A COMPLETE SET OF BUFFER FACTORS FOR ACID-BASE CO2 SYSTEM IN SEAWATER

A set of buffer factors is proposed which allows to compute changes of pH and pCO2 resulting from an input or an output of bicarbonate, carb onate and proton ions in seawater. Results are compared to the well-kn own buffer factors that describe a dissolved CO2 change (among which t he Revelle factor beta = dln(pCO2)/dln/SIGMACO2/). It is pointed out t hat the actual beta value can be quite different from the usual one (a bout 10) when other processes than air-sea exchanges are involved. Two examples of application are discussed: (1) A relationship is proposed to estimate beta = dln(pCO2)/dln/SIGMACO2/ by taking into account sim ultaneous organic and inorganic carbon metabolism: beta = -7.02 + 0.18 6%C(org) (r2 = 0.9994), where %C(org) is the percentage of carbon upta ke for organic metabolism, (2) A relationship is proposed to calculate the amount of CO2 that has to be exchanged with the atmosphere when a dding strong acid to an equilibrated open seawater system.