A new MIT study points to significant uncertainty in the way the ocean’s “biological pump”, which takes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and transports it deep into the ocean, is represented in climate models, phys.org reports. Researchers found that the “gold standard” equation used to calculate the pump’s strength has a larger margin of error than thought, and that predictions of how much atmospheric carbon the ocean will pump to various depths could be off by 10 to 15 parts per million. “We definitely need to make many more measurements of marine snow to break down the mechanisms behind what’s going on,” says MIT research scientist Jonathan Lauderdale. “Because probably all these processes are relevant, but we really want to know which are driving carbon sequestration.”

https://phys.org/news/2021-04-reveals-uncertainty-carbon-ocean-absorbs.html