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Scientists have made progress in terms of pinpointing exactly how much carbon whales keep out of the atmosphere; one study suggests that every year, sperm whale
by samvher 7y ago
Scientists have made progress in terms of pinpointing exactly how much carbon whales keep out of the atmosphere; one study suggests that every year, sperm whales help sequester as much carbon as 694 acres of U.S. forests do. Another found that in Hawaii, the swimming motion of 80 whales can absorb the equivalent carbon of 208 acres of U.S. forests.
The title of this article made me expect more. Unless they mean the 694 acres is the contribution per whale (the article doesn't provide references).
- danmaz74 7y agoThese numbers look weird. If only 80 whales in Hawaii are equivalent to 208 acres, then the entire world population of sperm whales should certainly contribute more than not even 4 times that number. But just 1 sperm whale contributing almost 4 times what 80 whales contribute in Hawaii also looks unlikely.
- samvher 7y agoThey are two different mechanisms though, it could be that the swimming motion mechanism has a far smaller effect. Google tells me there are 360,000 sperm whales, that would make the combined effect of the swimming of all sperm whales similar to that of 60 km x 60 km of forest.
- reportgunner 7y agoScientists have made progress in terms of pinpointing exactly how much carbon whales keep out of the atmosphere What a grossly writen sentence. It suggests that scientists are !pinpointing! !exactly! how much. Except that they are not pinpointing and they don't know it exactly at all.
- soulofmischief 7y ago"Determining" would have been a better word, but I understand what the author was trying for.
- papreclip 7y ago"Spitballing" seems more accurate
- sandworm101 7y agoOnly swimming motion? Ive read that sperm whale poop is massively important for feeding phytoplancton (sp) which in turn pulls radically more carbon from the air than those numbers.