The Carbon Cycle and Climate Change: Memoirs of my 60 years in Science

Surface chemistry of carbon dioxide revisited

“…The behavior of mixed CO 2 -H 2 O gases is of particular relevance to environmental studies focused on atmospheric and geochemical processes [198,199]. Work along this front includes vibration spectroscopy and theoretical calculations efforts [45,52,172]) describing the formation of (bi)carbonate species within thin water films at aluminum and ferric iron oxide surfaces.…”

The Marine Carbon System and Ocean Acidification during Phanerozoic Time

“…Once the system is nudged by this forcing a whole cascade of events follow that amplify the changes in the system . (Broecker, 2002(Broecker, , 2012 at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, USA, has concluded that there are potentially three types of forcing that can be responsible for the general pattern of climatic change observed during much of Pleistocene-Holocene time . These include: (1) changes in seasonality associated with the Earth's orbital cycles, the Milankovich forcing; (2) reorganisation of the ocean's thermohaline conveyor belt circulation pattern that is associated with catastrophic inputs of fresh water to the northern Atlantic; and (3) fluctuations in the sun's energy output associated with the appearance and disappearance of sunspots, that is sunspot activity .…”

“…However, the observed increase in CO 2 would require an area of the size of the Amazon forest to be deforested without compensatory regrowth of forested areas, an unlikely situation . In addition, the anticipated decrease due to the extensive deforestation necessary to satisfy Ruddiman's hypothesis in the d 13 C record of atmospheric CO 2 trapped in polar ice and that of foramineral shells over this period of time is not observed (see e.g., Broecker and Stocker, 2006;Broecker, 2012;Elsig et al ., 2009) . Nevertheless, the early human activities marked the beginning of human intervention in the ecosphere, which blossomed with the Industrial Revolution in the mid-nineteenth century .…”

The efficient long-term inhibition of forsterite dissolution by common soil bacteria and fungi at Earth surface conditions

“…The reactivity of forsterite and its silicate alteration products has received increasing attention as a potential source material for the divalent cations required to carbonate CO 2 during carbon storage efforts (e.g. Giammar et al, 2005;Oelkers and Schott, 2005;Bearat et al, 2006;Matter et al, 2007;Oelkers et al, 2008;Dufaud et al, 2009;Prigiobbe et al, 2009;Matter and Kelemen, 2009;King et al, 2010;Daval et al, 2011;Guyot et al, 2011;Broecker, 2012;Kohler et al, 2013;Gislason and Oelkers, 2014;Sissmann et al, 2014). This interest has led to a large number of studies aimed at characterizing forsterite dissolution behavior and rates at various fluid compositions and temperatures (Luce et al, 1972;Sanemasa et al, 1972, Grandstaff, 1978, 1986, Murphy and Helgeson, 1987, 1989Blum andLasaga, 1988, Banfield et al, 1990;Walther, 1991, 1992;Casey and Westrich, 1992, Awad et al, 2000, Chen and Brantley, 2000, Rosso and Rimstidt, 2000, Pokrovsky and Schott, 2000a, 2000b, Oelkers, 2001b, Giammar et al, 2005, Hänchen et al, 2006, Olsen and Rimstidt, 2008Davis et al, 2009;Rimstidt et al, 2012;Olsson et al, 2012;Plümper et al, 201...…”