Climate Change 2001:
Working Group I: The Scientific Basis
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Figure 3.4: Partitioning of fossil fuel CO2 uptake using O2 measurements (Keeling and Shertz, 1992; Keeling et al., 1993; Battle et al., 1996, 2000; Bender et al., 1996; Keeling et al., 1996b; Manning, 2001). The graph shows the relationship between changes in CO2 (horizontal axis) and O2 (vertical axis). Observations of annual mean concentrations of O2, centred on January 1, are shown from the average of the Alert and La Jolla monitoring stations (Keeling et al., 1996b; Manning, 2001; solid circles) and from the average of the Cape Grim and Point Barrow monitoring stations (Battle et al., 2000; solid triangles). The records from the two laboratories, which use different reference standards, have been shifted to optimally match during the mutually overlapping period. The CO2 observations represent global averages compiled from the stations of the NOAA network (Conway et al., 1994) with the methods of Tans et al. (1989). The arrow labelled �fossil fuel burning� denotes the effect of the combustion of fossil fuels (Marland et al., 2000; British Petroleum, 2000) based on the relatively well known O2:CO2 stoichiometric relation of the different fuel types (Keeling, 1988). Uptake by land and ocean is constrained by the known O2:CO2 stoichiometric ratio of these processes, defining the slopes of the respective arrows. A small correction is made for differential outgassing of O2 and N2 with the increased temperature of the ocean as estimated by Levitus et al. (2000).

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