Scientists Say Oceans Losing Ability To Trap CO2 Meaning Global Warming Could Accelerate

Norwich, United Kingdom (AHN) - Since the industrial revolution much of the CO2 that human activity has spewed into the air has been absorbed by the ocean. But scientists say that research shows the ocean is losing its ability to hold any more of the greenhouse gas warming pollutant, fueling additional concerns over the earth's rapidly warming temperatures.

Environmental scientists from the University of East Anglia made the discovery. It is significant because the ocean has played a key role in slowing global warming to the pace it is now. Without the ocean's ability to absorb as much CO2 as it has the problem, the world's levels of CO2 would have risen much faster and global warming would be a much worse problem already than it is.

But now that scientists have discovered the world's oceans can no longer absorb CO2 at the rates they have, scientists are worried.

Scientists have collected and analyzed data obtained by merchant ships equipped with automatic instruments for measuring carbon dioxide in the water. Much of the research came from banana boats making a round-trip from the West Indies to the U.K. every month. That ship along has generated more than 90,000 measurements of CO2 in the past few years.

All the measurement collected show rapid change in ocean's ability to absorb more CO2. When oceans absorb CO2, it is called a CO2 sink.

Scientists had already inferred a slowdown in the Indian Ocean absorbing CO2. But they found that the change in the North Atlantic Ocean is more abrupt.

Measurements collected in the mid-'90s and compared to measurements taken from 2002 to 2005 show that the ability of that ocean to absorb CO2 has dropped by half, researchers from UEA's School of Environmental Sciences said in a paper published in the November issue of Journal of Geophysical Research.

"Such large changes are a tremendous surprise. We expected that the uptake would change only slowly because of the ocean's great mass," said Dr. Ute Schuster.

While saying that because there was no baseline CO2 measurement, they could not say with absolute certainty that human activity was responsible for the increased CO2, the scientists said it was still a problem.

Schuster said there were some grounds for believing that a "saturation" of the ocean sink would start to occur.

To understand saturation, think of adding sugar to a glass of ice tea and stirring it. At some point the tea becomes saturated with sugar, it can't hold any more and any extra sugar that is added fails to be absorbed as the mixture is stirred, falling instead to the bottom of the glass.

With CO2, once the ocean is saturated, instead of being absorbed, the CO2 will remain in the atmosphere, trapping heat and contributing to the temperatures of the earth increasing.