Calcifying plankton quietly regulate the Earth’s thermostat by capturing and cycling carbon.
Calcifying plankton quietly regulate the Earth’s thermostat by capturing and cycling carbon. However, a review published this week in Science by a team led by the ICTA-UAB finds that these organisms are oversimplified in the climate models used to predict our planet’s future.
The ocean’s smallest engineers, calcifying plankton, quietly regulate the Earth’s thermostat by capturing and cycling carbon. However, a new review published this week in Science by an international team led by the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) (Spain) finds that these organisms, coccolithophores, foraminifers, and pteropods, are oversimplified in the climate models used to predict our planet’s future.
By omitting these plankton, current models may underestimate key processes in the global carbon cycle and the ocean’s capacity to respond to climate change. Calcifying plankton build minute shells of calcium carbonate (CaCO₃), a critical component of the ocean’s carbon cycle. These organisms influence seawater chemistry and facilitate the transfer of carbon from the atmosphere to the deep ocean. This “carbon pump” helps regulate Earth’s climate and influences everything from ocean chemistry to the fossil record.
Read More: Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona
Image: The pteropod Limacina helicina collected in West Greenland waters (Credit: Alena Sakovich and Clara Manno)
