The receding of the moon indicates a loss of tidal warm waters into the higher latitudes. This has implications for the global warming debate and the reduction in natural CO2 release from the ocean bottoms. Here's a quote from the Introduction to Physical Oceanography: Chapter 13 - Deep Circulation in the Ocean
[quote]*The Oceans as a Reservoir of Carbon Dioxide*
The oceans are the primary reservoir of readily available CO2, an important greenhouse gas. The oceans contain 40,000 GtC of dissolved, particulate, and living forms of carbon. The land contains 2,200 GtC, and the atmosphere contains only 750 GtC. Thus the oceans hold 50 times more carbon than the air. Furthermore, the amount of new carbon put into the atmosphere since the industrial revolution, 150 GtC, is less than the amount of carbon cycled through the marine ecosystem in five years. (1 GtC = 1 gigaton of carbon = 1012 kilograms of carbon.) Carbonate rocks such as limestone, the shells of marine animals, and coral are other, much larger, reservoirs. But this carbon is locked up. It cannot be easily exchanged with carbon in other reservoirs.
More CO2 dissolves in cold water than in warm water. Just imagine shaking and opening a hot can of CokeTM. The CO2 from a hot can will spew out far faster than from a cold can. Thus the cold deep water in the ocean is the major reservoir of dissolved CO2 in the ocean.
New CO2 is released into the atmosphere when fossil fuels and trees are burned. Very quickly, 48% of the CO2 released into the atmosphere dissolves in the cold waters of the ocean, much of which ends up deep in the ocean.
Forecasts of future climate change depend strongly on how much CO2 is stored in the ocean and for how long. If little is stored, or if it is stored and later released into the atmosphere, the concentration in the atmosphere will change, modulating Earth's long-wave radiation balance. How much and how long CO2 is stored in the ocean depends on the deep circulation and the net flux of carbon deposited on the seafloor. The amount that dissolves depends on the temperature of the deep water, the storage time in the deep ocean depends on the rate at which deep water is replenished, and the deposition depends on whether the dead plants and animals that drop to the sea floor are oxidized. Increased ventilation of deep layers, and warming of the deep layers could release large quantities of the gas to the atmosphere.
The storage of carbon in the ocean also depends on the dynamics of marine ecosystems, upwelling, and the amount of dead plants and animals stored in sediments. But we won't consider these processes." [end quote]
This means that anthropogenic CO2 contributions might be being masked by the loss from tidal effects for example.Attachment #1: CO2_pump.png