Carbon Dioxide Sequestration: A Solution to a Global Problem

Human and industrial development over the past hundred years has led to a huge increase in fossil fuel consumption and CO(2) emissions, causing a dramatic increase in atmospheric CO(2) concentration. This increased CO(2) is believed to be responsible for a significant rise in global temperature over the past several decades. Global-scale climate modeling suggests that the temperature increase will continue, at least over the next few hundred years, leading to glacial melting and rising sea levels. Increased atmospheric CO(2) also leads to ocean acidification, which will have drastic consequences for marine ecosystems. In an attempt to solve these problems, many have proposed the large-scale sequestration of CO(2) from our atmosphere. This introductory article presents a summary of some of the evidence linking increasing atmospheric CO(2) concentration to global warming and ocean acidification and our efforts to stem this rise though CO(2) sequestration.