Pacific dominance to global air-sea CO2 flux variability: A novel atmospheric inversion agrees with ocean models

We address an ongoing debate regarding the geographic distribution of interannual variability in ocean ‐ atmosphere carbon exchange. We find that, for 1983–1998, both novel high‐resolution atmospheric inversion calculations and global ocean biogeochemical models place the primary source of global CO2 air‐sea flux variability in the Pacific Ocean. In the model considered here, this variability is clearly associated with the El Niño/Southern Oscillation cycle. Both methods also indicate that the Southern Ocean is the second‐largest source of air‐sea CO2 flux variability, and that variability is small throughout the Atlantic, including the North Atlantic, in contrast to previous studies.