Constraining the trend in the ocean CO sink during 2000-2022.

The ocean will ultimately store most of the CO emitted to the atmosphere by human activities. Despite its importance, estimates of the 2000-2022 trend in the ocean CO sink differ by a factor of two between observation-based products and process-based models. Here we address this discrepancy using a hybrid approach that preserves the consistency of known processes but constrains the outcome using observations. We show that the hybrid approach reproduces the stagnation of the ocean CO sink in the 1990s and its reinvigoration in the 2000s suggested by observation-based products and matches their amplitude. It suggests that process-based models underestimate the amplitude of the decadal variability in the ocean CO sink, but that observation-based products on average overestimate the decadal trend in the 2010s. The hybrid approach constrains the 2000-2022 trend in the ocean CO sink to 0.42 ± 0.06 Pg C yr decade, and by inference the total land CO sink to 0.28 ± 0.13 Pg C yr decade.