Gradual increase of oceanic CO₂ [6]

SINCE 1850, human activities, mainly the burning of fossil fuels and the clearing of forests, have increased the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere by ∼50 p.p.m.^1-5. Although it is generally believed that the oceanic CO₂ has increased correspondingly^6-11, only very limited data^12-14 have shown the increase quantitatively. We present here a computational calculation of the variation of the preformed total CO₂ (ΣCO₂⁰) for a water mass, the original amount of total CO₂ (ΣCO₂) at the time of its last contact with the atmosphere. The result for the Atlantic Ocean reveals that the older water masses have invariably smaller ΣCO₂ ⁰ as compared to the more recently formed waters.