Chemical oceanography and the marine carbon cycle

About this book

"The principles of chemical oceanography provide insight into the processes regulating the marine carbon cycle. These topics are essential to understanding the role of the ocean in regulating the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere and climate on both human and geologic time scales." "Chemical Oceanography and the Marine Carbon Cycle provides both a background in chemical oceanography and a description of how chemical elements in seawater and ocean sediments can be used as tracers of physical, biological, chemical, and geological processes in the ocean. The book begins with a description of ocean circulation and biological processes, and then moves on to discuss the chemicals that are dissolved in seawater. Subsequent chapters focus on why the ocean has the chemistry that it does, rather than on details of what is there. The first seven chapters present basic topics of thermodynamics, isotope systematics, and carbonate chemistry, and explain the influence of life on ocean chemistry and how it has evolved in the recent (glacial-interglacial) past. This is followed by topics essential to understanding the carbon cycle, including organic geochemistry, air-sea gas exchange, diffusion and reaction kinetics, the marine and atmosphere carbon cycle, and diagenesis in marine sediments. Figures from the book (including full-color versions) are available for download at www.cambridge.org/9780521833134"--Jacket.