Whales eat a lot! Well that’s an understatement considering how large they are. But have you ever wondered what comes out the other end?
In this fascinating story reporter Mark Horstman discovers that whales not only play a critical role in fertilising the oceans and providing a basic food source for marine plants such as phytoplankton but in turn it’s the phytoplankton that play a crucial role in taking CO2 out of the atmosphere.
The Southern Ocean is a very important carbon sink for controlling the levels of CO2 in the Earths atmosphere but it lacks one important ingredient to make this possible – iron. Normally an ocean is supplied with all the iron it needs from the the dust blown off nearby land masses but the nearest landmass to the Southern Ocean is Antarctica, frozen solid under an ice sheet! So how on earth are you going to get the much needed iron way down south?
Follow the below link to view the full story.
Story Details
TV Program: Catalyst – ABC TV
Story Title: Iron Whales
Date: 14th April, 2011
Link: Iron Whales