If the oceans stop functioning as a carbon sink (or operate at a lower level) we will be in big trouble ...

No idea what to do ... buy a houseboat rather than beach front property.

"Much of the data has come from a container ship carrying bananas from the West Indies to the UK, making a round-trip of the Atlantic every month."

Clearly making these measurements irrefutable, peer reviewed science.

""Much of the data has come from a container ship carrying bananas from the West Indies to the UK, making a round-trip of the Atlantic every month."

Clearly making these measurements irrefutable, peer reviewed science."

I do not see what possible bearing the fact that the ship was a banana freighter has on the results, and I especially do not see how that discredits the results in any way at all. The instruments were automated, and if there was a fault with the instruments that still has nothing whatsoever to do with the ship.

A program of data collection involving more than just one ship should help bring more certainty, though it will take quite a few years to bear fruit.

Hehe - nice.

A program of data collection involving more than just one ship should help bring more certainty, though it will take quite a few years to bear fruit.

Why does it take more than one data point? You can be convicted of drunk driving with one breathalyzer test, you can figure out if someone is pregnant with one test, and how many rocks did Galileo have to drop off of the tower in Pisa to figure out Newtonian gravity? So why does it take more than 90,000 data points to figure out that the transport of CO2 decreases as the concentration approaches the saturation point?

For that matter, why does it take any data at all. A basic understanding of transport phenomena (sophomore year engineering, junior year chemistry, freshman physics, etc.) provides that understanding. Saying you don't believe the data because 90,000 data points is insufficient has a high probability of bunk.

I don't understand your point Ed. It's not a cycle. The ocean keeps on absorbing CO2 until it's saturated. Once it's saturated, atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate and action on climate change becomes even more critical.

In the meantime shellfish and corals are having trouble forming shells because of the increasing acidity. The science is established and quibbling over the minutiae of methodology is just fiddling while the planet burns.

critta: Thanks for taking the bait. I've been waiting for the argument that trying to understand the science is pointless when the world is burning up.

My point is that most scientists talk about climate cycles. What if this particular phenomina is one of those climate cycles and has been going on for years before man started driving big V8 iron or using coal to heat his houses?

But let's say you are right and let's talk about action. What do you propose we do and tell me how you know that action is going to make the change you intend?

Science isn't a "shut up and sit down" type of business. It requires real understanding of systems and hypothesis that are proposed and proven or disproven by observations. Those observations in the case of climate may take many years, decades, or centuries. We aren't tuning a car here, we're tuning the planet.

As it is pointed out by Rafael, ocean dynamics (especially CO2 cycle) is surprisingly poor researched and understood so far. Generally ocean has two distinct layers, divided by thermoincline. Upper 200-300m layer is well-mixed and exchanges heat and CO2 with atmosphere very fast, in order of 5-10 years. Deep oceans have much longer mixing period, in the order of 1000 years. This is, actually, explaining why over geological time atmospheric CO2 increase lags 400-800 years after climate warming.

Both US and Russia have extensive data on ocean salinity, temperature, currents, etc. These data is kept secret, because nuclear submarine hiding below thermoincline barrier is practically undetectable by sonar from surface ships.

Decrease in upper layer CO2 concentration does not necessarily means reduced dissolution of atmospheric CO2. Increased concentration of dissolved CO2 in upper ocean layer is consumed by phytoplankton, and dead microorganisms sink to the bottom where their organic carbon is sequestered in sediments. There is interesting article of CO2 buffering capacity of Earth (“All together these buffers give in principle an infinite buffer capacity.”):

http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/esef4.htm

So far, from about 6.8Gt carbon from fossil fuel yearly combustion about half is missing from atmosphere. Part of missing CO2 is consumed by plants, but most of it is ending up in the oceans, and no reduction in this global process is so far detected. Take a look at graphs presented at Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Global_Carbon_Emission_by_Type.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mauna_Loa_Carbon_Dioxide.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Global_Carbon_Emission_by_Type.png

Hey, Ed - I'm not convinced about the sun rising in the east tomorrow. It could just be a cycle.

I'm also not convinced that gravity exists. It could just be a cycle and we'll all fly into space tomorrow.

I'm also not convinced that the Earth rotates. It could just be a cycle.

Also, I started a bonfire last night. Or did I? It could just be a localized hyperheating phenomenon that just coincided with me lighting a match to a bunch of kindling, then adding larger pieces of wood.

I mean, who knows anything?

Best we should all just sit very still and do nothing. We have no idea if any of our actions are good or bad.

What should we do? We must see that our own inefficiencies is the best place to begin.
Non-believers & believers must see that being more efficient(both personally & business-wise), using less to produce less pollution to accomplish corporate & individual goals is an excellent place to begin. Corporations understand efficiency(often it is hard to accomplish), tho people in their personal lives certainly aren't efficient 100% of the time.

But inefficiencies is the best place to begin for all people, whether we agree or don't agree on global warming or pollution.

Increased volcanic activity is warming the oceans and emitting increased levels of CO2. The other major effect of the volcanic activity is increased ocean temps which are in turn causing less CO2 absorbtion. Its a cycle that's been going on for millions of years with earth and can not be controlled by humans. Simple stuff, I don't understand why people keep going round and round about whether or not climate change is happening. The global climate is always in a state of flux. How could it possibly stay constant with so many variables?