How fish cool off global warming. While carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas, continues to increase in the atmosphere, anthropogenic CO2 is mitigated to some extent by absorption of the gas by the oceans, primarily due to near surface plankton, which begin the food chain for the ocean creatures. Because plankton is close to the surface, both it and near-surface fish that eat it release some of the captured CO2 back into the atmosphere. Deep ocean fish, however, which kill near-surface fish and then take them deep below the ocean surface, prevent CO2 release, in essence sequestering the carbon. The potential CO2 offsets by this process range into the billions of dollars, and these findings could have impact on the deep sea fishing industry. Read the interesting findings in the Scientific American article.
About the Author: Lauren Boitel
