> _how much_ do they regulate the carbon cycle? "We estimate that rebuilding whale populations would remove 1.6×10^5 tons of carbon each year through sinking w

> _how much_ do they regulate the carbon cycle? "We estimate that rebuilding whale populations would remove 1.6×10^5 tons of carbon each year through sinking whale carcasses." [1] "these changes are small relative to the total ocean carbon sink" [1] The total ocean carbon sink is 10^9 tons of carbon each year [2]. So the changes in whale populations have had a 0.016% influence on the ocean carbon sink. So, not much. But in the future when different geoengineering methods are suggested, maybe their impact in terms of tons of carbon per year could be compared to the size of this effect of stopping whaling altogether. [1] http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0012444 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_sink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_sink