Anyway, my suspicion is that the study is about paleoclimate, probably sources of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere when glaciers were retreating, and has nothing more to do with current global warming than the fact that carbon dioxide lagged temperature in the past.
Carbon dioxide is not coming from the oceans. 30 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year are being added to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels, and yet only 16 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year are accumulating in the atmosphere. Before someone calls me Nostrodomas, I'll let you do the math.
You have to add the organic carbon flux to the DIC fluxes. The organic flux downwards is an additional 11 PgC y-1. That will balance the fluxes for the pre-industrial ocean.
Note also that this study is for the pre-industrial ocean, so there was no net carbon uptake by the ocean, which is why the fluxes sum to zero. Odd that a geologist didn't understand this.
Better call the home office and tell them to get you material that doesn't make you look like a nincompoop, mindlessly regurgitating things you don't understand.
edit: Jim: you have no idea what you are talking about. You first claim the ocean can absorb more when it's colder, less when it's warmer, so that now since it's warmer it's not the same as when it was cooler, so it should be giving off CO2, but then you turn around and say how the ocean can absorb a lot of CO2 so it's basically the same. And then you equate ocean acidification with the ocean carbon sink. I'm sorry you had to skim the article and didn't understand it, it is an interesting study. Anyway, the point is there is no logical inconsistency in these results for a pre-industrial ocean and the modern ocean being a net carbon sink, unless you are completely clueless about how things work.
"An interesting new study has just come out which looked at the ocean carbon cycle. Their conclusions include a finding that the oceans are a net source of atmospheric carbon dioxide. I believe the IPCC climate models have the ocean carbon cycle as a net sink (please verify that if necessary)."
Currently the oceans are a carbon sink, but as the waters of the oceans warm they will begin to release their carbon store. Source: http://www.rtcc.org/2012/01/24/warming-o... - In words that you will be able to understand, Ottawa Mike, when the oceans have warmed enough to start releasing their stored CO2 into the atmosphere then we will have reached a tipping point that would be beyond our capabilities to counteract.
"How would this study affect climate model outputs?" - Don't worry, Ottawa Mike. When the oceans begin to release more CO2 than they sequester then the climate models are pretty much a moot point from that time forward.
" How would it affect what we believe is the balance between nature's net source/sink of CO2 vs man's net source/sink of CO2?" - There you go wondering why it matters what we believe. The Laws of Physics, Chemistry and Thermodynamics will remain unchanged no matter what we believe they should be. What would not change, Ottawa Mike, is that even if the oceans became a contributor to the rising atmospheric levels, it still does not negate what we ourselves have contributed to it. How do get around that aspect of, Ottawa Mike? You do know that CO2 produced from the burning of fossil fuels has a unique signature in our atmosphere, do you not? Let me help you out some with this one - http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/arc...
The carbon cycle works on a long time scale. The oceans were a source of CO2 as the Earth moved into inter-glacial periods, but that is not the case now as the carbon cycle is not in equilibrium. A report in the National Geographic had the headline: “Oceans Found to Absorb Half of All Man-Made Carbon Dioxide”
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/...
. The amount of CO2 that dissolves in sea water at equilibrium is governed by Henry's Law. The solubility is proportional to the the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere, but the Henry's Law proportionality constant decreases with temperature . As the amount in the atmosphere increases, the solubility will increase while the warming oceans make CO2 less soluble. Eventually equilibrium will be reached, but by then the Earth will be too warm to be hospitable to mankind.
It is an interesting article.
They said:
<<
ocean-circulation model with embedded biogeochemistry set
to simulate pre-industrial carbon uxes. To strengthen the
results, model-based carbon obduction and subduction are
evaluated against independent data-based estimates to the
extent that was possible>>>
It was a pretty technical article and much of it was over my head and had to skim through much of it. It seems to me there is a very wide margin of potential error.
Odd that GC doesn't understand that CO2 is absorbed more in cooler times and released in warmer times. I did forget they stated it was pre-industrial but the ocean can easily absorb far more than we emit. I realize that to an alarmists, the ocean is now different. To me, it is the basically the same. I know alarmist have tried to eliminate the carbon sink with idiotic acidification nonsense. My main point of the quote above is that it is a model based on assumptions that are difficult (impossible) to measure with any certainty. It doesn't surprise me that GC thinks they got it all measured and figured out. It must be sad to live in a world where everything is known well at least in their minds.
For starters, the IPCC does not have any climate models (nor does it do any active climate research itself); it bases its' analysis entirely on the models used by third-parties.
Secondly, climate models are being tweeked all the time to incorporate the latest scientific understanding of particular climate parameters.
But you already knew that; you just wanted to bash the IPCC a bit more with a paper you read about at The Hockey Schtick and which like The Hockey Schtick you have no clue what it is really about and, more importantly, how exactly it undermines the IPCC in general and climate models in particular.
PS This study used a model too.
co2 dissolves in sea water the colder the water the more it can dissolve if the sea water was warming globally it would expel CO2 but it is now cooling so will be a net sink
****** --
>>For starters, the IPCC does not have any climate models (nor does it do any active climate research itself); it bases its' analysis entirely on the models used by third-parties.<<
Thank you.
You would think that any reasonable person would find that point to be fairly straight forward and should not require repeating 100s of times. But, then, it is not reasonable people who needed to be told.in the first place.
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edit --
>>Did you want me to list all the groups involved and their models along with the address and phone number of each scientist as well?<<
No; just quit feeding the riff-raff who refuse - or are too lazy - or too stupid - to know what the IPCC is and what it does.
An interesting new study has just come out which looked at the ocean carbon cycle. Their conclusions include a finding that the oceans are a net source of atmospheric carbon dioxide. I believe the IPCC climate models have the ocean carbon cycle as a net sink (please verify that if necessary).
"At the global scale, these two large counter-balancing fluxes of DIC (dissolved inorganic carbon) amount to +275.5 PgC y-1for the supply by obduction and -264.5 PgC y-1 for the removal by subduction which is?~?3 to 5 times larger than previous estimates." http://www.locean-ipsl.upmc.fr/~marina/PUBLI/subdu_revised_2.pdf
How would this study affect climate model outputs? How would it affect what we believe is the balance between nature's net source/sink of CO2 vs man's net source/sink of CO2?
