are the phytoplanktons causing us troubles?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061013202025.htm
Here I discovered that along with humans contributing to global warming, there are natural causes as well. Yes I knew there were many many reasons, but this is a new one for me. Basically, this article explains how the phytoplankton in the ocean move so much that the total amount of energy they produce is a lot! Here are some quotes so that you can understand it better:
"Physical and biological oceanographers led by FSU Professor William Dewar put the yearly amount of chemical power stored by phytoplankton in the form of new organic matter at roughly 63 terawatts, and that's a lot of juice: Just one terawatt equals a trillion watts. In 2001, humans collectively consumed a comparatively measly 13.5 terawatts. "
"What's more, their study found that the marine biosphere ---- the chain of sea life anchored by phytoplankton ---- invests around one percent (1 terawatt) of its chemical power fortune in mechanical energy, which is manifested in the swimming motions of hungry ocean swimmers ranging from whales and fish to shrimp and krill. Those swimming motions mix the water much as cream is stirred into coffee by swiping a spoon through it.
And the sum of all that phytoplankton-fueled stirring may equal climate control."
"In fact, he explained, biosphere mixing appears to provide about one third the power required to bring the deep, cold waters of the world ocean to the surface, which in turn completes the ocean's conveyor belt circulation critical to the global climate system. "
This surprised me a lot because I had always thought that humans were pretty much the cause of global warming etc. But here it shows that this is something completely out of our control that has happened naturally so unfortunately we need to accept the consequences that come from it. We cannot eliminate all the phytoplankton in the world because they are important to it and they wouldn’t be here if they weren’t needed for something. It is sort of scary to think that something so little can collectively be SO powerful and it is scary as well because there is nothing we can do about it. The world evolves and changes, we can try and do some things to help slow down global warming and all those types of things, but I guess part of it is just natural and would happen normally with out our help. This is very new to me; I never would have thought that the world itself would be partly to blame for all these changes, so it makes me wonder if it has to happen. Does our climate need to change? If so should we let it, or is it a bad thing even if it is happening naturally, in which case we should try and slow it down.
Here I discovered that along with humans contributing to global warming, there are natural causes as well. Yes I knew there were many many reasons, but this is a new one for me. Basically, this article explains how the phytoplankton in the ocean move so much that the total amount of energy they produce is a lot! Here are some quotes so that you can understand it better:
"Physical and biological oceanographers led by FSU Professor William Dewar put the yearly amount of chemical power stored by phytoplankton in the form of new organic matter at roughly 63 terawatts, and that's a lot of juice: Just one terawatt equals a trillion watts. In 2001, humans collectively consumed a comparatively measly 13.5 terawatts. "
"What's more, their study found that the marine biosphere ---- the chain of sea life anchored by phytoplankton ---- invests around one percent (1 terawatt) of its chemical power fortune in mechanical energy, which is manifested in the swimming motions of hungry ocean swimmers ranging from whales and fish to shrimp and krill. Those swimming motions mix the water much as cream is stirred into coffee by swiping a spoon through it.
And the sum of all that phytoplankton-fueled stirring may equal climate control."
"In fact, he explained, biosphere mixing appears to provide about one third the power required to bring the deep, cold waters of the world ocean to the surface, which in turn completes the ocean's conveyor belt circulation critical to the global climate system. "
This surprised me a lot because I had always thought that humans were pretty much the cause of global warming etc. But here it shows that this is something completely out of our control that has happened naturally so unfortunately we need to accept the consequences that come from it. We cannot eliminate all the phytoplankton in the world because they are important to it and they wouldn’t be here if they weren’t needed for something. It is sort of scary to think that something so little can collectively be SO powerful and it is scary as well because there is nothing we can do about it. The world evolves and changes, we can try and do some things to help slow down global warming and all those types of things, but I guess part of it is just natural and would happen normally with out our help. This is very new to me; I never would have thought that the world itself would be partly to blame for all these changes, so it makes me wonder if it has to happen. Does our climate need to change? If so should we let it, or is it a bad thing even if it is happening naturally, in which case we should try and slow it down.
posted by Kyla Mandel at 11:01 AM
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