[Terrapreta] CO2 in the oceans

[F. Marc de Piolenc]

There's nothing loony about looking to the oceans for absorbing CO2 - 
the only thing loony about the scheme is the idea that we can force 
the oceans to take on more than they are willing to. They are the 
biggest reservoir of CO2 on the planet, and their temperature 
determines the amount of CO2 dissolved in them...and what they can't 
absorb goes into the atmosphere.

Ice core data clearly shows that mean temperature determines CO2 
concentration, and not the reverse. There's a lag of about 800 years 
between a temperature change and a corresponding change in CO2 
concentration. Those two curves - CO2 and temperature - are the ones 
used by Gore in An Inconvenient Truth...only he shifts them in time 
so that they appear to coincide. Not the only lie in that movie, but 
certainly the crucial one.

The reason for this is plain if you get out a set of chemical tables 
and look of the solubility of gases in water. Compare the solubility 
of oxygen with that of CO2, and you will see two things: one, CO2 is 
much more soluble than O2, and its solubility is much more 
temperature-dependent than that of oxygen. Hotter water = lower 
capacity to absorb CO2 = more CO2 in the atmosphere. Effect, not cause.

Marc