Salps can cool us down
|
Transparent jellyfish-like creatures called salps, which are
about the size of a human thumb, are swarming by the billions
into "hot spots" in the oceans?places where
hurricanes are likely to develop. Scientists are
hoping that they are transporting tons of carbon per day from
the ocean surface to the deep sea, where it will not re-enter
the
atmosphere
.
Salps move through the water by drawing water in the front
end and propelling it out the rear in a sort of jet propulsion.
In doing so, they vacuum up all the edible material in the
water. Some of this material consists of tiny marine plants
called phytoplankton, which use carbon dioxide to grow. All
the animals that consume phytoplankton absorb the CO2, but
when they defecate or die, most of them return it to the
ocean, where it recycles. The oceans absorb excess carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere, including some from the burning
of fossil fuels and this encourages an abundance of
phytophankton.
Woods Hole biologists Laurence Madin and Patricia Kremer of
the University of Connecticut and colleagues found that one
swarm of these tiny jellyfish covered almost 40,000 square
miles of the sea surface and consumed almost 74% percent
of phytoplankton every day, removing it from the ocean and
preventing it from evaporating back into the atmosphere.
Instead, it was contained in their fecal pellets, which sank
down into deep water at the rate of up to 4,000 tons of
carbon a day.
Global warming? Salps may save us.
Art credit: gimp-savvy.com
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