Assessing and correcting estimated fCO2 from carbonate chemistry models
of the northeastern US
Abstract
Understanding changes in the ocean carbonate system is central to
understanding ocean and coastal acidification and the effects these
phenomena will have in the future. To create a more complete overview of
the recent history of the carbonate system in the nearshore Northeastern
United States, several recently published or in-development statistical
models have used simple ocean chemistry parameters of salinity,
temperature dissolved oxygen, and nitrate, or these variables plus the
addition of other input parameters: sea surface temperature, chlorophyll
a, sea surface height, bathymetry, and atmospheric pCO2 to generate
estimates of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and total alkalinity (TA).
Both a Random Forest Regression model and a multiple linear regression
model predicting carbonate chemistry parameters was tested for accuracy
in predicting fugacity of CO2 (fCO2) by comparing them with the publicly
available fCO2 data from the Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT) database.
Comparisons revealed a bias by the models to overestimate fCO2, which
was also observed when comparing the SOCAT dataset to collocated
discrete observations. To resolve these biases in fCO2, a correction was
fitted to the modeled datasets. This investigation suggests that models
that accurately predict carbonate parameters of DIC and TA, may be
limited in their ability to reproduce fCO2 conditions in coastal areas
without correction. This study suggests that extrapolating ocean
carbonate system models based on parameters outside their intended uses
should be considered for their potential limitations.