3/4 Of All Marine Life May Depend On Conveyer Current - Nat Geographic

[hatrack]

"An estimated three-quarters of all marine life is maintained by a single ocean-circulation pattern in the Southern Hemisphere that pulls nutrient-rich waters from the deep ocean, brings them to the surface, and distributes them around the world.

"This is really something," said Jorge Sarmiento, a professor of atmospheric and ocean sciences at Princeton University in New Jersey. Sarmiento made the discovery using sophisticated computer models.

The nutrient-rich waters help feed phytoplankton, single-celled plants at the bottom of the marine food chain that live at the ocean surface. As phytoplankton die, some slowly sink, decomposing along the way and carrying nutrients to the deep ocean.

EDIT

Sarmiento and his colleagues, who published these findings in the January 1 issue of the science journal Nature, are now investigating the details of this nutrient-circulation pattern to understand how it might respond to global warming."

EDIT

[brokensymmetry]

1. And we're doing an experiment that may change all that...

killing countless species. Frightening!

[phantom power]

2. Holy crap.

We are so, so doomed.