Talk:Solubility pump

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[edit] Scale of the system

 Please help improve this article or section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (August 2007)

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)