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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
The conveyor belt begins on the surface of the ocean near the pole in the North Atlantic. Here, the water is chilled by Arctic temperatures. It also gets saltier because when sea ice forms, the salt does not freeze and is left behind in the surrounding water. The cold water is now more dense, due to the added salts, and sinks toward the ocean ...
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 ...
[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.
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]
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 ...