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To: rustbucket
Over the longer run, you are right, the oceans will absorb and release CO2 according to their temperature. However the effect is small. Consider the changes in sea surface temperatures http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/07/global-sea-surface-temperature-update-the-cooling-continues/. We would be seeing a large drop in CO2 because a cooler sea surface would absorb the CO2. To some extent it is true

there is a small downward blip in CO2 in 2008 with cooler SST when adjusted for seasonal variations. But note that the biggest seasonal factor is vegetation not SST. The northern hemisphere has a lot of land area with vegetation absorbing CO2 from spring through fall. Not so in the SH.
63 posted on 11/15/2010 10:42:44 AM PST by palmer (Cooperating with Obama = helping him extend the depression and implement socialism.)
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To: palmer

It appears that there is a small effect on the amplitude of the annual change in CO2. The 2008 amplitude (difference between high and low of the annual CO2 levels) centered around 2008. You can see the effect if you put a ruler connecting the highest annual CO2 peaks and repeat that for the lowest CO2 minimums.

The deep water ocean currents take hundreds of years to transfer CO2 from the downwelling surfaces near the poles to the upwelling surfaces near the equator. We could be now seeing the effect of enhanced CO2 absorption during the little ice age. The amount of desorption occurring at the upwelling surfaces depends on how much CO2 is upwelling as well as the temperature.

In other words, waters that contain greater amounts of dissolved CO2 than average are now surfacing. The surface temperatures at the downwelling areas are warmer now than what they were when the present upwelling currents received their load of CO2 hundreds of years ago.

The temperatures at the downwelling and upwelling areas are probably what control the mechanism I mentioned. Since the temperature in the plot shown in your link is for global sea temperatures, I don’t know for sure what the upwelling and downwelling temperatures are.


64 posted on 11/15/2010 11:56:18 AM PST by rustbucket
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