Southern Ocean absorbing GHG emissions and limiting climate change

The Southern Ocean around Antarctica is absorbing an increasing amount of greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere and limiting the impacts of climate change, according to a new study released on Thursday.

The study found that the amount of carbon being absorbed by the vast Southern Ocean has approximately doubled to 1.2 billion tonnes in 2011 compared to the levels measured a decade earlier.

The report was conducted by an international team in the journal Science and was based on 2.6 million measurements by ships over three decades.

The research suggests that the Southern Ocean is the most effective ocean for absorbing GHG emissions and it is unclear how long the higher rate of absorption will last.

The increase in absorption has been caused by changes in winds and temperatures and is linked to high pressure systems in the atmosphere over the Atlantic part of the Southern Ocean and low pressure over the Pacific.

Previous studies found that the uptake of carbon dioxide by the Southern Ocean had stalled since the 1980s.

Sara Mikaloff-Fletcher of New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, has outlined how since 1870, the oceans have absorbed more than 25 per cent of the carbon dioxide emitted from fossil fuel use and the Southern Ocean has accounted for about 40 per cent of the uptake.

In the Science journal, Mikaloff-Fletcher wrote: "It is not yet clear how this region will respond to future changes in climate."