If the carbon sink is twice what we thought we might have a little more time before global warming turns catastrophic heh?

That's good news, but how long can our ocean keep it up? We need to get off fossil fuels for most applications asap, both for the environment and because electric cars are fast... :)

They told only the half of the truth.

It is true, that the oceans produce the 2/3 of the oxigen on the Earth.

However, it is also true, that the CO2-level in the atmosphere is determined by temperature-dependent balance between of gaseous CO2-level in the atmosphere and solved CO2-level in oceans.

At the moment this balance means that there is 50 times more solved CO2 in the oceans, than the amount of the gaseous CO2 in the atmosphere.

Hence, the 98% of the 5ppm/year CO2-emission of the mankind is immediately soaked up by the oceans, and only 2% (0,1ppm/year) is left in the atmosphere, which is unmeasureably low.

That's the reason, that the yearly amount of CO2-emission of mankind has no measureable effect on the yearly increase of atmospheric CO2-level.

Even if we would burn all known fossil fuel reserve on the Earth, we could increase the CO2-level of the oceans and the atmosphere only by 11%, which is neglible.

We should understand, that for short (<1000 year) terms, the atmospheric CO2-level is determined only by temperature-dependent balance between the solved CO2-level in the oceans and the gaseous CO2-level in the atmosphere.

Fossil carbon burning and photosynthesis can have measureable effect on theatmospheric CO2-level only on long (>>1000 year) terms.

And as the CO2-emission of the mankind has no measureable effect on atmospheric CO2-level, the CO2 emission of mankind cannot have any measureable effect on global average temperature.

That's the ugly naked truth.

The Oceans do not absorb ''carbon'' they absorb CO2 where carbon is locked to oxygen. No sensible person would refer to the oceans as ''hydrogen lakes,'' because that would be considered as somewhat foolish, as the hydrogen is locked to oxygen, in the form of water. However, the amount of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere that is absorbed by the oceans is trivial, in comparison to the CO2 emitted by the estimated one million volcanoes, that erupt continuously along the various oceanic ridges. Its about the equal of a burp in a thunderstorm! So, gladly, there's no likelihood of the plant life of the world being wiped out from lack of CO2 in the immediate future.

I think the oceans can produce a lot more oxygen with the right stimulus .

We owe the oceans a lot of thanks, but this also means that disturbances to marine carbon cycles could have even more of an impact on climate than we think. If humans screw things up so that phytoplankton production (or consumption) drops, or downwelling ocean currents are reduced, we're in even more trouble than we thought we were.

I find it incredible that this has been missed for half a century. So, is the science settled for real now? THE SCIENCE IS NEVER SETTLED!

I guess this means we are not going to die in 12 years. What will the doom-sayers turn to next? Never mind.

When these climate change discussions ramped up this topic was almost ignored and what data out there was limited and widely varied in quantities and time frames. It is good to see a good dose of reason and attention going to one of our natural healing mechanisms, the oceans. Only with precise data can we understand and solve our problems. Thanks for the article.

The variability in the water band is the elephant in the room that is never talked about. 95% of the greenhouse effect on the Earth is due to water vapor and the variability in this exceeds the total effect of CO2 and methane.