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We have a surprising underwater ally in combatting climate change: zooplankton


The animals we best know as fish food help to store millions of tons of carbon in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica.

The BBC reported on the latest research into zooplankton by an international team, published in the journal Limnology and Oceanography, that detailed just how much these tiny critters have been impacting the planet's temperature. "If this biological pump didn't exist, atmospheric CO2 levels would be roughly twice those as they are at the moment," co-author Professor Angus Atkinson from Plymouth Marine Laboratory told the BBC. The climate change that they have been helping to stave off poses a threat to these species in the form of higher water temperatures, disturbances to ocean layers and extreme weather events.

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