Abstract
A method is described for measuring pCO2 in sea water. A gas phase is analyzed continuously by infrared absorption for CO2 while it is equilibrated gently with the water in a countercurrent column. It has been used to determine the changes in pCO2 produced by variations of temperature and total CO2. Partial pressure shows large changes for small increments in these two independent variables. These properties of sea water are useful in estimating the movement of CO2 between the atmosphere and oceans. It appears, for instance, that most of the fossil fuel CO2 released by man has been effective in increasing the percentage of this gas in air.