Decadal evolution of anthropogenic CO2 in the northwestern Mediterranean Sea from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s

Monthly observations accumulated over more than a decade at the DYFAMED time-series station allow us to estimate the temporal evolution of anthropogenic CO2 in the western Mediterranean Sea. This objective is reached by using recognized interpolation procedures to reconstruct the incomplete distributions of measured total dissolved inorganic carbon and total alkalinity. These reconstructed fields, associated with those available for dissolved oxygen and temperature, are used to estimate the distribution of anthropogenic CO2. This is done with the recently developed Tracer combining Oxygen, inorganic Carbon, and total alkalinity (TrOCA) approach. The main results indicate that (1) the concentrations of anthropogenic CO2 are much higher than those found in the Atlantic Ocean (the minimum concentration at the DYFAMED site is ∼50 μmol kg−1), and (2) the temporal trend for anthropogenic CO2 is decreasing, especially in the intermediate and the deep layers of the water column at the DYFAMED site. This decrease in anthropogenic CO2 is significantly correlated with a decrease in the dissolved oxygen and with an increase in both salinity and temperature. These trends are discussed in the light of recent published works that propose explanations for the observed increases in salinity and temperature that occurred in the western basin since the 1950s. We conclude that the decrease in anthropogenic CO2 probably resulted from an invasion of old water masses. Different hypotheses on the origin of these water masses are considered and several arguments indicate that the eastern Mediterranean transient (EMT) could have played an important role in the observed decrease in anthropogenic CO2 concentrations at the DYFAMED site.