HOW WHALES REDUCE CARBON

Personal work, Digital drawing

Whales are such magnificent creatures, I recall on one of my first dives in Mozambique I could hear the faint calls of the whales and their calves. On one particular dive I could actually feel the rumbles in my chest.

Apart from just being beautiful, they also help reduce carbon and I found the way they do it so interesting that I felt I needed to share.

Whales move up and down the water column eating squid and krill in the deep, thereby churning the nutrients in the water and kicking phytoplankton up to the surface. While at the surface the phytoplankton absorb carbon dioxide and drop down to the bottom of the ocean.

The whales defecate at the surface which in turn encourages phytoplankton bloom. The whales then store the carbon dioxide from the phytoplankton in their bodies and when they die they sink to the bottom of the ocean with the carbon dioxide.

(source: Two Oceans Aquarium)