regional marine productivity, global ocean carbon uptake and in turn atmospheric CO2 levels, are poorly understood.

Tracking the oceanic uptake of anthropogenic CO2 requires high-quality observations collected over many years. This project will use oceanographic and biogeochemical data collected in 2021 on the Trends in Euphausiids off Mawson, Predators and Oceanography (TEMPO) as well as collected in on the BROKE-West voyage in 2006 to quantify the increase in dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and evaluate the progress of Ocean Acidification in the East Antarctic coastal region.

Skills students will develop during this research project:

• Computer languages such as Matlab
• Accessing and analysing large datasets such as satellite and Argo data as well as discrete bottle data collected at sea
• Understanding of the Southern Ocean CO2 system and biogeochemical cycles