The Southern Ocean behaves like a giant lung – breathing in and absorbing vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and releasing it later in the year. The seas around Antarctica absorb significantly more CO2 than they release. And importantly, they remove a large part of the CO2 that is put into the atmosphere by human activities such as burning fossil fuels. They basically help to slow down the growth of this greenhouse gas in the atmosphere and lessen the rate of climate change. We looked at what is happening in the Southern Ocean – which is responsible for capturing 40 per cent of the global oceanic uptake of … Continue reading Dorothee Bakker