Biological pump

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The biological pump (or ocean carbon biological pump or marine biological carbon pump) is the ocean's biologically driven sequestration of carbon from the atmosphere and land runoff to the ocean interior and seafloor sediments.^[1] In other words, it is a biologically mediated process which results in the sequestering of carbon in the deep ocean away from the atmosphere and the land. The biological pump is the biological component of the "marine carbon pump" which contains both a physical and biological component. It is the part of the broader oceanic carbon cycle responsible for the cycling of organic matter formed mainly by phytoplankton during photosynthesis (soft-tissue pump), as well as the cycling of calcium carbonate (CaCO₃) formed into shells by certain organisms such as plankton and mollusks (carbonate pump).^[2]

Budget calculations of the biological carbon pump are based on the ratio between sedimentation (carbon export to the ocean floor) and remineralization (release of carbon to the atmosphere).

The biological pump is not so much the result of a single process, but rather the sum of a number of processes each of which can influence biological pumping. Overall, the pump transfers about 10.2 gigatonnes of carbon every year into the ocean's interior and a total of 1300 gigatonnes carbon over an average 127 years.^[3] This takes carbon out of contact with the atmosphere for several thousand years or longer. An ocean without a biological pump would result in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels about 400 ppm higher than the present day.