Modelling is certainly going to be a bit cheaper than collecting comprehensive datasets from around the planet's ocean zones throughout the upper ~500m where mo

Modelling is certainly going to be a bit cheaper than collecting comprehensive datasets from around the planet's ocean zones throughout the upper ~500m where most biological activity takes place, but without real data inputs, models tend to diverge from reality. See for example the Hawaiian Ocean Time Series project (running for ~25 years now, but just at one location, and still quite expensive): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_Ocean_Time-series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_Ocean_Time-series > "The 25 year record of ocean carbon measurements at Station ALOHA document that the partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) in the mixed layer is increasing at a rate slightly greater than the trend observed in the atmosphere. This has been accompanied by progressive decreases in seawater pH." Thus, scientific funding needs to be split at least equally between real-world data collection and computer modelling if we want to understand what's going on. The denialist crowd would rather not know, of course, which is the equivalent of trying to avoid getting cancer by never going to see a doctor.