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Southern Ocean sperm whales are an unexpected ally in the fight against global warming, removing the equivalent carbon emissions from 40,000 cars each year in their faeces, a study shows.
The cetaceans have been previously seen as climate culprits because they breathe out carbon dioxide (CO2), the most common greenhouse gas.
But this is only a part of the picture, according to the paper, published in the British journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
In a heroic calculation, Australian biologists estimated that about 12,000 sperm whales in the Southern Ocean each defecate around 50 tonnes of iron into the sea every year after digesting the fish and squid they hunt.
The iron is a terrific food for phytoplankton – marine plants that live near the ocean surface and which suck up CO2 from the atmosphere through photosynthesis.
As a result of faecal fertilisation, the whales remove 400,000 tonnes of carbon each year, twice as much as the 200,000 tonnes of CO2 that they contribute through respiration.
By way of comparison, 200,000 tonnes of CO2 is equal to the emissions of almost 40,000 passenger cars, according to an equation on the website of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The whales’ faeces are so effective because they are emitted in liquid form and close to the surface, before the mammals dive, said the paper.
Industrialised whaling not only gravely threatened Southern Ocean sperm whales, it also damaged a major carbon “sink”, the scientific term for something that removes more greenhouse gases than it produces, it added.
Before industrial whaling, the population of this species was about 10 times bigger, which meant around two million tonnes of CO2 were removed annually, said the paper.
Moshpit says:In terms of net carbon flows it would appear that man is lower than whale..err stuff. Al Gore has announced an adopt-a-whale program whereby celebrities can gain carbon credits for adopting a whale. Rosie O’Donnell has been signed as the spokesmodel for the program and Bill Gates is funding a geo-engineering effort to seed the worlds oceans with psyllium seed husks to forestall any climate catastrophes that would result from irregular whales.
“The cetaceans have been previously seen as climate culprits because they breathe out carbon dioxide (CO2)”
Definition of culprit:
1. wrongdoer: somebody who is responsible for or guilty of an offense or misdeed
2. accused person: somebody charged with a crime and awaiting trial
3. origin of problem: a cause of a problem ( informal )
How has it come to this? That an animal, living in balance with nature, doing nothing sinister, simply performing the natural task of breathing to stay alive is labeled a wrongdoer.
Actually, re-reading it again, I think I’ll go with my initial intepretation – to paraphrase: “Whale crap sinks as faecal pellets, but that’s OK, because a lot of it is expressed in liquid form. Which doesn’t. Sink that is. And though iron is bound up tightly in the body, apparently it just goes free and soluble as soon as it hits seawater. But whale crap also floats in a floating/sinking sort of way as per the quote while the remaining faecal material floats or slowly disperses outwards.. Perhaps this is due to Seasonal and spatial heterogeneity of sperm whale diet may change the nutrient composition and buoyancy of defecated waste. Or perhaps not. The paper doesn’t really say. However this boyancy does not apply to squid beaks which definitely sink in a sinking/sinking sort of way.
If I thought I was confused, then they’re far more confused…
richard telford says:
June 16, 2010 at 12:56 pm
I will have to say this in a non ad hominem manner for you. I probably have thicker skin than most, I am originally from New Jersey, so I apologize.
The fish and squid they eat are mainly living in the sunlight zone (I use the layman’s term here). The fish and squid eat algae and plankton, then smaller fish and a bit larger and so on. Sort of like a Russian doll? The iron came from the
epipelagicsunlight zone the whole time, not from thebenthosbottom. To reiterate, I don’t know what expert led you to believe that iron is scarce in the ocean, but it just plumb ain’t!Local concentrations of nutrients rarely can become limiting in the oceans, only if there is a temporary local effect preventing the oceans from mixing. This is why we have ocean oscillations, not to just spread heat around, but to mix the water. Also, algae will proliferate where the nutrients abound. As a fisherman once told me when I asked if fishing was good in this spot, he replied, “the fish, they swim around”.
Ratio of co2 in air and water is 1/50.
50 molecules co2 in water only affects 1 molecule in air.
Some of the figures above should be divided by 50?
“Al Gore has announced an adopt-a-whale program whereby celebrities can gain carbon credits for adopting a whale. Rosie O’Donnell has been signed as the spokesmodel for the program…”
Do I get a two-whale carbon credit if I adopt Rosie O’Donnell?
Layne Blanchard says:
June 16, 2010 at 11:09 am
Fascinating how every pet desire of the left fits so neatly into the warming narrative. Even the fixation on locally grown vegetables get credit because they don’t require shipping to a distant destination. Too bad they’ve shut off the water to the central valley to save the Delta Smelt. We’ll have to settle for the e-coli crop from Mexico instead.
_______________________________________________________________
Do not worry Layne, according to a trucker friend they will rebox that Mexican e-coli crop in boxes labeled “product of California” so the Californians can feel morally superior as the sit on the john with a belly full of cramps.
bubbagyro
Large parts of the oceans are nutrient limited. The gyres, remote from nutrient supplies from upwelling zones or the coast, have low levels of photosynthetic activity.
You almost get the iron limitation problem. You are correct in that it is nothing to do with benthic supplies of iron. Iron taken up by algae then moves through the food chain. This much you understand. But there is more: at each stage a portion is exported from the photic zone for example in sinking faecal pellets or dead algae or animals. This nutrient export depletes the pool of nutrients in the photic zone. Unless they are replaced by mixing or other sources there will be nutrient limitations.
The iron limitation in the southern ocean is well established and has a copious literature. It is easy to demonstrate: adding dissolved iron causes algal blooms.
I think what Telford and the study authors are implying is that when those fish and squid die, they sink; or if their remains float they are eaten by something that also sinks eventually (a shark?); but OTOH if a whale eats them it excretes them in a form that floats and is liquid and is thereby easily digestible by algae.
When I saw this, I just knew it would show up here. Your govt tax dollars at work. Maybe it soaks up oil spills. Did they consider the methane?
Can’t we raise the level and talk about Laurie David or something? 😉
Did they notice that these CO2-saving whales were literally SWIMMING in the liquid form of “the most common greenhouse gas”?
I thought not.
This is perfect for Gore: Whale Anomalies are really Green.
But, as ususal, there is no effort made at thinking the thing through in it’s cycle. None whatsoever.
Eventually, those deposits heading for the ocean floor form new seabed strata, which are then uplifted by tectonic forces or consumed in subduction to reappear at your local neighborhood volcanic eruption.
It gets back into the atmosphere, one way or another.
Whale poop.
Really.
I can see what’s happened here, the research subjects have been mixed up.
They were obviously researching bulls.
Roger Knights says:
June 16, 2010 at 3:10 pm
I know what Richard is saying. Warm-earthers always say “climate not weather” when it suits them, or the opposite when it suits them.
You are correct. Instead of splitting hairs, i.e. where the iron is temporarily located (clearly a short-term “weather-type “event), the whale watchers all of a sudden forget the efficient redistribution of elements in the oceans (a longer-term “climate-type”) event when it suits them.
Whole islands in the oceans are composed of huge hematite and other iron ore deposits which leach into the seas on an ongoing basis. Whales don’t do diddly on the grand scale.
Someone needs to notify Gavin that they’ve finally found the missing sink for his climate models! And considering the enormous volume of crap that his models normally churn out, whale poop modeling should be a cinch.
Don’t whales fart?
So carbon cycles, heh? What an amazing revelation! We’re all going to live!
Let’s see. Bacteria in the ocean can fix nitrogen from the air. Whales add iron.
That’s it, instant algae.
Only one problem with that.
Nitrogen and iron alone can not make algae
The open oceans are limiting in phosphorus.
These people really are morons.
Since I poop a lot, I must be carbon neutral too!
That’s the Sydney Morning Herald!
I just have to ask the question.
Who paid for this rubbish report?
Z Says: I should have put a /s after.
I. DO. NOT. WANT. TO. KNOW. HOW. THIS. RESEACH. WAS. DONE.
bubbagyro: That’s one of the reasons why El Ninos are so hard on S American fishermen — deep current change and as a result there is less upwelling of cold, nutrient rich water to feed the fish. Whales don’t upwell much water.
Chris1958 says:
June 16, 2010 at 7:11 pm
That’s the Sydney Morning Herald!
Coincidentally, Australia is leading the charge to ban what whaling still happens (by Japan, Norway, and Iceland).
But as far as I know – off the top of my head here – nobody hunts sperm whales anymore anyways.
And coincidentally, they just came up with a new IPPC type idea for biodiversity, so we can expect no end of these kind of stories. With or without the climate change angle.
Oops. Meant ‘IPCC type idea.’ Hope everyone gets the idea. Everything will be peer reviewed, of course.
Uuuuugh! Here in Australia we’re being bombarded with stream after stream of alarmist articles and images, especially in the SMH, and their solutions. Australia MSM, both online and in paper form and on TV are in over-drive, it is election year after all. The Australian PM, he’s desperate, his Govn’t policies have failed, large projects have failed, the Labor party want to sensor the internet etc etc. He is Rudderless, floating about in (He hopes) an acid sea hoping the to sink all the asylum seekers before they land of the shores of Australia.