Craig is temporarily a post-doctoral fellow at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute who is looking for a permanent position. He spends most of his time balancing his overwhelming geekdom with normalcy so he can function in the real world. Luckily his wife likes his geekiness.
Peter Etnoyer is a Graduate Research Associate at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. He studies deep corals and ocean fronts, and he loves to be on the water.
Kevin Zelnio is a Graduate Student Researcher at Penn State studying the ecology of hydrothermal vent and methane seep communities. He raises awareness of the plight of the spineless through folk music.
The deep ocean (deeper than 1km) is a CO2 sink. Deep water masses are cold and dense which minimizes vertical mixing with overlying ocean layers. This means what carbon travels to the deep is sequestered away from the atmosphere. Eric Galbraith, author of recent study in Nature, notes
"It's like a bottle of Italian salad dressing that hasn't been shaken," he said. "You can leave it there forever and it just doesn't mix."So how much CO2 can the deep ocean store?
Looking at the last ice age, 20,000 years ago, Galbraith et al. examined how the deep ocean stored CO2 when atmospheric levels dropped by 30%. During the last ice age the movement of the deep ocean was extremely slow and CO2 extremely isolated from the atmosphere. As things warmed, the deep ocean began to lose its ability to sequester CO2.
Galbraith stressed that his research is historical -- he can only see what happened before, not what happens next. But he said it may mean that as the Earth becomes warmer, the ocean's CO2-disposal system could start breaking down.
Comments
This is the real time bomb. If the tropical shallow waters ever get warm enough to start dumping the CO2 they've been storing, it's all over but the shouting.
Posted by: jtheriault | October 25, 2007 6:59 AM
Thats if the methane hydrates that line the coastal shelves don't all sublime at once from warming ocean temperatures.
But its been known the CO2 will come up spontaneously when built up enough. It has happened in African lakes with deadly consequences, whole villages asphyxiated, livestock falling down dead where they stand. Eventually the buoyancy of CO2 will be great enough to counter force of pressure from the overlying ocean and will rise.
Posted by: kevin z | October 25, 2007 2:57 PM
Are you talking about this? The page talks about CO2 produced in volcanic activity underwater.
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Glossary/Lakes/description_volcanic_lakes_gas_release.html
Posted by: Yuval Langer | October 28, 2007 11:32 AM