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Article #75

Back of the envelope CO2 redux....

#75
From: Bryan Hannegan
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 18:20
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In reference to my earlier post on this subject, I'd like to point out 
a couple of glaring errors on my part that SIGNIFICANTLY affect the result.

1) I had density as 1 kg/m3, actually it should be 10^3 kg/m3.
2) The volume of the ocean was 1.35 x 10^18 g, not 1.35 x 10^15 g.

This would then increase the total by a factor of 10^6, making the result
1.52 x 10^11 metric tonnes, or 152 Gt.     

There are extreme problems with this, which I will point out so as to not
leave stones unturned.

1) Temperature,pressure and density were considered constant at 298K, 1 atm,
and 1 kg/m3 (figures for pure water at critical temperature)
2) Just the dissolving of CO2 gas was used, there were no chemical reactions
taken into account (unlike in Harte, "Consider a Spherical Cow")
3) Based on net response, chemical uptake of CO2 represents more than 90% of
the total CO2 content of the ocean, and we all know that assumption #1 is 
nowhere near reality (but it sure made calculations simple!)

I had read that the yearly flux was on the order of Gt and I thought that was
an usually large amountof flux for an element. Now I understand. 
Thanks for all the assitance and all the help. I hope this spawned some good
thought.

Bryan Hannegan
halo.ps.uci.edu
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!think.com!ames!nsisrv!hyperion.gsfc.nasa.gov!hannegan
From: hannegan@hyperion.gsfc.nasa.gov (Bryan Hannegan)
Subject: Back of the envelope CO2 redux....
Message-ID: <1992Nov19.182033.935@nsisrv.gsfc.nasa.gov>
Sender: usenet@nsisrv.gsfc.nasa.gov (Usenet)
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Organization: Department of Geosciences, University of CA, Irvine
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 18:20:33 GMT
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