Oceans+and+Carbon+Dioxide+Levels

Group 2: Devrin Rivera, Matt Abell, Jordan Lamarre You topic is how the oceans play a role in taking in and releasing CO2 in the atmosphere.

Grade- There is VERY little orignial text in this page. With the exception of 2-3 sentences, it is all cut and pasted directly from other sites (see below). I did not look at this to start because it was a rough draft and you should have been careful not to do this from the start. Unfortunately it has to affect your grade.

Organization 3 /5 -This whole thing still looks like a bunch of individual bits. Climate change explanation- 5/ 10 -Could you include a bit about why co2 matters to the climate? Oceanography explanation 7 /15- Pretty good just make sure to explain the "pumps" and how they relate. Diagram/connection to text 5 /10 This was the only part you could cut and paste but you didn't give them credit and used their text to relate it! Overall 20/40

  __The oceans play an important role in regulating the amount of CO2in the atmosphere because CO2 can move quickly into and out of the oceans. Once in the oceans, the CO2 no longer traps heat.__ __Of the three places where carbon is stored—atmosphere, oceans, and land biosphere—approximately 93 percent of the CO2 is found in the oceans__. __The oceans are able to hold much more carbon than the atmosphere because most of the CO2 that diffuses into the oceans reacts with the water to form carbonic acid. The salts of Carbon acid are bicarbonate and carbonate ions.__ __Approximatley 90 to 100 pg pf carbon moves back and forth between the atmosphere and the oceans__. More carbon in the atmosphere means more carbon in the sea.   __The oceans are mixed much more slowly than the atmosphere, so there are large horizontal and vertical changes in CO2 concentration. In general, tropical waters release CO2 to the atmosphere, whereas high-latitude oceans take up CO2 from the atmosphere. CO2 is also about 10 percent higher in the deep ocean than at the surface. The two basic mechanisms that control the distribution of carbon in the oceans are referred to as the solubility pump and the biological pump__. Solubility Pump is a process that transports carbon from the oceans surface to its interior. Biological Pump is processes that transport carbon from the surface euphotic zone(a body of water that receives sufficient light for photosynthesis and the growth of green plants) to the ocean's interior.

All cut and pasted from http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/Bi-Ca/Carbon-Dioxide-in-the-Ocean-and-Atmosphere.html**  

Solubity Pump Biological Pump

__The G**lobal Carbon Budget** is the balance of the exchanges of carbon between the carbon reservoirs or between one specific loop of the carbon cycle. An examination of the carbon budget of a pool or reservoir can provide information about whether the pool or reservoir is functioning as a source or sink for carbon dioxide.__ All cut and pasted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle



__Diagram of the carbon cycle. The black numbers indicate how much carbon is stored in various reservoirs, in billions of tons ("GtC" stands for GigaTons of Carbon and figures are circa 2004). The purple numbers indicate how much carbon moves between reservoirs each year. The sediments, as defined in this diagram, do not include the ~70 million GtC of carbonate rock and kerogen__ “The results of our study show that the intensity of CO2 release from the western equatorial Pacific has increased during the past decade. By 2001, this reduced the global ocean uptake – about 2 billion tons of carbon a year – by about 2.5 percent, ” said Takahashi who directed the study that provides a clearer picture of the importance of PDO events on the Earth’s carbon cycle. “This is on top of the CO2 emission and absorption fluctuations seen between El Niño and La Niña years, which occur on shorter timescales.” Quote from? __It is now well established that there is a strong possibility that dissolved CO 2 in the ocean surface will double over its pre-industrial value by the middle of this century, with accompanying surface ocean acidity (pH) and carbonate ion (CO32-) decreases that are greater than those experienced during the transition from ice ages to warm ages.__ __Recent field and laboratory studies reveal that the carbonate chemistry of seawater has a profound negative impact on the calcification rates of individual species and communities in both planktonic (floating) and ocean bottom organisms.__

 __Near the surface in the presence of sunlight, photosynthetical plankton convert dissolved CO2 into organic carbon.__ __**Ocean acidification is a predictable consequence of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations from human activities**. Surface ocean chemistry CO 2 and pH changes resulting from these activities can be predicted with a high degree of confidence.__
 * __**Ocean acidification means that there would be concern over carbon dioxide emissions independently and apart from any possible effects of carbon dioxide on the climate system**. Ocean acidification and climate change are both effects of CO 2 emissions to the atmosphere, but they are completely different; ocean acidification depends on the chemistry of carbon dioxide; whereas climate change depends on temperature and freshwater changes resulting from the atmospheric carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.__
 * __**If current trends in carbon dioxide emissions continue, the ocean will acidify to an extent and at rates that have not occurred for tens of millions of years**. At present, ocean chemistry is changing at least 100 times more rapidly than it has changed in the 100,000 years preceding our industrial era.__
 * __**Ocean acidification could be expected to have major negative impacts on corals and other marine organisms that build calcium carbonate shells and skeletons**. When carbon dioxide reacts with seawater it forms carbonic acid, which is corrosive to calcium carbonate shells and skeletons. The impact is likely to be disruptions through large components of the marine food web. The potential for ecological adaptation is unclear at this time; however, both in today's ocean and over geologic time the rate of accumulation of shells and skeletons made from carbonate minerals shows a consistent relationship with ocean chemical conditions indicating that the success of these organisms is largely controlled by carbonate chemistry.__
 * __**Research is needed to better understand the vulnerabilities, resilience, and adaptability of marine organisms and ecosystems**. The science of understanding the biological consequences of ocean acidification, and placing these changes in a historical context, is in its infancy; initial information indicates that there is cause for great concern over the threat carbon dioxide poses for the health of our oceans.__

All cut and pasted from http://www.oar.noaa.gov/spotlite/spot_gcc.html__

Basically, what all this is saying, is that increasing CO2 level's hurt the ocean. The level's could eventually kill a lot marine life, which would not be good for ocean at all. I love me some me.

http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/Bi-Ca/Carbon-Dioxide-in-the-Ocean-and-Atmosphere.html** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle __http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/releases2003/oct03/noaa03-131.html____ http://www.oar.noaa.gov/spotlite/spot_gcc.html__
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