It would be interesting to look into whether they had good reasons for thinking this at the time.
Henry’s Law? Correct me if I’m wrong, but the oceans hold something like 98% of the CO2 in the biosphere, so it’s easy to predict that in equilibrium they’ll absorb something like 98% of the fossil carbon we add to the biosphere. It might not have been as easy to predict the transient behavior; IIRC the oceans are only absorbing CO2 at roughly a third of the rate at which we’re now emitting it, just because the mixing processes are so slow.
Henry’s Law? Correct me if I’m wrong, but the oceans hold something like 98% of the CO2 in the biosphere, so it’s easy to predict that in equilibrium they’ll absorb something like 98% of the fossil carbon we add to the biosphere. It might not have been as easy to predict the transient behavior; IIRC the oceans are only absorbing CO2 at roughly a third of the rate at which we’re now emitting it, just because the mixing processes are so slow.
Thanks.