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Sunday, September 18, 2022

CO2 Solubility in Water

As I am sure you all know, CO2 solubility drops as water temperature rises.  This graph shows that as water temperature rises from 10 Celsius to 20 Celsius, the number of grams of CO2 per kilogram of water drops by 2/5ths.

"The oceans cover over 70% of the Earth’s surface and play a crucial role in taking up CO2 from the atmosphere. 

"Estimates suggest that around a quarter of CO2 emissions that human activity generates each year is absorbed by the oceans. 

"However, in our recent Nature Communications paper, we show that the ocean carbon “sink” could be even larger.

"We find that the very surface of the ocean tends to be markedly cooler than the water at a few metres depth, resulting in a substantially larger net uptake than previously thought."

Pretty clearly, if the oceans warm CO2 will either become carbonate rock or coral (which explains the growth of the Great Barrier Reef), or enters the atmosphere. 


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