The Melting Ice of Arctic is Soaking CO2!
posted in Amazing Facts, Pollution |
This is perhaps the first time that global warming has caused the reduction of pollution. This melting sea ice in the Arctic is allowing the ocean waters to soak more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The retreating ice has increased the amount of co2 soaked in to around 3 times more.
Nick Bates belonging to the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences and colleagues calculated the amount of CO2 uptake in the Arctic Ocean from the measurements made from the Chuckchi Sea and Canada basin in 2002 and 2004. It has been found that CO2 uptake from the atmosphere increased mainly during the summer months, when the sea ice was in the least levels.
“Sea ice acts as a barrier to gas exchange,” says Bates.
It is presently calculated that the entire Arctic Ocean is now able to absorb around 66 million tonnes of CO2 per year. If there is a continued ice-melt, then it could increase the absorption by another 20 million tonnes per decade.
The bleak side of the argument is that this is not enough to get rid of the affects of global warming, because presently the emission world wide are around 30 billion tonnes per year.