Oceans absorbing less harmful gases

Updated 10.48 Sat Oct 20 2007

Keywords: oceans, climate change

The oceans' ability to soak up carbon gases is reducing - leaving more harmful CO2 in the atmosphere, scientists claim.

Oceans naturally act as 'carbon sinks' by absorbing greenhouse gases, but UK-based scientists have found that climate change may be drastically affecting its capacity to do it.

Oceans naturally act as 'carbon sinks' by absorbing greenhouse gases, but UK-based scientists have found that climate change may be drastically affecting its capacity to do it

Experts have been measuring the level of carbon dioxide in the waters of the north Atlantic for the past decade and have discovered that the amount has reduced by about half over that time.

Natural processes mean that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is reduced when the gas dissolves into the waters of the oceans which cover much of the surface of the Earth, making them into vast "sinks" storing the carbon safely.

But the new study suggests that the amount of CO2 entering the oceans is declining, possibly because warmer global weather has heated the water near the surface.