Ocean pumps

Question 1

Explain what is meant by the biological pump?

Answer 1

This involved the uptake of carbon by marine organisms, particularly phytoplankton

Question 2

Explain what is meant by the Carbonate pump?

Answer 2

The calcium carbonate pump is related to the production and dissolution of calcium carbonate. Organisms use calcium ions and carbonare ions from seawater to form shells and skeletons.

Question 3

Explain what is meant by the physical pump?

Answer 3

It is driven by the ocean’s ability to absorb carbon from the atmosphere. Once dissolves CO2 reacts with watr to form carbonate ions.

Question 4

What is downwelling? (physical pump)

Answer 4

Currents occur in areas with cold and denser water. This brings dissolved CO2 down to the deep ocean. Once there, the CO2 moves into slow moving deep ocean currents staying there for hundereds of years.

Question 5

What is upwelling (physical pump)

Answer 5

This is where deep ocean currents return to the surface. Currents bring deep, cold ocean water to the surface
, the water warms and some of the CO2 is released back into the atmosphere.

Question 6

How does phytoplankton capture the sun’s energy for photosynthesis?

Answer 6

Phytoplankton use chlorophyll and other photosynthetic pigments

Question 7

What do phytoplankton convert CO2 and water into?

Answer 7

Sugars and other carbon compounds

Question 8

What do the carbon compounds enter?

Answer 8

They enter the marine food web and some carbon eventually ends up in deep ocean currents and seafloor sediments

Question 9

Phytoplankton return CO2 and O2 to the…

Answer 9

atmosphere when they respire

Question 10

Over __% of the world’s oxygen needed by us to breathe is produced by phytoplankton

Answer 10

50%

Question 11

What do organisms use calcium carbonate for?

Answer 11

To build their shells and inner skeletons

Question 13

Tectonic processes of high heat and pressure transform sediments into…

Answer 13

limestone