Development of Environmental Assessment Technique for CO₂ Ocean Sequestration

Increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are suspected of causing a gradual warming of the Earth’s surface and potentially disastrous changes to global climate. Because CO₂ is a major greenhouse gas, CO₂ ocean sequestration is being explored as one possible option to limit the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. In the case of CO₂ ocean sequestration, an assessment of environmental impacts to the ocean is the most important issue. Sequestration research requires a development of new cost-effective observation techniques to monitor dilution and diffusion of the sequestrated CO₂. We developed an in-situ pH/pCO₂ sensor, a tracking neutral buoy system and a towing multi-layer monitoring system to observe the pH change, water movement and diffusion at a mid-depth of the ocean as an environmental assessment technique for CO₂ ocean sequestration.