Perhaps some good is coming of the ever-increasing jellyfish implosion being reported worldwide.
It turns out, jellyfish may be working to save us from our excesses. The massive new blooms of jellyfish might be burying more carbon dioxide deep under the ocean by pumping cold water to the surface with every meal. When they return, ferrying CO2-laden warm water down into the depths of the sea.
In the process, they may be changing the overall carbon balance in the atmosphere.
The finding is the latest in a decades-old debate over whether swimming animals have much effect on ocean mixing, the process by which warm water on the surface combines with the cold water far below.
Carbon dioxide in the air dissolves in the ocean, reducing greenhouse gases in the air. Shellfish and corals are already at their absorbtion limits of how much CO2 we are pumping out. There are real limits to how much can be stored in oceans, and most scientists think we have reached those limits, but stirring it up by mixing it with deep water could increase the size of the ocean “storage tank.”
John Dabiri, a bioengineer at California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and co-author of the paper filmed jellyfish movements to see just how significant their contribution was to ocean mixing. Jellyfish come up to the surface at night to feed, pumping water up powerfully as they rise. Tides and winds also contribute to stirring up the ocean.
Rather like the way a bicyclist drags air behind him; jellyfish drag water behind them as they swim, says Dabiri: “When Lance Armstrong is riding down the road, he’s actually taking quite a bit of the surrounding air along with him, and the animals are doing something similar in the water.”
The film shows just how much cool deep water they stir up with them in the process and how much surface water they are taking down. A lot, apparently. Their pump-like swimming motion makes quite a difference.
“What I think we can say at the moment is that it’s a plausible idea,” says William Dewar, an oceanographer at Florida State University in Tallahassee who was not involved with the study.
It’s just a theory at this point. More research to follow.
Maybe Gaia is looking out for its foolish humans whose extravagant dumping of extra carbon into the atmosphere is endangering survival.
Now it’s as if the planet itself is joining human inventors of massive geo-engineering solutions in using a huge planetary pump from a (possibly climate-related) jellyfish implosion as in order to sequester carbon deep under the ocean.
About Susan Kraemer
It isn’t enough:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/02/health/webmd/main2147223.shtml
Salt-Water Fish Extinction Seen By 2048
Study By Ecologists, Economists Predicts Collapse of World Ocean Ecology
The apocalypse has a new date: 2048.That’s when the world’s oceans will be empty of fish, predicts an international team of ecologists and economists. The cause: the disappearance of species due to overfishing, pollution, habitat loss, and climate change. The study by Boris Worm, PhD, of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, — with colleagues in the U.K., U.S., Sweden, and Panama — was an effort to understand what this loss of ocean species might mean to the world. The researchers analyzed several different kinds of data. Even to these ecology-minded scientists, the results were an unpleasant surprise. “I was shocked and disturbed by how consistent these trends are — beyond anything we suspected,” Worm says in a news release. “This isn’t predicted to happen. This is happening now,” study researcher Nicola Beaumont, PhD, of the Plymouth Marine Laboratory, U.K., says in a news release. “If biodiversity continues to decline, the marine environment will not be able to sustain our way of life. Indeed, it may not be able to sustain our lives at all,” Beaumont adds. Already, 29% of edible fish and seafood species have declined by 90% — a drop that means the collapse of these fisheries. But the issue isn’t just having seafood on our plates. Ocean species filter toxins from the water. They protect shorelines.
Jellyfish explosions may be the untimate answer to man’s greedy over-exploitation of marine life. The fishing industry in Japan is already suffering from huge blooms of jellyfish entering the Sea of Japan from the China Sea. Fisheries on the west coast of Africa are being similarly affected. If the jellyfish can keep fishermen off the seas for while, maybe the endangered fish stocks will have a chance to recover.
To my mind Ms. Kraemer’s smile is misplaced and far too wide. Maybe she can give Mr. Arnold advice, at least on smiling ?
“The massive new blooms of jellyfish might be burying more carbon dioxide deep under the ocean by pumping cold water to the surface with every meal. When they return, ferrying CO2-laden warm water down into the depths of the sea”
I’m sure thunderstorms, tornados and hurricanes are much more efficient at cooling the atmosphere than even the largest jellyfish is at “cooling” the ocean. They suck all that hot air up and pump it into the upper atmosphere and exchange it for cool air (if you have any doubt, remember the last hailstorm you experienced) They probably help to return CO2 to the oceans as well.
Mitic CLIMATE ENGINEERING country needs more rain
USING HUGE (12m) TIDES FOR EROSION ASSISTED EXCAVATION OF LAND CHANNELS AND MAINTENANCE AFTER.
FOR AUSTRALIAN CLIMATE MELIORATION MODIFICATION TO MAKE DESERTS GREEN AND MORE RAIN DOWNSTREAM.
Erosion trigger channel + huge tides = huge erosion of land tidal channels = low cost excavation with erosion = land desalination = more clouds = more rain = cooler climate = huge carbon sink
Ask the farmer that got trouble with erosion because of rain
what erosion would huge 12m tides do.
Ask the scientist how big will evaporation be in bone – dry scorching hot desert if tidal system of canal and channels is made by erosion assisted excavation.
1. evaporation from saline tidal water, canals, channels, tidal lakes, tidal marshes
2. transpiration from mangroves and other sea water tolerating plants
3. transpiration from rain forest around, ( tidal evaporation 1 and 2 = more rain = rainforest 3)
Ask the engineer if it can be done.
.
Ak the economist would project be economical
if less: cyclones,floods, droughts, bushfires,
more hydro energy
Greener deserts and more clouds, cooler climate,
more water in rivers lakes and soil
for more see: http://www.royalcommission.vic.gov.au/Submissions/SubmissionDocuments/SUBM-002-010-0001_R.pdf
http://www.climatechange.gov.au/en/submissions/cprs-green-paper/~/media/submissions/greenpaper/0929-mitic.ashx