The ocean holds 60 times more carbon than the atmosphere and absorbs almost 30% of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from human activities. This means the ocean is key to understanding the global carbon cycle and thus our future climate.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) uses earth system models to project climate change. These projections inform critical political, social and technological decisions. However, if we can’t accurately model the marine carbon cycle then we cannot truly understand how Earth’s climate will respond to different emission scenarios.
