Uptake
by the Ocean
The main way
anthropogenic CO2 is
removed from the atmosphere is
through oceanic uptake. This
occurs because CO2 dissolves in seawater. The excess carbon is
eventually incorporated into the skeletons of marine organisms
and buried in deep sea sediments as the organisms die
and fall to the bottom of the ocean.
This process is
thought to remove about 2.4 gigatons of carbon per year
from the atmosphere. So we started
with 8.5 gigatons,
3.2 are in the atmosphere, 2.4 are taken up by the
ocean, leaving us with 2.9 gigatons still to be accounted
for.