Riebesell, Ulf and Schulz, Kai (2008) Biological mechanism for enhanced carbon consumption in the ocean. IFM-GEOMAR Annual Report, 2007 . pp. 37-38.

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Abstract

Throughout Earth’s history, the ocean has played a crucial role in modulating atmospheric carbon dioxide through a variety of physical, chemical and biological processes. The same processes are involved in the ocean’s response to anthropogenic perturbations of the global carbon cycle. A key process responsible for about three quarters of the surface to deep-ocean gradient in dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) is the biological carbon pump.
This transports carbon bound by photosynthesis
from the sunlit surface layer to the deep ocean. Integrated over the global ocean, the bioticallydriven surface to deep-ocean DIC gradient corresponds to a carbon pool 3.5
times larger than the total amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Hence, small changes in this pool, for example, caused by biological responses to ocean change, would have a strong affect on atmospheric CO2.

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