concept

Revelle factor

The number that measures how grudgingly an ocean accepts more carbon dioxide: it gives the percentage rise in atmospheric CO₂ needed to raise the dissolved inorganic carbon in seawater by one percent. On modern Earth it sits around ten to fourteen, which makes the sea a far less efficient sink than intuition suggests — and a worsening one, because every CO₂ molecule that dissolves consumes a carbonate ion, the very species that provides the buffering. The ocean is not a limitless reservoir; it is a reservoir that stiffens against you as you fill it.