Chen-Tung Arthur Chen¹, Andrey Andreev², Kyung-Ryul Kim³ and Michiyo Yamamoto⁴

¹Institute of Marine Geology and Chemistry, National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung 804, Taiwan, R.O.C., Tel: 886-7-525-5146, Fax: 886-7-525-5346, E-mail: ctchen@mail.nsysu.edu.tw, ²Pacific Oceanological Institute Far Eastern Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Vladivostok, Russia ³Chemical Oceanography & Global Environmental Chemistry Laboratory, Department of Oceanography, Seoul National University, Shilim-Dong, Gwanak-Gu, Seoul 151-742, Seoul Korea and ⁴IRAC 207 D, 930 Koyukuk Drive, P.O. Box 757335, Fairbanks, Alaska 99775-733, USA

Roles of continental shelves and seas in the North Pacific

Most marginal seas in the North Pacific are undersaturated with respect to atmospheric CO₂ in the surface water and absorb CO₂ at an average rate of 1.1 mol C m^-2 yr^-1 but release N₂ at an average rate of 0.07 mol N m^-2 yr^-1. Further, it is estimated that seawater in the marginal seas in the North Pacific alone may have taken up 1.3 0.3 Gt (10¹⁵ g) of excess carbon, including 0.21 0.05 Gt for the Bering Sea, 0.18 0.08 Gt for the Sea of Okhotsk; 0.31 0.05 Gt for the Sea of Japan; 0.07 0.02 Gt for the East China Sea and Yellow Sea; 0.80 0.15 Gt for the South China Sea; and 0.015 0.005 Gt for the Gulf of California. More importantly, high latitude marginal seas such as the Sea of Okhotsk or the Bering Sea may act as conveyer belts in exporting 0.1 0.08 Gt C excess CO₂ into the North Pacific Intermediate Water per year. As a final note, the Sea of Japan has started to show responses to global warming and an anoxic condition may develop as early as 2200 AD.