Ocean waves play greater role in trapping CO2 than previously understood

by startupflix on 5/30/2018, 5:55 AM with 39 comments
  • by phyzome on 5/30/2018, 4:53 PM

    Lest people think "ooh, this is great!" -- it's not, at least not beyond "having a better understanding of the world is good".

    The following might be reasonable (if not necessarily feasible) carbon sinks:

      - Conversion to other materials (plastic, graphite, fuel (sort of))
  - Injection into salt domes
    The following are bad carbon sinks:

      - Your lungs
  - The ocean
    CO2 dissolving in the ocean produces carbonic acid, and ocean acidification is a huge problem -- it dissolves the shells of a number of creatures, and fucks up the entire biochemistry of the ecosystem. Remember, a lot of bacteria (including ones right at the bottom of the food web) use the ocean water as a sort of communal extracellular medium for nutrient exchange, and pH affects nutrient availability differently for different nutrients. Changing the pH throws everything out of whack, just like making your blood more acidic or basic would hurt or kill you.

  • by FrozenVoid on 5/30/2018, 8:34 AM

    Co2 absorption is likely also enchanced by water/air mixing that exists in uneven shore terrain, like bays/fjords/reefs/underwater rocks/etc which create powerful underwater currents with tides and weather. https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/1520-0485(1989)... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0037073880... There is also a biological component: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/04/tiny-shrimp-may-be-m...

  • by jacob019 on 5/30/2018, 2:40 PM

    Are man made structures that interfere with the crashing of waves are having an effect on atmospheric CO2?

  • by jimnotgym on 5/30/2018, 1:21 PM

    Excellent. Global warming>more storms> more waves> more CO2 trapped... hard to make that in to a solution though!

  • by southern_cross on 5/30/2018, 8:43 PM

    Two stories just out of HWU, both related to the uptake of CO2 by the oceans and apparently pointing in opposite directions.

    https://www.hw.ac.uk/about/news/new-research-reveals-ocean-w...

    https://www.hw.ac.uk/about/news/invisible-barrier-on-ocean-s...

  • by petermcneeley on 5/31/2018, 12:21 AM

    Tangential: Biosphere 2 had CO2 absorption issues with the concrete of the superstructure. http://biology.kenyon.edu/slonc/bio3/2000projects/carroll_d_...

  • by 0xcafecafe on 5/30/2018, 5:33 PM

    This is just depressing. Just a couple weeks back we saw the article about plastic being found at the botton of the Mariana trench and now this.

  • by Proven on 5/30/2018, 12:56 PM

    Does that mean governments will cut various CO2 taxes?

    Probably not. It’s never enough.

  • by xstartup on 5/30/2018, 12:40 PM

    Peeing from sufficient height also traps CO2. Can anyone confirm?