The role of sea ice in the carbon budget of Polar Ocean

The first measurment of CO2 fluxes over sea ice started in early two thousand. Since, we have monitored the carbonate system and recorded CO2 fluxes in both the Arctic and the Antarctic and at each season. The BEPSII working group recently gathered all these observations in a single database. This dataset exploits more than one thousand of measurements in the Arctic and in the Antarctic and allows for the first time to establish a yearly budget of sea ice CO2 fluxes based on observations. Sea ice seems to have a smaller impact on the CO2 budget than previously predicted mainly because the out-going CO2 fluxes during sea ice growth are counterbalanced by in-going CO2 fluxes during spring and summer.