Japan Meteorological Agency Starts Providing Information on CO2 Uptake by the World's Oceans

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The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) announced on November 6, 2013, that it has begun providing information on the global ocean carbon dioxide (CO2) uptake. The periodic release of such data is the first of its kind in the nation and is available on a JMA website called " Marine Diagnosis Report"

According to the Fifth Assessment Report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), oceans are major carbon sinks on Earth, absorbing about 30 percent of the CO2 emitted by industrial activities, and are therefore becoming more acidic. Scientists are concerned that if global CO2 emissions continue to increase at current rates, the oceans' ability to absorb CO2 in the air may be reduced, which could induce more acceleration of global warming.

Observations collected by JMA's research vessels and those obtained through an international network of oceanographic observations, show that the global ocean CO2 uptake between 1990 and 2011 was 1.9 billion tons of carbon per year on average, and the figure was on the rise in recent years.

JMA's research findings, which are derived from long-term observations, were cited in the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report, contributing to the progress in monitoring and prediction of Earth's climate change, including global warming and ocean acidification.