(Photograph ©2007 *Fede*.)Īfter 30 years of research, the question itself hasn’t changed, but the reasoning behind it couldn’t be more different. Much of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels is soaked up by the oceans, but changes in the climate are altering this absorption in surprising ways. One of the largest unknowns in our understanding of the greenhouse effect is the role of the oceans as a carbon sink. On shore, others developed computer models. Thus motivated, oceanographers began a series of research cruises, trolling across the Pacific from Japan to California, from Alaska to Hawaii, and through the North Atlantic from Europe to North America. ![]() Scientists wanted to understand how the ocean carbon cycle might change so that they could make more accurate predictions about global warming. The question matters because if the ocean starts to take up less carbon because of global warming, more is left in the atmosphere where it can contribute to additional warming. To oceanographers of 30 years ago, the question was less, how will human emissions change the ocean carbon cycle, and more, is the ocean carbon cycle changing yet? ![]() Water trapped at the surface would become saturated, at which point, the ocean would slow its carbon uptake. ![]() The ocean would continue to soak up more and more carbon dioxide until global warming heated the ocean enough to slow down ocean circulation. The idea seemed simple enough: the more carbon dioxide that people pumped into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels, the more the oceans would absorb.
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