Question

How much carbon does the deep ocean store?*

Answer 1

The ocean, with around 38,000 gigatons (Gt) of carbon (1 gigaton = 1 billion tons), contains 16 times as much carbon as the terrestrial biosphere, that is all plant and the underlying soils on our planet, and around 60 times as much as the pre-industrial atmosphere, i.e., at a time before people began to drastically

Answer 2

The ocean, with around 38,000 gigatons (Gt) of carbon

Step-by-step explanation:

. The ocean, with around 38,000 gigatons (Gt) of carbon (1 gigaton = 1 billion tons), contains 16 times as much carbon as the terrestrial biosphere, that is all plant and the underlying soils on our planet, and around 60 times as much as the pre-industrial atmosphere, i.e., at a time before people began to drastically alter the atmospheric CO2 content by the increased burning of coal, oil and gas. At that time the carbon content of the atmosphere was only around 600 gigatons of carbon. The ocean is there­fore the greatest of the carbon reservoirs, and essentially determines the atmospheric CO2 content.