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.
Alan Robertson says:
June 4, 2014 at 5:25 am
As you know, 400 ppm means four parts per 10,000, so if the human contribution be 100 ppm, that works out to one of those ten thousand dollars. But that’s in dry air. In the tropics, you’d have to add 40,000 ppm of water vapor, far & away the main GHG, or $400 in your analogy, which I like.
Since the tropics is where the water vapor is densest, the positive feedback effect unjustifiably assumed in the climate models should be concentrated there, along with the expected heat, but of course that has not been observed in reality. (Very little atmospheric water vapor increase can be induced during cold, dark polar winter nights, no matter how much CO2 you add to the air there.) Nor indeed has the atmosphere heated sooner & more than the surface, as also predicted by the GHG hypothesis to explain whatever warming has been observed since AD 1850. Failure upon failure of the falsified hypothesis.
As for the fish, however small the effect, it just shows how little science knows of sinks in the world’s carbon cycle. That the ignorance of “climate science” is immense at least is settled for now.
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?”
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Note: “Fish living in deep waters on the continental slope around the UK” How much more may be contributed by other fish living in deep waters on the continental slopes in the rest of the world?
But the main point of this is to illustrate something I see in the science news almost weekly – further proof that we essentially _don’t know squat_ about all of the potential factors that can affect climate. I like the rare honesty of this guy:
Part of a speech delivered by David Victor of the University of California, San Diego, at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography as part of a seminar series titled “Global Warming Denialism: What science has to say” (Special Seminar Series, Winter Quarter, 2014):
“First, we in the scientific community need to acknowledge that the science is softer than we like to portray. The science is not “in” on climate change because we are dealing with a complex system whose full properties are, with current methods, unknowable. The science is “in” on the first steps in the analysis—historical emissions, concentrations, and brute force radiative balance—but not for the steps that actually matter for policy. Those include impacts, ease of adaptation, mitigation of emissions and such—are surrounded by error and uncertainty. I can understand why a politician says the science is settled—as Barack Obama did…in the State of the Union Address, where he said the “debate is over”—because if your mission is to create a political momentum then it helps to brand the other side as a “Flat Earth Society” (as he did last June). But in the scientific community we can’t pretend that things are more certain than they are.”
Winston says:
June 4, 2014 at 7:26 am
Much as Dr. Victor’s comments are a step in the right direction, he left out the vital middle ground that is still also uncertain at best. That is, between the first steps in the analysis he mentions & the policy considerations lie the effects of those first steps on the actual climate system. Here the science is most unsettled, including the key question of feed backs, without which being positive there can be no catastrophic man-made global warming from increased CO2 or other products of human activity.
There will come a time – sooner rather than later IMO – when such people have somewhat more important things to worry about than infinitesimal changes in the concentration of a trace gas whose major function is to enable the growth of plants.
Just a thought.
milodonharlani says:
June 4, 2014 at 7:25 am
Alan Robertson says:
June 4, 2014 at 5:25 am
As you know, 400 ppm means four parts per 10,000, so if the human contribution be 100 ppm, that works out to one of those ten thousand dollars.
Yes. The abacus in my brain didn’t start working until after my coffee pot did it’s job. I’d caught one of my 2 math errors, but not that one, thanks.
I like to eat. As a matter of fact, all the food I eat contains carbon. How do I go about getting paid for the carbon sequestration I am doing?
Alan,
Loved the poem. Made me laugh first thing today. And it’s only “highly likely” that humans have contributed more than half of the increase….or some official crap like that…so 50-60 cents max. That’s all I am willing to pay.
Biology and accountancy dont mix. Biology should be about the complex emergent wonders of form and function and the beauty, ingenuity and savagery of life strategies. Bean-counting carbon or energy or anything else is a self-delusional and futile descent into the dismal science. It does not add to knowledge. Rid biology of this numerical nonsense!
“Previously unknown”? But surely this factor was built into all of the comprehensive computer models, in which the “scientists” have 97% confidence! If not, why not.
Little fishies have a bite to eat, taking some tasty Co2 with them. Get to 1000+Km deep, have a burp and a little bubble of Co2 begins it’s adventure back to the surface.
Eamon.
Ooops! 1000+ m. should be.
This calls for government action.