The nature is wise beyond the imaginable. The ocean surface bubbles' role in burying the exceeding amounts of CO2 is being investigated in Woods Hole Inst. (see in their reports). With an increasing storm activity around the globe (due to the global warming and increasing of air moisture contents and amplification of convective processes), this bubbles' amounts and therefore their contribution in regulatory processes increase as well. 

A simple model is the low SSTs in polar regions absorb CO2 which is transported to the deep ocean by the THC. In the tropics the warm SSTs release CO2 into the atmosphere maintaining the oceans in a stable state.

As global warming progresses the polar SSTs will warm and absorb less CO2. Moreover the THC will stop operating because there is no cold water in the polar regions to sink..In the tropics the higher temperatures will mean more CO2 released there. Thus we will be hit by a double whamy and atmospheric CO2 levels will soar.

What happens to the climate will depend on its sensitivity to CO2, still an unknown after ~30 years of research.

ms Osinsky

The air-sea exchange of CO2 is not the rate controlling step in the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere. It is the transport of water "thru" the thermocline so that CO2 is buried in the deep-sea. This also occurs at down-welling sites and via minralisation

Ken:

what settles down does not get up until in a couple of millennia as CO2 but this is out of the time period (for me) of interest for CC. Same applies for captured CO2 to be injected below the thermocline

Ken

How much is coming back of all that has settled: quantify your remark and give a reference for the whole of the globe

That sounds rather low to me. You say " Annual marine burial rates have been estimated at 0.03% for the open ocean (Berger et al., 1989)" but in most of the Open ocean there is a carbon compensation depth below which carbonate shells dissolve. Most of the deposition and preservation of carbonate will happen in shelf seas.

Berger et al., (1989) is available on ResearchGate here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230889127_Ocean_productivity_and_paleoproductivity_-_An_overview

The figure of 0.03% of seems to have come from Fig. 2 where you have averaged Gross deposition and Net deposition in the Open Ocean of particulate oceanic carbon (POC). But the White Cliffs of Dover, and all other Phanerozoic limestone is formed from what is called inorganic carbon despite being produced by organisms.

The White Cliffs of Dover are from the tests of coccolithophores as you say, but were deposited in water only a few hundred meters deep, (and have now been exposed by the fall in sea level due to the formation of ice sheets.)

Aerobic processes do recycle nearly 100% of organic material, but the White Cliffs are not concidered organic and have not been recycled.

Chapter Ocean productivity and paleoproductivity - An overview

Coal and oil are called organic carbon, limestone is historically called inorganic carbon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPvMMw0I6Ps

http://antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/101/inorganic/faq/what-is-inorganic-carbon.shtml

I am assuming you mean in the globally averaged sense George.  My comments below are about heat exchange with the oceans on the years to century timescale rather than geological timescales:

The first and simplest effect is that the oceans absorb a lot of the energy that is forced into the climate system by increasing greenhouse gases.  The massive heat capacity of the oceans would in principle allow for an awful lot of energy storage below the ocean surface.  However, heating of the oceans actually occurs quickly in the ocean mixed layer which is typically only a few tens of metres deep as I am sure you are aware.  So while there is a longer timescale of many decades for the deep ocean to uptake or release heat, in fact things are much closer to having a lag of just a few years following changes in CO2.  You can easily estimate the timescale of a few years from the depth of the mixed layer and the heat capacity of water and easily show it is a few years by the way.

The consequence of all this is that the global surface temperature tends to follow the changing CO2 concentration with a lag of just a few years.  Of course there is natural variability on top of that too like the current El Nino for example or the recent cold Pacific years which lead to a temporary slowdown of warming.  Another interesting consequence of the mixed layer on current climate change is that if we could somehow remove the excess CO2 very quickly from the atmosphere, then much of the surface warming would be gone in just a few years.

Hope this is of interest

Adam

Dear All,

I believe, that this is a really interesting question, however I think that on a short term any forecast can be considered as speculation only.. Global climate change can be and should be assessed by bio-geo-chemical means. I would refer to the impact of the Milankovich cycles. We do not know much about, however four of the past climate changes (Günz, Mindel, Riss and Würm) are more or less described, at least by geology and geography. The black box is the anthropogenic impact. In this latter case models, theories present rather diverse scenarios.

I myself as a cropman, I am quite certain about, that the only means of carbon sequestration is based on the metabolic activities of live stuctures. For example photosynthesis, let it be terrestrial, or of marine nature. Via the food chain finally all carbon shall be captured by  limeston deposition and/or soil sequestration. A maize crop may have a contribution of organic carbon to the soil in a magnitude of 100-150 g/m2 with appropriate soil tillage. On the contrary almost  similar amount can be released by wrong tillage.

Yours

Marton Jolankai

Increased %age of Carbon dioxide in atmosphere has increased interaction of this gas with sea water producing more carbonic acid in sea. With rise in ambient temperature, glaciers at south pole got melted with rise in sea level. A practical scene from India is about 250 square kilometers of sea shore has been submerged under water since last 15 years.