Changes in land use, the combustion of fossil fuels, and the production of cement have led to an increase in CO concentration in the atmosphere.  At present, about one third (approximately 2 Pg C y = 2 × 10 grams of carbon per year) of anthropogenic emissions of CO may be entering the ocean, but this is quite uncertain. Some research suggests that a link between elevated CO and marine primary production exists.
Climate change may affect the biological pump in the future by warming and stratifying the surface ocean.  It is believed that this could decrease the supply of nutrients to the euphotic zone, reducing primary production there.  Also, changes in the ecological success of calcifying organisms caused by ocean acidification may affect the biological pump by altering the strength of the hard tissues pump. This may then have a "knock-on" effect on the soft tissues pump because calcium carbonate acts to ballast sinking organic material.
The second diagram on the right shows some possible effects of sea ice decline and permafrost thaw on Arctic carbon fluxes. On land, plants take up carbon while microorganisms in the soil produce methane and respire CO. Lakes are net emitters of methane, and organic and inorganic carbon (dissolved and particulate) flow into the ocean through freshwater systems. In the ocean, methane can be released from thawing subsea permafrost, and CO is absorbed due to an undersaturation of CO in the water compared with the atmosphere. In addition, multiple fluxes are closely associated to sea ice. Current best estimates of atmospheric fluxes are given in Tg C year, where available. Note that the emission estimate for lakes is for the area North of ~50º N rather than the narrower definition of arctic tundra for the other terrestrial fluxes. When available, uncertainty ranges are shown in brackets. The arrows do not represent the size of each flux.
The biological pump is thought to have played significant roles in atmospheric CO fluctuations during past glacial-interglacial periods. However, it is not yet clear how the biological pump will respond to future climate change. For such predictions to be reasonable, it is important to first decipher the response of phytoplankton, one of the key components of the biological pump to future changes in atmospheric CO. Due to their phylogenetic diversity, different phytoplankton taxa will likely respond to climate change in different ways. For instance, a decrease in the abundance of diatom is expected due to increased stratification in the future ocean. Diatoms are highly efficient in transporting carbon to depths by forming large, rapidly sinking aggregates and their reduced numbers could in turn lead to decreased carbon export.
Further, decreased ocean pH due to ocean acidification may thwart the ability of coccolithophores to generate calcareous plates, potentially affecting the biological pump; however, it appears that some species are more sensitive than others. Thus, future changes in the relative abundance of these or other phytoplankton taxa could have a marked impact on total ocean productivity, subsequently affecting ocean biogeochemistry and carbon storage. 
A 2015 study determined that coccolithophore concentrations in the North Atlantic have increased by an order of magnitude since the 1960s and an increase in absorbed CO, as well as temperature, were modeled to be the most likely cause of this increase. 
In a 2017 study, scientists used species distribution modelling (SDM) to predict the future global distribution of two phytoplankton species important to the biological pump: the diatom Chaetoceros diadema and the coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi. They employed environmental data described in the IPCC Representative Concentration Pathways scenario 8.5, which predicts radiative forcing in the year 2100 relative to pre-industrial values. Their modelling results predicted that the total ocean area covered by C. diadema and E. huxleyi would decline by 8% and 16%, respectively, under the examined climate scenario. They predicted changes in the range and distribution of these two phytoplankton species under these future ocean conditions, if realized, might result in reduced contribution to carbon sequestration via the biological pump.  In 2019, a study indicated that at current rates of seawater acidification, we could see Antarctic phytoplanktons smaller and less effective at storing carbon before the end of the century.