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The diagram above shows a simplified budget of ocean carbon flows. It is composed of three simple interconnected box models, one for the euphotic zone, one for the ocean interior or dark ocean, and one for ocean sediments. In the euphotic zone, net phytoplankton production is about 50 Pg C each year. About 10 Pg is exported to the ocean ...
At most, 4% of the particulate organic carbon from the euphotic zone in the Pacific Ocean, where light-powered primary production occurs, is buried in marine sediments. [43] It is then implied that since there is a higher input of organic matter to the ocean than what is being buried, a large portion of it is used up or consumed within.
DOM and aggregates exported into the deep water are consumed and respired, thus returning organic carbon into the enormous deep ocean reservoir of DIC. About 1% of the particles leaving the surface ocean reach the seabed and are consumed, respired, or buried in the sediments. There, carbon is stored for millions of years.
While oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) occur naturally, they can be exacerbated by human impacts like climate change and land-based pollution from agriculture and sewage. The prediction of current climate models and climate change scenarios is that substantial warming and loss of oxygen throughout the majority of the upper ocean will occur. [32]
Marine sediment, or ocean sediment, or seafloor sediment, are deposits of insoluble particles that have accumulated on the seafloor.These particles either have their origins in soil and rocks and have been transported from the land to the sea, mainly by rivers but also by dust carried by wind and by the flow of glaciers into the sea, or they are biogenic deposits from marine organisms or from ...
Particles raining out from the upper ocean undergo remineralization by bacteria colonized on their surface and interior, leading to an attenuation in the sinking flux of organic matter with depth. The diagram illustrates a mechanistic model for the depth-dependent, sinking, particulate mass flux constituted by a range of sinking, remineralizing ...
Ultimately, most of the CO 2 emitted by human activities will dissolve in the ocean, [4] however the rate at which the ocean will take it up in the future is less certain. In a study of carbon cycle up to the end of the 21st century, Cox et al. (2000) [ 5 ] predicted that the rate of CO 2 uptake will begin to saturate at a maximum rate at 5 ...
Particles are often associated with high loads of toxins which attach to the surface. As these toxins are passed up the food chain they accumulate in fatty tissue and become increasingly concentrated in predators (see bioaccumulation). Very little is known about the dynamics of particles, especially when they are re-suspended by dredging. They ...