Guest essay by Martin Hovland, Geophysiscist and Professor Emeritus, Center for Geobiology, University of Bergen, Norway

The newly released satellite OCO₂-data indicates that there is CO₂ input in tectonically active oceanic areas. This becomes evident by pairing seafloor topography and tectonic data with the recently published OCO₂-results. Thus, in the released OCO₂ dataset, showing the average atmospheric concentration of CO₂ over a period of about 6 weeks late in 2014, there are three curious, relatively week, but distinct CO₂-hotspots over oceanic regions:

1) The Timor CO₂-hotspot

2) the Fiji CO₂-hotspot, and

3) the Emperor CO₂-hotspot, see Fig. 1.

Fig. 1 Portions of the initial published OCO2 data, showing the locations of the three CO2-hotspots discussed herein. TH=Timor CO2-hotspot; FH=Fiji CO2-hotspot; EH=Emperor CO2-hotspot. They are all apparently associated with tectonically active processes on the underlying seafloor.