Actually, yes and no.
It is dissolved as a gas. But once in the ocean, some is converted to acid.
(And who's to say that there isn't any of that mild acid in a coke bottle?)
Surface ocean water is, in many places, 30% more acidic that it was a few decades ago.
That's very detrimental for organisms that create shells with calcium.
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/What+...
https://www.google.com/#q=ocean+acidific...
That brings up an idea for an interesting experiment.
Acidic liquids like vinegar and OJ are a bit sour.
You know there's lots of sugar in soda.
I wonder if some of that is to counteract the sour that's caused by the CO2 concentration of the soda?
BUT, to your question.
The fact that the oceans have absorbed so much CO2 has decreased the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, and thus the amount of warming that would have occurred. Water does absorb many gasses, including oxygen and CO2. Fish need oxygen to live. Algae absorb CO2 during photosynthesis, just as plants do, and produce oxygen. The increase in CO2 in the atmosphere has an effect on the surface of the ocean, allowing/forcing the oceans to dissolve more CO2 than has been the case in the time people have been walking around the earth.
Think of the atmosphere and ocean parts of the earth as one environment. If CO2 is added to the environment some will be in the air and some will be in the water. CO2 finds its own level in both mediums.
Most CO2 goes into the water. If the water cools then it is able to hold more CO2, so it does. If the water warms then it can hold less, so it gives some back to the air. Consequently, if the ocean warms then this should release CO2 to the air which should cause even more warming.
Although there is much talk about the oceans "acidifying" don't confuse that with turning the oceans into an acid. The oceans are quite strongly alkaline and are likely to remain so no matter how much man-made CO2 we introduce.
Also, beware of some of the experiments done on crustaceans. Experimenters have put them into an acid and have consequently claimed that acidifying the oceans will kill them. This is like testing if people can drink orange juice by pouring battery acid down their throats and noting the results.
You should also remember that CO2 forms part of several cycles. Algae in the oceans produce oxygen by using the CO2 in the oceans. So a lot of CO2 is recycled like that. Much CO2 is used to make shells. When these creatures die their shells can form rock. This is another way that ocean CO2 is locked away. Over geological time this results in chalk cliffs like these. Imaging how much carbon is locked away in there - and how many shells that represents!
The CO2 entering the oceans is deposited as carbon, not a gas. it also enters via rivers running int to the oceans as carbon and from ground water as well There are billions of tons of carbon on the ocean floor amd much of this gets released back into the atmosphere
Warmer water temperatures brought on by climate change stress corals because they are very sensitive to changes in temperature. If water temperatures stay higher than usual for many weeks, the zooxanthellae they depend on for some of their food leave their tissue. Without zooxanthellae, corals turn white because zooxanthellae give corals their color. White, unhealthy corals are called bleached. Bleached corals are weak and less able to combat disease.
Bleaching events on coral reefs around the globe were observed in 1998 (West and Salm 2003). In some Pacific islands, a little bit of bleaching is common in the summer; however, there have been times when bleaching is particularly bad in this region (Craig 2009). For example, larger than normal bleaching events in the National Park of American Samoa occurred in 1994, 2002, and 2003 (Craig 2009). As climate change continues, bleaching will become more common, and the overall health of coral reefs will decline.
Currently co2 is absorbed by water to increase the acidity of the ocean. Most of the manmade co2 is absorbed. If it was not, the atmospheric co2 would be higher and the climate hotter
Jeez C. CO2 in the oceans is dissolved as a gas, just like CO2 in a coke bottle, there is no pure carbon lying on the ocean floor, only trillions and trillions of tons of calcium carbonates (chalk limestone etc)
Basically cold water dissolves CO2, warm water tends to outgass CO2 warming events like El Nino's tend to increase atmospheric CO2 however it only has a very minor effect on climate, natural events like ocean and solar cycles have a much large effect.
