Wednesday October 21, 2009, 8:15 pm
Thanks Daphana!!

For Peets sake -- now they are going to blame the problem on these whales, give me a brake.

Maybe I read this story wrong, but went to both sites and perfect news....but this is just downright STUPID!!!

Thursday October 22, 2009, 12:52 am
thanks daphna

Thursday October 22, 2009, 10:45 pm
Good story Dapha!
Marilyn, the first paragraph is missing some words and some critical punctuation, and that makes it confusing. The article is supposed to explain that whales have a good effect and help reduce climate change. It's also confusing because a carbon 'sink' is essentially something that removes or traps carbon back OUT of the atmosphere. At one time whales were considered a contributor to climate change because they breathe out CO2 like we do but lots more because of their size. Now, after studying the effects of the whales feeding behavior, we've learned that they are helping us in our climate change reduction efforts!

From the article (but edited for punctuation and readability):
What an interesting intersection of biology and geo-engineering: Our colleagues over at Discovery News are pointing out that because of the amount of extra iron that sperm whales bring up from the ocean depths when the feed, they stimulate enough carbon-trapping plankton growth to effectively be considered a carbon sink.

Sperm Whales Net 5 Million Tons of Carbon Reduction>
Sperm whales once had a reputation of breathing out so much CO2 that it contributed to global warming. However not only is that not the case, but analysis by Trish Lavery of Adelaide, Australia's Flinders University shows that the activities of the world's sperm whales could be capturing up to a net 5 million metric tons of carbon from the atmosphere annually. (There's more).

Friday October 23, 2009, 8:29 am
Thanks Jenny,
I have been trying to get back to this one for a few days and you beat me to it.
Plus you did a much bet job then I would have in explaining this.

Thanks again!!!