Yao Fu
University of South Florida, FL·Earth & Environmental Science
The North Atlantic Ocean absorbs an outsized share of the carbon dioxide that humans emit. This uptake is thought to be tied to the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC).
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
Chemistry
- Topics
ocean carbon cycle
anthropogenic carbon
carbon dioxide uptake
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jan 2027
What they work on
- Calculate human-made carbon transport across the RAPID array at 26°N (2004–2024) and the subpolar OSNAP section (2014–2024), and test how sensitive it is to changes in the AMOC.
- Produce time series of human-made carbon stored in the North Atlantic, and derive air-sea carbon flux from both accumulation and transport-divergence budgets.
- Collect new observations in the Florida Straits to describe seasonal chemical variability in water masses, and use the results to evaluate existing climate model simulations.
- Constrain projections of future carbon uptake using carbon transport and AMOC metrics, and test uncertainty in the observational approach by applying it to high-resolution model output.
More about the research
The AMOC is a large current system that carries surface water north and returns deep water south. Scientists still do not know how much of the region's stored carbon comes straight from the air and how much is carried in by currents. They also do not know how uptake will change if the AMOC weakens.
Why it matters
Climate projections depend on how much carbon the ocean will keep absorbing. By separating the roles of air-sea exchange and ocean currents in North Atlantic carbon storage, this work could improve how carbon cycle processes are represented in the next generation of climate models. That would sharpen forecasts of future carbon uptake as the overturning circulation is expected to weaken.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Ruoying He
North Carolina State University, NC·Earth & Environmental Science
Test how ocean eddies, steep seafloor terrain and local wind patterns cause regional differences in how Caribbean waters change, using autonomous underwater glider surveys across key passages.
Jordan Abell
Lehigh University, PA·Earth & Environmental Science
Test whether North Pacific deep-water formation and an active Pacific Meridional Overturning Circulation existed during the warm Pliocene, using multi-proxy records from four IODP sediment cores.
Nicole Lovenduski
University of Colorado Boulder, CO·Earth & Environmental Science
Investigate how small, highly active Southern Ocean hotspots control the transport of heat and carbon between the surface and the deep ocean, using simulations with the Community Earth System Model.
The school
University of South Florida: 20 labs on PI Pages, $522M a year on research, 305 research doctorates a year.
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