How does the ocean’s biological pump work to help reduce global warming?
| How does the ocean’s biological pump work to help reduce global warming? |
The Earth's oceans have an excellent inherent potential to extract carbon and trap it deep into the oceanic waters, exerting considerable influence over the global atmosphere. A large proportion of carbon dioxide(CO2) induced by humans, for example when fossil fuels are burned and deposited in the ocean through a variety of processes which constitute the cycle of oceanic carbon. But the quick rise in carbon emissions leads to uncertainty about the longevity of the cycle, especially as many of the crucial mechanisms remain unknown.
In a recent paper in the Nature journal, Prof. Tom Weber, and his collaborators have illustrated and quantified the essential processes involved in the oceanic carbon cycle, precisely the "biological pump." The new findings can be utilized to direct climate simulation models to help forecast the impact of the climate change on the warming planet.
iThe biological pump represents the amount of all biological mechanisms that carry carbon from the atmospheric environment to the deep oceanic waters. Small aquatic plants, identified as phytoplankton, draw carbon dioxide from surface of the ocean to generate biomass.The biomass clumps into fragments and sinks into the deep sea. The particles break down in the oceans and release carbon dioxide(CO2). "The overall outcome is the 'pumping' of Carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to a deep sea," said Weber.
The deeper a particle sinks into the ocean, the further it will consider taking the carbon for returning back to the earth surface as well as to the atmosphere. For instance, Carbon emitted at depth of few more hundred meters circulates back to the air on a time scale of ten years or less, so as the deep oceans sink, the carbon will be deposited at a depth of more than thousand meters until it returns to the surface for a period of up to thousand years.
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