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The export of organic carbon from the surface ocean by sinking particles is an important, yet highly uncertain, component of the global carbon cycle. Here we introduce a mechanistic assessment of the global ocean carbon export using satellite observations, including determinations of net primary production and the slope of the particle size spectrum, to drive a food‐web model that estimates the production of sinking zooplankton feces and algal aggregates comprising the sinking particle flux at the base of the euphotic zone. The synthesis of observations and models reveals fundamentally different and ecologically consistent regional‐scale patterns in export and export efficiency not found in previous global carbon export assessments. The model reproduces regional‐scale particle export field observations and predicts a climatological mean global carbon export from the euphotic zone of ~6 Pg C yr⁻¹. Global …