Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere initial carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of the young Earth was produced by volcanic activity, modern volcanic activity releases only 130 to 230 megatonnes of carbon dioxide each year. These natural sources are nearly balanced by natural sinks, physical and biological processes which remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. For example, some is directly removed from the atmosphere by land plants for photosynthesis and it is soluble in water forming carbonic acid. There is a large natural flux of into and out of the biosphere and oceans. In the pre-industrial era these fluxes were largely in balance. Currently about 57%
Ocean storage of carbon dioxide on the dispersal to make the change in carbon dioxide concentration in the ocean low enough to not affect the marine biosphere significantly. The proposed method of injection is droplets of supercritical carbon dioxide mixed with seawater. Plumes can be engineered to dissolve at different rates based on the size, concentration, and rate of injection of the carbon dioxide/seawater droplets. For rising plumes which rely on dissolution to sequester carbon dioxide, a smaller droplet with a greater rate of injection is better because it leads to faster dissolution. Sinking plumes ideally form lakes of carbon dioxide on the ocean floor