Environmentalists now have an ocean of concern, literally so. Researchers have come up with yet another gloomy study that says global warming is further increasing because the oceans are losing their capacity to soak up carbon emissions.
The international team of researchers has discovered that the Southern Ocean is not absorbing as much carbon dioxide as it used it and what is of more concern is that the absorption rate is decreasing with every passing day. The excess carbon remains in the atmosphere and it is increasing global warming by up to 30 percent, they said.
The reason behind the oceans’ dipping rate of absorption is supposed to be the high winds which bring to the surface deeper waters which already have high level carbons. Incidentally, climate change itself is held responsible for the high winds and that makes it quite a complicated case.
Ian Totterdell, a climate modeller at the Met Office Hadley Centre, is worried with the findings and rued the fact that we have none but ourselves to blame for weakening the natural ‘carbon sinks’.
He said
This is the first time we have been able to get convincing evidence that a change in the uptake of CO2 by the oceans is linked to climate change. It’s one of many feedbacks we didn’t expect to kick in until some way into the 21st century.
According to him, the researchers did expect a reduction in the oceans’ absorption rate but what came as a major shock was that it came at least two decades earlier than expected.
Photo: gea-consulting.com