News Oceans

The Southern Ocean is still swallowing large amounts of humans’ carbon dioxide emissions

Aircraft data counter ocean float studies suggesting the ocean stores less CO2 than thought

image of sea ice in the Southern Ocean taken from the window of an airplane

Equipped with sensors to measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, this airplane winged across sea ice in the Southern Ocean (shown) during a 2016 field campaign to measure how much gas the waters were emitting.

Rebecca Hornbrook/NCAR

By Carolyn Gramling

- More than 2 years ago

The Southern Ocean is still busily absorbing large amounts of the carbon dioxide emitted by humans’ fossil fuel burning, a study based on airborne observations of the gas suggests.