Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach [See updated graph]
Inspired by some comments on another thread, I decided to see what I could find in the way of actual measurements of the amount of CO2 in the surface layer of the ocean. I found the following data on the Scripps Institute web site. What they did was drive around the ocean on four different cruises, measuring both the atmospheric CO2 levels and at the same time, the amount of CO2 in the surface seawater. Figure 1 shows those results:
Figure 1. All air-ocean simultaneous measurements from four Scripps cruises are shown as blue dots. The horizontal axis shows sea surface temperature. The vertical axis shows the difference between the CO2 in the overlying air, and the CO2 in the water. The red line is a lowess curve through the data. The paper describing the Scripps data and methods is here.
Now, I have to say that those results were a big surprise to me.
The first surprise was that I was under the impression that there was some kind of close relationship between the atmospheric CO2, and the CO2 in the surface seawater. I expected their values to be within maybe 5 ppmv of each other. But in fact, many parts of the ocean are 50 ppmv lower than the CO2 concentration of the overlying air, and many other parts of the ocean have 50 ppmv or more of CO2 than the CO2 in the air above.
The second surprise was the change in not only the size but even in the sign of the trendline connecting temperature and CO2 (red line in Figure 1). Compared to the CO2 level in the air, below about 17°C the seawater CO2 decreases with increasing temperature, at a rate of about -2 ppmv per °C.
Above about 17°C, however, the seawater CO2 content relative to the air increases fairly rapidly with temperature, at about +4 ppmv per °C.
To describe the situation in another way, when the water is cool, it contains less CO2 than the overlying air … but when the water is warm, it has more CO2 than the overlying air.
Say what? I gotta confess, I have little in the way of explanations or comprehension of the reason for that pattern … all suggestions welcome.
w.
[UPDATE] By popular request, here is the same data, but in absolute rather than relative units and without the lowess curve.
Figure 2. As in Figure 1, but showing the CO2 content of the surface seawater directly. Atmospheric CO2 varied very little during the time of the measurements.
My main question in all of this is, how does the CO2 content of the seawater get to be up to 100 ppmv above the CO2 content of the overlying air? It seems to me that the driver must be biology … but I was born yesterday.
Regards,
w.
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Willis Eschenbach says: November 27, 2013 at 9:20 pm
“From Ferdinand Engelbeen’s citation, showing the pCO2 being both way above and way below the atmospheric level:”
According to Engineering Toolbox, water going from 15° to 20°C decreases solubility by factor about 1.3. So without loss of gas, it could go from pCO2=400 to 520 μbar (ppmv). As it loses gas, the pressure will relax, but it takes time.
The pattern of those plots looks seasonal, and fairly fast changes of order 5°C are quite possible.
Willis Eschenbach says:
November 27, 2013 at 6:44 pm
That’s good info, Ferdinand, many thanks. I’m looking for the underlying data …
The underlying data can be found at the CDIAC web site:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/oceans/datmet.html
or from http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/pi/CO2/
The ocean research program is here:
http://www.oco.noaa.gov/oceanCarbonNetworks.html
About the change in pCO2 of the oceans, from Feely e.a.
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/feel2331/exchange.shtml
The pCO2 in surface seawater is known to vary geographically and seasonally over a range between about 150 µatm and 750 µatm, or about 60% below and 100% above the current atmospheric pCO2 level of about 370 µatm.
Meanwhile the atmospheric pCO2 level increased to ~400 µatm, with the ocean surface following the increase in the atmosphere with a decay rate of 1-2 years.
Further:
pCO2 would increase by a factor of 4 when the water is warmed from polar temperatures of about –1.9°C to equatorial temperatures of about 30°C. On the other hand, the DIC in the surface ocean varies from an average value of 2150 µmol/kg in polar regions to 1850 µmol/kg in the tropics as a result of biological processes. This change should reduce pCO2 by a factor of 4. On a global scale, therefore, the magnitude of the effect of biological drawdown on surface water pCO2 is similar in magnitude to the effect of temperature, but the two effects are often compensating. Accordingly, the distribution of pCO2 in surface waters in space and time, and therefore the oceanic uptake and release of CO2 , is governed by a balance between the changes in seawater temperature, net biological utilization of CO and the upwelling flux of subsurface waters rich in CO2
At the upwelling places there is a constant feed of CO2 rich deep ocean waters, while near the poles there is a constant downwelling of CO2 enriched (due to the pCO2 difference) waters.
The mid-latitudes show a pCO2 above atmosphere during a few summer months and a pCO2 below atmosphere for the rest of the year (with hardly any direct interaction with the deep oceans waters), here for Bermuda:
http://www.biogeosciences.net/9/2509/2012/bg-9-2509-2012.pdf (Fig. 4)
While d13C increases (as I have seen in another paper) and DIC (total inorganic carbon) decreases in summer due to increased biolife, temperature is the stronger driving factor pushing more CO2 out of the oceans, thus also decreasing DIC.
The long term trend (Fig. 5) over 28 years shows the increase in uptake of CO2 at Bermuda, representative for the whole North Atlantic subtropical gyre.
Similar graphs are available for Hawaii (Fig. 1):
http://www.pnas.org/content/106/30/12235.full.pdf
In reply to:
Ferdinand Engelbeen says: November 27, 2013 at 2:07 pm
And the whole story (William: Incorrect story. Made up story.) about the measurements and calculations is here:
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/feel2331/abstract.shtml
The main reason that there are differences between ocean pCO2 and air pCO2 are:
– temperature
– biolife
– migration speed
The latter is the main problem: the migration speed of CO2 in water is very low. It is only by wind and waves that CO2 can exchange with the atmosphere at sufficient speed, depending mainly of wind speed. And at the same wind speed about in ratio with the pCO2 difference between air and seawater.
William: The C14 bombtest data analysis contradicts the assertion that “the migration speed of CO2 in water (sic. ocean water) is very low”. The problem is the ocean data obviously indicates there is a significant release of CO2 in the equatorial region, which is an agreement with Humlum et al. August, 2012, analysis.
http://www.false-alarm.net/
The C14 bombtest data analysis in supports the assertion that the 1/e lifetime of the CO2 in the atmosphere is 7 years, the 50 to 200 years 1/e half life assumption in the Bern model is hokum, silly, required to prop up the CAWG hypothesis.
http://www.false-alarm.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/paper1.pdf
http://www.tech-know-group.com/papers/Carbon_dioxide_Humlum_et_al.pdf
The phase relation between atmospheric carbon dioxide and global temperature
Thus, summing up for the analysis of the NCDC data, changes in atmospheric CO2 is lagging 9.5-12 months behind changes in surface air temperatures calculated for the two main types of planetary surface, land and ocean, respectively. The strongest correlation (0.45) between atmospheric CO2 and NCDC temperature is found in relation to ocean surface air temperatures, suggesting a rather strong coupling from changes in ocean temperature to changes in atmospheric CO2.
Summing up, our analysis suggests that changes in atmospheric CO2 appear to occur largely independently of changes in anthropogene emissions. A similar conclusion was reached by Bacastow (1976), suggesting a coupling between atmospheric CO2 and the Southern Oscillation. However, by this we have not demonstrated that CO2 released by burning fossil fuels is without influence on the amount of atmospheric CO2, but merely that the effect is small compared to the effect of other processes. Our previous analyzes suggest that such other more important effects are related to temperature, and with ocean surface temperature near or south of the Equator pointing itself out as being of special importance for changes in the global amount of atmospheric CO2.
William:
As I noted there is massive and continual release of CH4 at the spreading of the ocean floor (Nobel prize winner Thomas Gold’s deep earth hypothesis: See “The Deep Hot Biosphere: The myth of fossil fuels”, most libraries have a copy). The CH4 that is released is converted to CO2 by micro bacterial action. The source of the CH4 is from the liquid core of the earth which is expelling CH4 as it solidifies. The carbon in the CH4 is of course primordial carbon. The continual significant addition of new CO2 to the atmosphere explains why the carbonate deposited in sediments in the ocean floor (non biological, precipitates out) over geological time does not increase with C13. As land deposits of biological residue (plants) is deficient in C13 if there was not a new primordial source of carbon into the atmosphere, the ocean sediments would increase in C13 with geological time.
One interesting side effect of the deep CH4 that is released from the core and then pushes up to the surface, is CH4 sudden release which causes some types of earthquakes. Below 60 km the mantel is plastic and cannot therefore be stressed. The very deep earthquakes are caused by the sudden release of the CH4. That explains why massive regions of the ocean floor suddenly fall as occurred in a series of recent Pacific region earthquakes. The same phenomenon explains why there were drops of up to 30 feet of land in the famous Alaskan earthquake of 1964. Supporting mantel cannot disappear to cause very, very, rapid drops in the earth’s crust, CH4 release from the mantel on the other hand will cause sudden drops. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~coleen/earthquake.jpg
The same CH4 release caused the Mississippi, New Madrid earthquake. http://www.new-madrid.mo.us/index.aspx?nid=132
In the known history of the world, no other earthquakes have lasted so long or produced so much evidence of damage as the New Madrid earthquakes. Three of the earthquakes are on the list of America’s top earthquakes: the first one on December 16, 1811, a magnitude of 8.1 on the Richter scale; the second on January 23, 1812, at 7.8; and the third on February 7, 1812, at as much as 8.8 magnitude.
Sand Boils
The world’s largest sand boil was created by the New Madrid earthquake. It is 1.4 miles long and 136 acres in extent, located in the Bootheel of Missouri, about eight miles west of Hayti, Missouri. Locals call it “The Beach.” Other, much smaller, sand boils are found throughout the area. (William: Sand boils occur when there is a sudden release of CH4.)
@Jquip says:
>>Nick Stokes: “In fact, no ice age scare ever came from scientists. Lill and Revelle had it in 1958, IGY Bulletin:”
>No ice age scare?
>http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/the-1970s-ice-age-scare/
Thanks for the link. I was just surprised to hear Nick say James Hansen (1969) was not a scientist.
Willis, your third rendition is the most informative where the data are colour coded , per cruise.
It confirms my initial comment about a roughly parabolic shape. Like your initial loess but a stronger curvature.
I still say joining the dots would be informative . Especially the dark red data looks like loop and may reflect an annual cycle traced out as the cruise progressed.
I think the ‘parabola’ is the temp/CO2 component of the relationship.
The strong up and down sections need isolating since there is clearly zones around 25C with either very little correlation or an extremely strong co2/SST gradient. This presumably the tropics.
Accepting my suspicion that the red loop is seasonal, I’d say there are two primary relationships shown here. The curve and vertical line. Where this is probably going is one relationship for tropics and another elsewhere.
I’m curious how they managed to “null out” the emissions from the (non-nuclear) ship.
Willis, I think the graph shows that the cruises were in warmer climes. Not much else. Your stuff is always interesting.
William Astley says:
November 28, 2013 at 2:22 am
William: The C14 bombtest data analysis contradicts the assertion that “the migration speed of CO2 in water (sic. ocean water) is very low”. The problem is the ocean data obviously indicates there is a significant release of CO2 in the equatorial region, which is an agreement with Humlum et al. August, 2012, analysis.
William, the migration speed of CO2 in water (fresh water and seawater alike) is very low. If you don’t stirr it may take a full day for a difference in CO2 level to level out in a glass of water, but we are speaking here of 200 meter of seawater depth for the ocean mixed layer.
Of course there is a lot of migration around the equator, partly due to upwelling, partly due to the high temperatures there. But even so, the highest upwelling at the equator is ~10 mol CO2/m2/year or 440 g/m2/year or 1.5 g CO2/m2/day. You may call that a huge migration speed, but I don’t…
The C14 bombtest data analysis in supports the assertion that the 1/e lifetime of the CO2 in the atmosphere is 7 years
Pettersson did find an e-fold decay rate of 14 years and the 14C decay is over 3 times shorter than the decay of an excess 12CO2, simply because the deep oceans return much lower levels of the 14C/12C ratio than for 12CO2. You did make the similar error in a previous message by looking at the residence time: that is around 5 years, but has nothing to do with the decay rate of an extra injection of 12CO2.
The Humlum e.a. paper is proven wrong: they get conclusions about the increase of CO2 after detrending the CO2 increase. And their
and with ocean surface temperature near or south of the Equator pointing itself out as being of special importance for changes in the global amount of atmospheric CO2.
is proven wrong, as the increase in the atmosphere is first measured in the extratropical NH, then around the equator and then in the SH.
I have no opinion about CH4 releases, and that is not the subject of discussion here.
The SST are not daily averages and the highest ones are measured in early afternoon, when the wind was not blowing.
A review of the Diurnal Sea Surface Temperature Variation is here.
http://www.terrapub.co.jp/journals/JO/pdf/6305/63050721.pdf
Now warming a complex buffered solution changes all sorts of constants, warm water holds less CO2 than cold water, pH will change as the pKa of buffers is temperature dependent, the equilibrium between CO2 and DIC will also be temperature dependent. These are all phenomenological; you know what is happening only by measurement, the system is too complex.
Now life. Photosynthetic organism are able to change their depth and to also change the amount of chlorophyll they have. Their optimal cost/benefit ratio of where to be and how much chlorophyll to have depends on the diurnal light flux. At sunrise they rise to the surface and absorb the low light flux available and begin fixing CO2 (so DIC also falls). As the sun rises they become increasingly efficient until about 11:00 they are photonically saturated. Further light flux cannot be harvested, but is damaging. So they drop in depth until light flux is optimal. In early afternoon falling light flux falls and they rise again, going toward the surface until sunset.
The upper ocean of biotically productive waters is NEVER at equilibrium with respect to CO2/DIC and the atmosphere. The biotic surface in areas of high productivity draws CO2 from the top, the atmosphere, and from below. DOC, in the form of dead organisms and excreta drops down and is converted into CO2/CH4/DIC all the way down; some making it to the bottom to be mineralized.
In the worlds ocean deserts, there is little life and little upwelling, and the overall transfer is from atmosphere to ocean.
Here is a nice paper showing the changes in DIC at the surface. This shows why you need to measure fluxes through the quasi-steady system, and not pretend you have an equilibrium
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jgrc.20279/pdf
Ferdinand Engelbeen this is the actual disappearance of 14CO2 measured in Europe, and the fit if the curve corrected for dilution by man made CO2 placed in the atmosphere.
http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w318/DocMartyn/DecayofEuropean14C1970-2003_zpsaf4cba3c.png
The decay time is 12.3 years. The end-point out to 2012 is first-order. The 14CO2 in the atmosphere is talking to a reservoir >30 times the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. The only place there is that much carbon is in the oceans.
Almost half of the CO2 added to the atmosphere by humans disappears annually. To treat this as an ‘equilibrium’, chemical transfer process between atmosphere, ocean surface and depths is quite clearly wrong. This is not chemistry, it is not geochemistry, it is biochemistry.
The data is telling you that 14CO2 is transferred to the ocean depths, not the surface, at a rate of 0.056 y-1 and so is telling you that all the damned carbon in the atmosphere is being transferred to the depths at a rate of 0.056 y-1. If you want to know the mechanism for the speed of this transfer think of the French Guards at Waterloo.
Willis Eschenbach says:
November 27, 2013 at 9:20 pm
From Ferdinand Engelbeen’s citation, showing the pCO2 being both way above and way below the atmospheric level:
========
1995 La Nina….upwellings
DocMartyn says:
November 28, 2013 at 12:03 pm
The problem is not the dilution of the 14CO2 bomb spike by 14CO2-free human emissions. The problem is that the deep oceans return only a fraction of the 14CO2 of the bomb spike while still returning 97% of the 12CO2 that goes into the deep oceans. See the difference between the 1960 in/outs and the 2000 in/outs:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/14co2_distri_1960.jpg
and
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/14co2_distri_2000.jpg
Thus the decay rate of a pulse of 14CO2 is much faster than of a pulse of 12CO2 (or total CO2, as 12CO2 is near 99% 12CO2), because it is diluted (in part) by human emissions and to a large extent by deep ocean waters which did sink ~1000 years ago.
The same happens for 13CO2. While human emissions are low in 13CO2, the human “fingerprint” is firmly diluted to ~1/3rd of what can be expected if all human emissions remained in the atmosphere. That is caused by the circulation of ~40 GtC from the deep oceans which returned after ~1000 years, having been sinking long before human emissions and bomb spikes…
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/deep_ocean_air_zero.jpg
Ferdinand Engelbeen, the end point of the 14CO2 decay curve shows you that >95% of the atmospheric CO2 has been exchanged with the deep oceans.
Until you accept that point you cannot model anything.
In just over 12 years half of the carbon in the atmosphere is exchanged for carbon in the deep oceans.
When you accept this simple fact, you have a starting point to examine the effects additional CO2 addition will have on the two fluxes.
So… while the ocean concentration of CO2 may seem in equilibrium, or have even higher concentrations than the air, there could be a larger “demand” as sea life and takeup of CO2 into chemical reactions of the ocean processes.
Yet another chaotic system. What a wonderfully interesting planet we live on.
DocMartyn says:
November 28, 2013 at 11:51 am
The SST are not daily averages and the highest ones are measured in early afternoon, when the wind was not blowing.
A review of the Diurnal Sea Surface Temperature Variation is here.
pCO2 measurements are from the main seawater intake, thus in general from a few meters below the waterline. The pCO2 measurements are compensated for the difference in temperature of the equilibrium equipment and the temperature at intake. See: http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/pi/CO2/carbondioxide/text/Palmer_methods.pdf
If there is no wind, then there is practically no CO2 exchange between the atmosphere and water. If there is wind, the temperature near the surface is more evenly distributed and there is less diurnal change.
But nevertheless, it remains a complex system…
DocMartyn says:
November 28, 2013 at 12:54 pm
Ferdinand Engelbeen, the end point of the 14CO2 decay curve shows you that >95% of the atmospheric CO2 has been exchanged with the deep oceans.
Until you accept that point you cannot model anything.
Yes, but that is exactly the problem of the 14CO2 decay time: that is the dilution caused by the throughput, or the residence time and that has not the slightest connection with the decay time of an extra pulse of (12)CO2 in the atmosphere…
“that has not the slightest connection with the decay time of an extra pulse of (12)CO2 in the atmosphere…”
Good, so you have finally agreed that we have observed an exchange of 14CO2 with the deep ocean.
The decay profile of 14CO2 is the sum of two fluxes; the rate of transfer of 14CO2 into the deep ocean and the rate that 14CO2 from the deep ocean is transferred to the deep oceans.
As the levels of 14CO2 are low in the deep ocean, due to the deep ocean being such a huge reservoir the back rate is small.
With regard to total CO2, at steady state, the influx ocean to atmosphere matched he efflux ocean to atmosphere, before we began burning fossil fuel.
At a per-industrial 535 GtC atmospheric CO2, 267.5 would go into the oceans every 12.3 years and 267.5 would come out every 12.3 years.
At its simplest, adding a pulse of 365 GtC of 12CO2 in the pre-industrial past would bring the atmosphere up to 1000 GtC.
500 GtC would go into the oceans in 12.3 years and and 267.5 would come out every 12.3 years. So in 12.3 years there would be 767.5 GtC left.
New paper finds the oceans are a net source of CO2
A new paper published in Deep-Sea Research finds the ocean is a net source of CO2 to the atmosphere, the opposite of claims by climate alarmists that the ocean removes CO2 from the atmosphere. According to the authors, “At the [research] site, the ocean is primarily a source of CO2 to the atmosphere, except during strong upwelling events.” The paper also notes, “Astor et al.(2005) observed the interactions between physical and biochemical parameters that lead to temporal [over time] variations in fCO2 [CO2 flux from the] sea, finding that even during periods of high production, the CO2 flux between the ocean and the atmosphere decreased but remained positive, i.e. CO2 escaped from the ocean to the atmosphere.”
http://reef01.marine.usf.edu/sites/default/files/project/cariaco/publications/Astor_et_al_2013.pdf
DocMartyn says:
November 28, 2013 at 1:58 pm
The problem is in your last sentence.
The 14CO2 pulse doesn’t add any extra pressure to CO2 in the atmosphere, but 12CO2 does.
The 14CO2 decay time shows that the equilibrium throughput is about ~22.5 GtC/year.
Then we add a pulse of 465 GtC of 12CO2. The increased pressure increases the downwelling at the sink side with 20% and reduces the upwelling at the source side with 20%, or the output increases to 27 GtC/yr and the input reduces to 18 GtC/yr.
The sink ratefor the extra 12CO2 then is 465 / 9 = 51.7 years
The decay rate of the 14CO2 pulse is the decay rate of its concentration and shows the residence time for any individual CO2 molecule in the atmosphere without changing the total mass of CO2 in the atmosphere
The decay rate of a 12CO2 pulse is the decay rate of the extra mass in the atmosphere and shows the net amount of CO2 mass that is extra absorbed by the deep oceans for the difference in mass (pressure) above the equilibrium mass (pressure).
Two different decay rates, completely independent of each other.
For the realistic figures, see the two carbon cycle fluxes (1960 and 2000) in a previous message.
In reply to:
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
November 28, 2013 at 10:05 am
The C14 bombtest data analysis in supports the assertion that the 1/e lifetime of the CO2 in the atmosphere is 7 years
Pettersson did find an e-fold decay rate of 14 years and the 14C decay is over 3 times shorter than the decay of an excess 12CO2, simply because the deep oceans return much lower levels of the 14C/12C ratio than for 12CO2. You did make the similar error in a previous message by looking at the residence time: that is around 5 years, but has nothing to do with the decay rate of an extra injection of 12CO2.
William:
Your silly assertion that anthropogenic CO2 is different that C14 in the surface ocean layer, is goofy, a nice try for warmist.
The molecules of C14 that move into the surface ocean layer will be re-injected into the atmosphere thereby setting a plateau of C14 if that is in fact what physically happens. Observationally there is no plateau of C14, C14 continues to fall very, a very, low level which supports the assertion that there is either significant mixing of the surface ocean layer with the deep ocean or the carbon predicates out. C14 that moves in to the surface ocean layer cannot magically disappear. Now we have heard again and again that heat is hiding in the deep ocean. That is only possible if there is significant mixing of the surface ocean with deep ocean. Com’on man. You warmists need to get your stories straight.
Now the 50 to 200 year term in the Bern equation is only valid if there is no mixing of the surface ocean layer with the deep ocean layer. If the Bern equation was correct, the C14 change with time would reach a plateau, which be due to the massive amount C14 that is trapped in the surface ocean layer.
http://www.false-alarm.net/
(See paper 1)
Could someone help me out. It appears the web browsers are blocking access to paper 1.
The paper in question explains this graph.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/image1.png
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/01/the-bombtest-curve-and-its-implications-for-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-residency-time/
I understand why the warmists have very effectively hidden the deep earth CH4 hypothesis. You are not interested in the discussing the deep earth CH4 hypothesis as it disproves your religion. Regardless, it is reality and people of science discuss reality as oppose to fantasy. People of science are curious and change their minds when observations and analysis do not support a particular theory/hypothesis.
The New Madrid, Mississippi series of massive earthquakes were caused by a massive release of methane as was the series of Pacific deep earth earthquakes. Obviously the fossil hypothesis cannot explain a sudden increase in methane at very deep levels (what is need to explain the observation is a sudden increase in methane the fossil mechanism cannot suddenly add methane and regardless there are no organic sediments in the very deep mantel). The fossil hypothesis and cannot explain the ocean methane release and cannot explain marine hydrocarbon deposits as the amount of biological matter that reaches the bottom of the deep ocean is less than 1% (the ocean biosystem is highly evolved and efficient, the biological material that falls is eaten by marine life and marine bacteria), there is nothing left to convert to methane or to build up with time to be converted by a mythical process to liquid hydrocarbons (the reaction in question does not occur it is the same as water suddenly flowing up hill).
Latitude says:
November 28, 2013 at 3:22 pm
The link is to a paper that describes the CO2 releases from the Cariaco Bassin: adjacent to Venezuela, tropic, warming from 25.5 – 26.5 °C over the period of interest + regular upwelling from the deep oceans. Thus a net source of CO2 for most of the time.
Not exactly the net global CO2 uptake/release over the oceans…
William Astley says:
November 28, 2013 at 3:52 pm
The molecules of C14 that move into the surface ocean layer will be re-injected into the atmosphere thereby setting a plateau of C14 if that is in fact what physically happens.
William, the 14C that moves into the deep oceans is what makes the difference between 14CO2 and 12CO2 in behavior. That returns only after ~1000 years, while most 12CO2 returns in the same year. Nothing to do with 14C in the surface layer of the oceans.
And please, the CH4 origin or fate have nothing to do with the subject of pCO2 of the oceans vs. the atmosphere…
Willis,
The graph at 27Nov 9:20 is remarkably like the Unisys SST map. Especially the upwilling cold near west coastal south America. Ancient cold water being tropically warmed giving high pCO2. Where ocean gyres trap stagnation and air is decending gives low pCO2. Perhaps …
“Ferdinand Engelbeen
The problem is in your last sentence.
The 14CO2 pulse doesn’t add any extra pressure to CO2 in the atmosphere, but 12CO2 does.”
There is no pressure there is rate constant x [CO2] in one direction and rate constant x[CO2] going the other direction.
The system has no knowledge, does not know which way entropy is, it just bleeding moves until efflux matches influx.
Stop trying to be clever, the system isn’t clever, it system is dumb. Molecules move in both directions.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
November 28, 2013 at 3:52 pm
==
Willis had asked how CO2 could be higher in the water than the air around it…
…..that is an example of how