Working with colleagues at the University of Liverpool, the researchers studied the impact that current carbon emissions have on the delicate balance between air and sea carbon exchange.

Published this month in Nature Geosciences, the findings show that the ocean’s ability to store excessive amounts of carbon dioxide over thousands of years will affect the long-term heating of the planet.

The ocean acts as an enormous carbon sink which naturally absorbs any extra carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere. Its ability to store more carbon dioxide than both the atmosphere and land provides long-term storage for the carbon dioxide emitted by human activities. 

The scientists in Norwich and Liverpool, however, have found that if all conventional coal, oil and gas carbon reserves are exhausted, the excessive amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will begin to alter the ocean’s natural chemistry and hinder its ability to absorb and exchange the gas.

“Today’s carbon emissions could have consequences that last far into the future if we continue to exhaust fossil fuels without developing carbon-capture techniques,” said lead author Dr Philip Goodwin, of UEA’s School of Environmental Sciences.

“The more carbon we emit, the more acidic the ocean will become and the less emitted carbon the ocean will be able to store.

“We found that if we emit all the coal, oil and gas available then the increase in ocean acidity will cause much of the emitted carbon to remain in the atmosphere for many millennia. Thousands of years from now, the heating from our carbon emissions will then still far exceed today’s levels. This will likely increase sea level rises and lead to further melting of ice caps.”

The research, in collaboration with The University of Bristol and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council.