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Carbon dioxide is absorbed from the atmosphere at the ocean's surface at an exchange rate which varies locally and with time [32] but on average, the oceans have a net absorption of around 2.9 Pg (equivalent to 2.9 billion metric tonnes) of carbon from atmospheric CO 2 per year. [33]
The ocean biological pump is the ocean's biologically driven sequestration of carbon from the atmosphere and land runoff to the deep ocean interior and seafloor sediments. [79] The biological pump is not so much the result of a single process, but rather the sum of a number of processes each of which can influence biological pumping.
Carbon dioxide dissolves in the ocean to form carbonic acid (H 2 CO 3), bicarbonate (HCO − 3), and carbonate (CO 2− 3). There is about fifty times as much carbon dioxide dissolved in the oceans as exists in the atmosphere. The oceans act as an enormous carbon sink, and have taken up about a third of CO 2 emitted by human activity. [90
[30] [43] Currently about half of the carbon dioxide released from the burning of fossil fuels is not absorbed by vegetation and the oceans and remains in the atmosphere. [ 44 ] Burning fossil fuels such as coal , petroleum , and natural gas is the leading cause of increased anthropogenic CO 2 ; deforestation is the second major cause.
The exchange between the ocean and atmosphere can take centuries, and the weathering of rocks can take millions of years. Carbon in the ocean precipitates to the ocean floor where it can form sedimentary rock and be subducted into the Earth's mantle. Mountain building processes result in the return of this geologic carbon to the Earth's surface.
The Arctic Ocean's ability to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere appears to be waning due to melting permafrost and worsening coastal erosion. Arctic ocean may absorb less CO2 than ...
The four most abundant gases in earth's atmosphere and oceans are nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and carbon dioxide. In the ocean by volume, the most abundant gases dissolved in seawater are carbon dioxide (including bicarbonate and carbonate ions, 14 mL/L on average), nitrogen (9 mL/L), and oxygen (5 mL/L) at equilibrium at 24 °C (75 °F) [124 ...
Carbon dioxide equilibrates between the atmosphere and the ocean's surface layers. As autotrophs add or subtract carbon dioxide from the water through photosynthesis or respiration, they modify this balance, allowing the water to absorb more carbon dioxide or causing it to emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. [2]