Change of horizon

Hey everybody,

So after realizing I would not find substantial literature about my previous subject I decided to change topic. One thing that I learnt from this is that it is a largely uncovered matter. Psychologists talk about how time affects our way of living, and ecologists talk about how our way of living affects our environment. It would be interesting to try and link the two. But this task was paramount for me. An idea for a phD anyone?

So now I am shifting my discussion to oceans. They seem fascinating. Probably the least known area on our planet although it covers more than half of it. Being in the deep oceans is like exploring undiscovered landmass or another planet. We realize how tiny and insignificant we all are in the immensity of water.

I could go on about how indispensable they are to life on earth. Oceans are closely intertwined with the atmospheric system. They bear a crucial role in climate variability. For instance effects of the Southern Oscillation of El Niño are felt globally. Under El Niño conditions (warmer sea surface temperature in the Pacific), Northern Europe experiences colder, drier winter (Welt et al 2011).

A role oceans have been playing that has been crucial in climate change is in relation to CO₂. Indeed, oceans act as CO₂ sinks.

Before all, we can explain how the CO₂ cycle including land biomass, atmosphere and oceans works.

We are only focusing on anthropogenic carbon exchanges. Fossil-fuel combustion releases carbon to the atmosphere. Upon entering the atmosphere carbon is transformed into CO₂ . Some of this CO₂ remains in the atmosphere, thereby causing global warming (BBC). The rest is taken up by carbon sinks. Terrestrial plants absorb some of this carbon through photosynthesis. And the oceans suck in the rest in ways I will explain in depth later.

Carbon fluxes and reservoirs. Black arrows represent naturally-occurring CO₂. The red arrows represent anthropogenic carbon dioxide (Source: IPCC AR4WG1) 

These two sinks, then, have mitigated the consequences of industrialisation. It is necessary to understand how they work, and how they vary for environmental change predictions. I chose to focus on oceans. I had heard of photosynthesis but I did not know the oceans acted as sinks as well. And upon looking at the ocean reservoir, it absorbs 100 GtC (Gigatons of carbon) yearly on average which is a significant portion.

Disagreements on the amount and proportion of CO2 exist. There is much debate about how much carbon oceans absorb. In terms of portions it varies from a third (ACE, Wada et al. 2011) to a quarter of CO₂ anthropogenic emissions (NOAA).
It is extremely difficult to assess how much carbon is absorbed. Oceans remain largely unknown systems (NOAA). What is unknown spurs a lot of debate.


I will try to follow a pattern:

->Mechanisms of CO2 ocean uptake

-The solubility pump

-The biological pump

->measuring CO2 concentration

-tools

-geographic variability

-temporal variability

-> consequences of climate change

-in water chemistry

-in water biology

->the future