Carbon Cycle In The Hydrosphere

The oceans contain around 36,000 gigatonnes of carbon, mostly in the form of bicarbonate ion (over 90%, with most of the remainder being carbonate). Extreme storms such as hurricanes and typhoons bury a lot of carbon, because they wash away so much sediment. For instance, a research team reported in the July 2008 issue of the journal Geology that a single typhoon in Taiwan buries as much carbon in the ocean—in the form of sediment—as all the other rains in that country all year long combined. Inorganic carbon, that is carbon compounds with no carbon-carbon or carbon-hydrogen bonds, is important in its reactions within water. This carbon exchange becomes important in controlling pH in the ocean and can also vary as a source or sink for carbon. Carbon is readily exchanged between the atmosphere and ocean. In regions of oceanic upwelling, carbon is released to the atmosphere. Conversely, regions of downwelling transfer carbon (CO₂) from the atmosphere to the ocean. When CO₂ enters the ocean, it participates in a series of reactions which are locally in equilibrium:

Solution:

CO₂(atmospheric) ⇌ CO₂(dissolved)

Conversion to carbonic acid:

CO₂(dissolved) + H₂O ⇌ H₂CO₃

First ionization:

H₂CO₃ ⇌ H⁺ + HCO₃⁻ (bicarbonate ion)

Second ionization:

HCO₃⁻ ⇌ H⁺ + CO₃⁻⁻ (carbonate ion)

This set of reactions, each of which has its own equilibrium coefficient, determines the form that inorganic carbon takes in the oceans. The coefficients, which have been determined empirically for ocean water, are themselves functions of temperature, pressure, and the presence of other ions (especially borate). In the ocean the equilibria strongly favor bicarbonate. Since this ion is three steps removed from atmospheric CO₂, the level of inorganic carbon storage in the ocean does not have a proportion of unity to the atmospheric partial pressure of CO₂. The factor for the ocean is about ten: that is, for a 10% increase in atmospheric CO₂, oceanic storage (in equilibrium) increases by about 1%, with the exact factor dependent on local conditions. This buffer factor is often called the "Revelle Factor", after Roger Revelle.

In the oceans, dissolved carbonate can combine with dissolved calcium to precipitate solid calcium carbonate, CaCO₃, mostly as the shells of microscopic organisms. When these organisms die, their shells sink and accumulate on the ocean floor. Over time these carbonate sediments form limestone which is the largest reservoir of carbon in the carbon cycle. The dissolved calcium in the oceans comes from the chemical weathering of calcium-silicate rocks, during which carbonic and other acids in groundwater react with calcium-bearing minerals liberating calcium ions to solution and leaving behind a residue of newly formed aluminium-rich clay minerals and insoluble minerals such as quartz.

The flux or absorption of carbon dioxide into the world's oceans is influenced by the presence of widespread viruses within ocean water, that infect many species of bacteria. The resulting bacterial deaths spawn a sequence of events that lead to greatly enlarged respiration of carbon dioxide, enhancing the role of the oceans as a carbon sink.