From Caltech
All the ocean's creatures great and especially small may have a larger than believed churning effect on the seas, helping in a big way to distribute heat, nutrients and gasses in the water, researchers say. They reexamined a theory posited by the grandson of famed evolution theorist Charles Darwin, an argument that water-borne species, especially the teeming microscopic critters like krill and copepods, drag flows of water with and around them when they swim about. With theoretical models, calculations and underwater observation, they believe, conservatively, that the creatures' motion creates as much as a trillion watts of energy -- which would be equal to the force of wind or tide. This work, by engineers, may prove key to revamping models of global water circulation; those models, in turn, play a vital role in scientists' views on global warming.
Big New Estimates on How Even Tiniest Creatures Help Churn World's Oceans
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