William Happer, physicist, Princeton University, USA, W A Wijngaarden, physicist, York University, Canada: Excerpts from summary at end of paper: [2] Carbon exchanges between the atmosphere, land and oceans are very complicated and involve a great deal of biology. [3] Without human emissions, the equilibrium distribution does not change with time. In Ed’s equilibrium, about 1.45% of carbon is airborne, 90.70% is in the deep ocean, 2.21% is in the shallow ocean and 5.64% is on the land. [4] The atmospheric fraction has remained close to 280 ppm from about the year 1000 to 1850. [5] Ed’s rate equations conserve carbon. If there are no human emissions, carbon lost from one reservoir flows to the other three so the total carbon content of all reservoirs remains constant. If there are human emissions, they equal the total increase of carbon in all four reservoirs. [10] It is hard to understand why, after some 800 years of apparent equilibrium the deep ocean might start to outgas CO2 more rapidly around the year 1850. [11] An increase of land emissions due to human activities sounds more reasonable than an increase of ocean emissions.
