The ocean contains 50 times more carbon than the atmosphere and large amounts of carbon are
exchanged each year between these two reservoirs. Over the past few decades, the ocean has slowed down the rate of climate change by absorbing nearly 30% of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. While ocean absorption of anthropogenic carbon is the result of physical and chemical processes, marine biology plays a key role in the natural carbon cycle by sequestering large amounts of carbon in deep ocean waters. Changes in these physical, chemical, or biological processes may result in feedbacks to the climate system, thus accelerating or slowing down climate change. These feedbacks between climate, the ocean, and its ecosystems need to be better understood in order to more reliably predict how the ocean characteristics, atmospheric CO2 and our climate will evolve in the future.