From the University of Southampton
Deep sea fish remove 1 million tonnes of CO2 every year from UK and Irish waters
Deep sea fishes remove and store more than one million tonnes of CO2 from UK and Irish surface waters every year, according to a new study led by the University of Southampton.
This natural carbon capture and storage scheme could store carbon equivalent to £10 million per year in carbon credits.
Fish living in deep waters on the continental slope around the UK play an important role carrying carbon from the surface to the seafloor.
It is assumed that deep water fishes all depend on particles that fall from the surface for their energy. These bottom-living deep water fishes never come to the surface and the carbon in their bodies stays at the seafloor. However, at mid-slope depths there is an abundant and diverse ecosystem where a huge volume of animals make daily vertical migrations to feed at the surface during the night. The animals conducting this migration then transport nutrients from the surface back to the deep.
Researchers from the University of Southampton and Marine Institute, Ireland used novel biochemical tracers to piece together the diets of deep-water fish revealing their role in transferring carbon to the ocean depths.
They found that more than half of all the fishes living on the seafloor get their energy from animals that otherwise go back to the surface, and not from settling particles. These bottom-living fishes therefore become a carbon capture and storage facility. Global peaks in abundance and biomass of animals at mid slope depths occur because this is the depth range where the vertically migrating animals are most easily captured by fishes that live at or near the seafloor.
Lead author, Dr Clive Trueman from the University of Southampton, says: “As fishing, energy extraction and mining extend into deeper waters, these unfamiliar and seldom seen fishes in fact provide a valuable service to all of us. Recognising and valuing these ecosystem services is important when we make decisions about how to exploit deep water habitats for food, energy or mineral resources.”
As it is difficult to study animals living under a kilometre or more of water, the researchers measured forms, or isotopes, of carbon and nitrogen, in the muscles of fish caught in deepwater research surveys on the continental slope west of Ireland, at water depths ranging from 500 to 1800m. These were collected on the RV Celtic Explorer, a multi-disciplinary research vessel operated by the Irish Marine Institute.
Small differences in the mass of these isotopes mean that they are processed at slightly different speeds in the body, leading to patterns which can show who eats who in the slope ecosystem. By measuring the isotopes in all of the most common species, the researchers were able to estimate how much carbon is captured and stored by these deep water fish.
The study, which is published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, was funded by the University of Southampton and the Marine Institute.
Who’s going to pay the fish the 10 million?
According to one source, man puts about 26 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually. So fish sequestering 1 megatonne is “a spit in the ocean?”
So, eventually these fish die and rotting produces methane………….
Another GHG fear fostered by Southampton University to join all the others.
“…one million tonnes of CO2 from UK and Irish surface waters every year…”
Out of the estimated 500 million tonnes emitted by UK/Ireland. We’re saved! – Nature is going to eat all our CO2! It’s just a few years behind, and will take a few more years to catch up 🙁 Remember too the quarter to a third of our CO2 that the oceans also absorb
Wait just a minute! The one million is already included in that.
John S. says:
June 4, 2014 at 3:59 am
According to one source, man puts about 26 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually. So fish sequestering 1 megatonne is “a spit in the ocean?”
___________________________
So what?
If a dollar amount of $10,000 were assigned to a volume of air, the sum total of mankind’s historical contribution of CO2 to that volume could be likened to 1 penny, or about 1 part per million.
No suprise to see climastrologists studying piscine carbon sequestration. They are, after all, so far out of their depth the fish have lights on their noses…
“Adding radiative gases to the atmosphere will reduce the atmosphere’s radiative cooling ability”?? You don’t get further from daylight than that!
I wonder if those fishies ate Travesty Trenberths last lame excuse?
So, what happens when these fish die and the CO2 ” re-enters” the seas and the atmosphere?
Obviously , long ago in earth’s history this MUST have occurred , for how else can THE MANY historical warm periods be explained?
Further, these deep sea critters must have engaged in lengthy and massive sexual orgies, greatly magnifying their population, which clearly CAUSED the MANY ice ages.
Oops, forgot that during some of the ice ages, CO2 levels were HIGHER than today’s; so strike my latter comment.
@ur momisugly John S. says: June 4, 2014 at 3:59 am
“According to one source, man puts about 26 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually. So fish sequestering 1 megatonne is “a spit in the ocean?”
If you’d read the report (“…from UK and Irish surface waters…” ), it’s a bigger globule than realise. Try comparing like-with-like.
Isn’t it sad that someone who wants to study deep sea fish feels obliged to include a carbon reference. I presume we can blame his sponsors?
Surely there is something more interesting to learn about deep sea fish other than how much “carbon” the sequester? Was this really the point of this particular research, or was that just the mandatory obeisance to global warming dogma to qualify for funding? Now what we urgently need to know is how increasing the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin impacts the overall GHG balance. I think there’s an app for that; if not a few million dollars in grants should suffice to create one.
The talk in all those shamrock pubs:
Strange fishies have a feast
and balance all the skyward plumes
from Guiness’ brewers yeast
Many years ago I did some collabaritive work with S.U. They were doing some really useful work. It seems that has come to an end with the wealth of taxpayer’s money available for other more useless research.
Alan Watt, says:
June 4, 2014 at 4:35 am
My thought too, sort of food for thought.. I guess when they finally get around to taxing air that we humans breathe, these could be important metrics, but they are thought provoking and I think I have learned something – that must be good.
Alan Robertson says:
June 4, 2014 at 4:12 am
If a dollar amount of $10,000 were assigned to a volume of air, the sum total of mankind’s historical contribution of CO2 to that volume could be likened to 1 penny, or about 1 part per million. correction: 100- 120 ppm
Why was CO2 sequestration even part of this study? Shouldn’t this have been a straight-up marine biology story? It just shows how deeply the AGW agenda has polluted all branches of science.
John S. says:
June 4, 2014 at 3:59 am
According to one source, man puts about 26 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually. So fish sequestering 1 megatonne is “a spit in the ocean?”
And the proposed EPA regs that will devastate the American economy will change average global temps by 0.018 degree C, according to the EPA’s own analysis. Isn’t that less than a “spit in the ocean” and at much higher cost, too?
They carry carbon from the surface to the depths of the sea? So how do they wiegh down the carbon (coal? topsoil? Iphones?) to sink it in the first place? Lead weights? Maybe this explains why the ocean is getting ‘more acid’?
This natural carbon capture and storage scheme could store carbon equivalent to £10 million per year in carbon credits.
So how will they be paid? Piscine Pesos?
There’s something fishy about the payment assumptions!
They also crap carbonate which sinks to make rock, a bit like bird poo (‘lime’).
“This natural carbon capture and storage scheme could store carbon equivalent to £10 million per year in carbon credits.”
How long before a scam artist starts a “fish based” investment scheme, targeting gullible punters with offers of ridiculously large returns?
sounds to me like they want to find a way to stop deep sea energy extraction.
also, Mods the WP login page (clicking wp icon to login under the post is https and tossing cert name mismatch error
Where CO2 is stored is really of little importans, as long as the level in the air is increasing. Whatever the effect will be, only the differense between produced and stored CO2 matters.
The next government is going to have an inspectorate that goes around unplugging computers of people doing this sort of thing. Sheesh, if I discovered this, I’d be too embarrassed to report it. I suppose it’s only a step away from people around UK and Ireland having to pay a tax of $10million a year for drilling for rowing around the surface at night or drilling for oil.
“Recognising and valuing these ecosystem services …”
‘ecosystem services’ is phrase the UN and others have been trying to push for years. It is geared towards monetising the circle of life. If these fish capture £10 million worth of CO2 a year then the state will want £10 million from the public if there was a CO2 tax as it will claim it is managing the environment and protecting that ‘service’. And if it isn’t the state then it will be an appointed lobby group keen to be handed an immediate and ongoing revenue stream.
Yup. I think that sums it up.