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The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide is regulated by?
Plants play the biggest role in regulating the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. They do so by using it during photosynthesis and release oxygen.
What are some health and environmental hazards of carbon dioxide?
There are no health hazards from breathing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but breathing pure carbon dioxide will kill you. The environmental hazard from carbon dioxide is that it is one of the greenhouse gases that is causing global warming.
How does the ocean act like a sink for carbon dioxide?
Atmospheric carbon dioxide dissolves in the water close to the surface of the ocean. As the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases, therefore, so does the concentration of carbon dioxide in these surface waters. Most of the absorbed carbon is accommodated by chemical reactions between the water and carbon dioxide . But this 'buffering' capacity has limits and - if this water remains at the surface - it eventually becomes saturated with carbon dioxide. Surface water and deep water, however, are slowly but constantly overturning in a cycle of about 1000 years. As the surface waters move downwards - a process that occurs mainly in the North Atlantic and Southern oceans - it carries dissolved carbon dioxide down with it. As a result, about 75 per cent of the carbon that has been absorbed by the ocean since human activities began releasing carbon dioxide now resides in deeper waters. Overall, therefore, this process has recently been working as an important sink for carbon produced by human activity. Such downward transport, however, is relatively slow, and so it is ocean circulation - and not dissolution of carbon dioxide in surface waters - that limits carbon dioxide uptake by the oceans. Furthermore, models of the movement of oceanic water masses predict that in a warmer climate the sinking of surface water, and hence burial of carbon dioxide, will slow down, reducing the future role of the ocean as a carbon sink. Another way that the oceans absorb carbon is through the action of microscopic marine plants. When these organisms die, their bodies sink into deeper water. Although most of the carbon in the organisms decomposes to carbon dioxide before reaching the ocean floor, it is prevented from escaping back to the atmosphere (at least, until the oceans turn over). This biological uptake of carbon will probably increase in future, as changes in sea surface temperatures and chemistry lead to an increase in the growth of algae. But it will not be enough, however, to compensate for the reduced downward transport of water and dissolved carbon, and hence is unlikely prevent the overall ocean sink diminishing in the future. Inedeed sinks will probably never lead to a decrease in atmospheric carbon dioxide whilst carbon dioxide emissions continue at their current level. Hope It Helped! ----------------------------------------------HomeworkHelper-----------------------------------------------------
Which gas is about 60 times more plentiful in the ocean than in the atmosphere?
Carbon dioxide
Where do plants in the ocean get carbon?
Carbon Dioxide dissolves in ocean water. Plants in the ocean use the carbon dioxide dissolved in the ocean water.
