Isn't CO2 saturation normal?

Question

Saturation is the equilibrium state. I would expect things to normally be in equilibrium. So why is it suddenly big news that the ocean is saturated with CO2?

Answer 1

While the oceans are saturated with Carbon Dioxide they are still absorbing it. The problem and these reports may or may not explain is that the ocean can't absorb as much carbon dioxide as is being put out from the various sources that it comes from. Each time a new study comes out that is ammunition for the Environmentalists it becomes big news. There are several scientific reports on the "Carbon Cycle" available. Each has it's own variations but on how the cycle works. But if you read enough of them you will find that what is happening now is not an unprecedented event. While mankind MAY be assisting the situation it isn't necessarily the primary cause.

Answer 2

The CO2 concentration in the ocean should be at equilibrium with the CO2 concentration in the air, therefore, oceans are an important sink for CO2 so... if a water body is saturated with CO2 and can absorb little (or none) the atmosphere will have to hold the excess CO2.

Answer 3

I see where you've gone awry here. Saturation is AN equilibrium state, but it is not THE equilibrium state.

If you assume that everything that could be saturated is, then you will seen find that your assumptions bear very little resemblance to reality. The ocean is not saturated with salt, electrolytes, or any number of things. And it is not usually saturated with carbon dioxide either. That is simply a fact.

What you make of that fact is another matter.

Answer 4

I stay away from the propaganda sites as much as possible.
The normal equilibrium is not saturation. Normal partial pressures of Co2 and sigma partial pressures of atmospheric gases are those buffers and values established since the last great ice age factoring around events like the little ice age.
If you graph partial pressures against time, you notice some short term trends that support the current political hype and even more and recently that do not.
Good for you for expecting that things will be in equilibrium.

Answer 5

Hey i heard about that too. Read this: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37774

it should give ya some good answers. It's very scientific. But basically, oceans are so saturated that they can no longer absorb any CO2...so where does that CO2 go??? strait into the air.

Answer 6

Scientific measurements of CO2 levels in ocean and atmosphere have been made for many years, and those measurements indicate CO2 levels have been increasing.

In an equilibrium they should stay the same.

Answer 7

thanks for quoting Wikipedia. regrettably the get entry to you quote is amazingly incorrect. possibly it became written 10 or 15 years in the past. Sunspot pastime in the course of the last 2 cycle is unquestionably incredible: for the shortcoming of sunspots. If image voltaic lively with sufficient of a skill to compete with greenhouse gases then lets be having cooling in the present day. we do not. What all of us study about image voltaic pastime is that it would want to have as a lot as ten% of the outcome that increasing greenhouse gases have -- and the cycles are momentary, no longer like the consistent and one-way run-up of CO2. could we've a protracted era devoid of sunspots, like the Maunder minimum, international warming might want to be decreased by technique of about 0.3 levels by technique of the three hundred and sixty 5 days 2100. So the upward thrust might want to be purely 2.7 levels fairly than 3.0 levels. it isn't the solar. Flat-out. it truly is been heavily researched, a lot reported. There have not been transformations contained in the solar to account for the warming of the previous 40 years and if "it" became the solar, lets have had important cooling in the course of the last 2 a lengthy time period.