Oceans are 'soaking up less CO2'

Global Warming Alert
The amount of carbon dioxide being absorbed by the world's oceans has reduced. Results of a 10-year study in the North Atlantic show CO2 uptake halved between the mid-90s and 2000 to 2005. Scientists believe global warming might get worse if the oceans soak up less of the greenhouse gas. Researchers said the findings were surprising and worrying. "It is a tremendous surprise and very worrying because there were grounds for believing that in time the ocean might become 'saturated' with our emissions - unable to soak up any more." That would "leave all our emissions to warm the atmosphere". Of all the CO2 emitted into the atmosphere, only half of it stays there; the rest goes into carbon sinks. There are two major natural carbon sinks: the oceans and the land "biosphere". They are equivalent in size, each absorbing a quarter of all CO2 emissions.