CAS ES 351 Lecture 10: Feb. 13

• School: Boston University
• Department: Earth Sciences
• Course: CAS ES 351
• Professor: Andrew Kurtz

Document Summary

~this is a model form the pre-industrial era. Most carbon is stored in sediments and rocks, then the deep ocean, soils, surface ocean, vegetation, then atmosphere. Henry"s law: there"s a proportionality of the amount of dissolved oxygen and carbon in the ocean, to the amount of the molecule in the atmosphere. During acidification, we"ve added a lot of carbon in the atmosphere, so the ocean has been absorbing a lot more this creates carbonic acid, which makes the ph drop in the ocean becoming more acidic. On long time scales, the amount of carbon in the ocean dictates the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. The atmosphere cannot change independently from the ocean in the amount of carbon it has, but the ocean can. Steady state: the reservoir mass is constant with time. All of the carbon in the atmosphere is replaced within 3. 5 years because about 174. 8 of carbon goes in, and 174. 8 goes out.