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Melting myths

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.

 

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