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a b s t r a c tDespite their moderately sized surface area, continental marginal seas play a significant role in the biogeochemical cycles of carbon, as they receive huge amounts of upwelled and riverine inputs of carbon and nutrients, sustaining a disproportionate large biological activity compared to their relative surface area. A synthesis of worldwide measurements of the partial pressure of CO 2 (pCO 2 ) indicates that most open shelves in the temperate and high-latitude regions are under-saturated with respect to atmospheric CO 2 during all seasons, although the low-latitude shelves seem to be over-saturated. Most inner estuaries and near-shore coastal areas on the other hand are over-saturated with respect to atmospheric CO 2 . The scaling of air-sea CO 2 fluxes based on pCO 2 measurements and carbon massbalance calculations indicate that the continental shelves absorb atmospheric CO 2 ranging between 0.33 and 0.36 Pg C yr À1 that corresponds to an additional sink of 27% to $30% of the CO 2 uptake by the open oceans based on the most recent pCO

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