General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The U.S. Navy Just Announced The End Of Big Oil And No One Noticed [View all]BlueStreak
(8,377 posts)The absorption of carbon into the ocean is a relatively slow process -- decades or hundreds of years.
You talk like as soon as we would take carbon out of the ocean and pump it into the atmosphere, it would immediately go right back into the ocean. That's simply not true.
See http://science.nasa.gov/earth-science/oceanography/ocean-earth-system/ocean-carbon-cycle/
"The total amount of carbon in the ocean is about 50 times greater than the amount in the atmosphere, and is exchanged with the atmosphere on a time-scale of several hundred years"
"tmospheric concentrations have increased by 80 ppm (parts per million) over the past 150 years. However, only about half of the carbon released through fossil fuel combustion in this time has remained in the atmosphere, the rest being sequestered the ocean"
In other words, if you synthesize hydrocarbons from ocean water and burn it, half of that carbon will still be in the atmosphere 150 years from now.
Re the terminology "greenhouse gas" and "greenhouse effect", these are perfectly accurate terms used widely in climate science. The term that is discouraged is "global warming".