![]() Enough particles must sink to recycle nutrients into deep waters, and upwelling must occur to bring nutrients back to the surface. Both light and nutrients must be available in sufficient quantities for plankton. ![]() The overall efficiency of the biological pump depends on a combination of physical and biogeochemical factors. There are estimates that without the biological pump, CO2-concentration in the atmosphere would more than double. Without this mechanism, concentrations of CO2in the atmosphere would be substantially higher. This is an important sink of atmospheric CO$_2$. Particels which reached the ocean floor stay in the sediment for a long time. But only a small amount reaches the ocean floor, the rest gets eaten on the way there. If these organisms die, they either stay in the euphotic zone and are nutrients for other organisms, or they die and sink to the ocean floor (they sink faster through aggregation). You can distinguish 3 diffrent phases: First, CO$_2$ gets fixed by phytoplankton due to photosynthesis. It's the part, where carbon from the atmosphere gets transported in the deep sea through organic matter. The biological pump is a part of the carbon cycle. The physical carbon pump functions the best in cold waters, because it can uptake the most amount of CO$_2$ and the cold water sinks faster because of its higher density. Carbon gets stored in a long term in the deep waters of the oceans.
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