Oceans Inhale and Exhale Carbon Dioxide, Since Forever

It could be that all the extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – the steady increase year on year, reported since 1958, despite all the airplanes grounded through covid it kept on increasing – is a consequence of the oceans breathing out a bit more, and nothing to do with you and me.

The amount of carbon sequestered in the oceans was meant to increase with the apparently significant increase in atmospheric levels because of industrialisation, except that observations, actual measurements, suggest that there has been no long-term increase.  The oceans might be breathing carbon dioxide in, and out, to their own rhythm that has nothing to do with you and me – or all the windfarms.

It could be that mankind is irrelevant to the cycles of ocean warming, that dictates atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide.

The Earth’s oceans contain somewhere in the vicinity of 50 times more carbon than the atmosphere.  The global carbon ocean reservoir is about 38,000 gigatons of carbon, while the atmosphere contains only 730 gigatons. In the atmosphere carbon is present as carbon dioxide, which is just 0.04% of the atmosphere by dry weight.

Carbon dioxide is a tiny fraction of the atmosphere, and there is constant exchange of carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and the ocean.  This exchange has been described as inhale and exhale, since forever.

The ocean takes up carbon dioxide through photosynthesis by phytoplankton, as well as by simple dissolution, that is carbon dioxide dissolves in water.  Carbon dioxide reacts with seawater, creating carbonic acid (H2CO3). Carbonic acid releases hydrogen ions, which combine with carbonate in seawater to form bicarbonate (HCO3-).

The amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by the oceans varies with latitude.  At high latitudes/towards the poles the ocean will absorb/store more carbon dioxide and more easily, because of the lower temperatures.

An overall increase in ocean temperatures, especially at the poles where they vary according to long cycles, could mean more exhaling relative to inhaling of carbon dioxide, over the year over the Earth.  That is not what the dominant paradigm has theorised.  But it is what the measurements show.

Ocean temperatures also vary seasonally.  Concentrations of bicarbonate peak in surface seawaters in April at the latitude of Hawaii, which is also the time of year when atmospheric carbon dioxide is highest as measured at Mauna Loa.  Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide vary seasonally, as does the sea surface temperature, at the latitude of Hawaii, which is the main site for monitoring global change in atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide.

I will be discussing all of this with Sydney University Professor Ivan Kenney on 25^th February, by Zoom.   There will be just 100 places if you want to be a part of this discussion, so make sure you are registered for my Mail chimp specifically tick the box ‘New Theory of Climate’ here: https://jennifermarohasy.com/subscribe/

This zoom is part 2 of a discussion I began with Bill Kininmonth last year, more information about that here,

https://jennifermarohasy.com/2024/12/oceans-warm-atmosphere-with-meteorologist-william-kininmonth-audio-and-summaries/

Ivan Kennedy is an emeritus professor in the School of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Sydney.   His 2023 research paper – entitled ‘The Seasonal Keeling Oscillation in Atmospheric pC02 is Caused by Variation in Seawater Surface Temperature’ published in the journal Examines in Marine Biology and Oceanography – will be distributed to those who register for the zoom a few days before the discussion.

Seasonal variability in atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide and long term trends will be the focus of this discussion with Ivan planned for Tuesday 25^th February at noon Brisbane time (Australian Eastern Standard Time, AEST – an hour later in Sydney because of daylight saving and the day before in Texas because of datelines etc.).   The link will be in the Mailchimp, for those subscribed to ‘New Theory of Climate’, and I will send it out next Tuesday.  That is the plan.