Talk:Solubility pump

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This statement in the article should be clarified. "Since deep water (that is, seawater in the ocean's interior) is formed under the same surface conditions that promote carbon dioxide solubility, it contains a higher concentration of dissolved inorganic carbon than one might otherwise expect." Additional information is needed to explain why this is true. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.236.254.17 (talk) 23:39, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Scale of the system

Some questions which the article might answer to give some sense of the size of the system and its time constants:

• If the C02 level in the atmosphere stabilized at current levels, how long would it take for the ocean to reach equilliubrium?
• If the atmosphere were 100% carbon dioxide, how much would be able to dissolve in the amount of water that's in the ocean? (Disregarding biological side-effects.)
• Why is two-thirds of the CO2 added to the atmosphere not being absorbed by the ocean? Is it being emitted too quickly for the ocean to keep up? Is the limiting factor the surface area of the ocean and the speed of this circulation?
• How quickly does C02 diffuse through the ocean in the absence of circulation?

-- Beland 21:01, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Solubility graph

The graph included in the article (g gas per liter of water, as a function of temperature) is probably more misleading than helpful. It assumes pure CO2 at a pressure of 1 atm; which is about 2500 times more than the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere. Therefor the real amount of CO2 in sea water will be 1/2500 of the values displayed. Also, the gas solubility graphs on engineeringbox.com are rather crude, and the data doesn't seem reliable. Prevalence 03:53, 27 November 2016 (UTC)