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GOSAC
Global Ocean Storage of Anthropogenic
Carbon
1. Introduction
GOSAC is a 3-year project (1998-2000) co-funded by
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GOSAC-EC of the European Community (EC Environment and Climate XII-D2),
and
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GOSAC-IEAGHG of the International Energy Agency Greenhouse Gas Research
& Development Programme.
GOSAC aims to improve understanding of the ocean's role in the global carbon
cycle via comparison of ocean carbon-cycle models. GOSAC will help speed
the development of these models which are used to test and compare paradigms
of how the ocean's carbon-cycle operates. With its diverse group of models,
GOSAC will also provide uncertainty estimates to accompany model predictions.
GOSAC has three primary goals:
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Objective 1: to better quantify past, present, and future CO2 uptake by
the ocean, which is limited by relatively slow natural processes;
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Objective 2: to assess global aspects of
the proposal which offers to artificially accelerate ocean storage of CO2
by diverting CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel fired power plants directly
into the deep ocean, thereby short-circuiting the natural process; and
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Objective 3: to guarantee that predictions stemming from the first two
objectives are reasonable by paying close attention to model evaluation.
2. How does GOSAC fit in?
GOSAC-EC funds seven European modeling groups to provide output and do
analysis for OCMIP, i.e., objectives (1) and (3). GOSAC-EC also provides
support for the same seven European participants to contribute model output
for objective 2. GOSAC-IEAGHG will support analysis for objective (2),
for modeling groups within GOSAC-EC as well as other interested
OCMIP modeling groups.
OCMIP is an IGBP project, uniting efforts between GAIM (Global Analysis
Interpretation and Modeling Task Team) and JGOFS (Joint Global Ocean Flux
Study). OCMIP also focuses on Objectives 1 and 3, just as does GOSAC-EC.
The latter offers the support necessary for the 7 European modeling groups
to participate fully in OCMIP. Non-European OCMIP participants include
4 model groups from the U.S., 2 modeling groups from Japan, and 1 model
group from Australia. The U.S. OCMIP project has been funded by the U.S.
JGOFS Synthesis and Modeling Project, which is sponsored by NASA. Both
U.S. OCMIP and GOSAC-EC are funded for the same objectives and the same
duration. Both form OCMIP, along with the Japanese and Australian members.
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