|| powered by | Ocean CO2 concentration influences
climate23.10.2007 - (idw) Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule
Zürich (ETH Zürich) Could the concentration of CO2 in the
atmosphere rise more drastically than hitherto assumed? ETH
Zurich climatologists recently published their latest findings
in the scientific journal "Nature". The air contains greenhouse
gases such as CO2, which are now known to be responsible for
global warming because their concentration has risen continu-
ously for a number of years. In contrast to the atmosphere, the
concentration of CO2 in the oceans is sixty times higher. In the
global carbon cycle the sea ab-sorbs a proportion of the
atmospheric CO2 but also releases CO2 into the at-mosphere
again. About half of the anthropogenic emission of CO2 is
absorbed naturally by the oceans. Thus it is all the more
important to understand how the exchange of CO2 between the
ocean and the atmosphere functions with regard to a world that
is warming up. The newly available study shows that the oce