An article written by United Press International about the belief that water in polar regions created by melting ice can absorb carbon dioxide and lessen global warming quoted Wei-Jun Cai, a professor of marine sciences at UGA.
“The Canada Basin and entire Arctic Ocean are still taking up carbon dioxide,” Wei-Jun Cai said. “But our research shows that as the ice melts, the carbon dioxide in the water very quickly reaches equilibrium with the atmosphere, so its use as a place to store CO2 declines dramatically and quickly.
“One of the take-away lessons of this research is that we can’t expect the oceans to do the job of helping offset global warming in the short term,” Cai added.