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Science 1 February 2008:
Vol. 319. no. 5863, p. 570
DOI: 10.1126/science.1147315
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Technical Comments

Response to Comments on "Saturation of the Southern Ocean CO2 Sink Due to Recent Climate Change"

Corinne Le Quéré,1,2* Christian Rödenbeck,3 Erik T. Buitenhuis,1 Thomas J. Conway,4 Ray Langenfelds,5 Antony Gomez,6 Casper Labuschagne,7 Michel Ramonet,8 Takakiyo Nakazawa,9 Nicolas Metzl,10 Nathan P. Gillett,11 Martin Heimann3

We estimated a weakening of the Southern Ocean carbon dioxide (CO2) sink since 1981 relative to the trend expected from the large increase in atmospheric CO2. We agree with Law et al. that network choice increases the uncertainty of trend estimates but argue that their network of five locations is too small to be reliable. A future reversal of Southern Ocean CO2 saturation as suggested by Zickfeld et al. is possible, but only at high atmospheric CO2 concentrations, and the effect would be temporary.

1 School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK.
2 British Antarctic Survey, High Cross, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0ET, UK.
3 Max Planck Institut für Biogeochemie, Postfach 100164, D-07701 Jena, Germany.
4 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Earth System Research Laboratory, 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80305, USA.
5 Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Marine and Atmospheric Research, PMB1, Aspendale, Victoria 3195, Australia.
6 National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research, Post Office Box 14-901, Wellington, New Zealand.
7 South African Weather Service, Post Office Box 320, Stellenbosch 7599, South Africa.
8 Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement/Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (LSCE/IPSL), Gif-sur-Yvettes, Cedex 91191, France.
9 Center for Atmospheric and Oceanic Studies, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8578, Japan.
10 Laboratoire d'Océanographie et du Climat: Expérimentation et Approches Numériques (LOCEAN/IPSL), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France.
11 Climatic Research Unit, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: c.lequere{at}uea.ac.uk

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