marine snow

City-sized maps of terrain and life on the sea-floor have revealed that drifts of ‘marine snow’ on submarine hillsides act as a source of food to fuel a higher biomass of marine life on the hills than on the flatter plains surrounding hills.

The National Oceanography Centre (NOC) is leading a £3.7M large grant recently awarded by the Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC) to investigate the ocean’s ‘twilight’ zone, which plays a key role in storing carbon, keeping atmospheric CO₂ 30% lower than it would otherwise be.

Ocean scientists have, for the first time successfully balanced the supply of food to mid-water organisms with their demands for this food. The depth at which they consume this sinking material regulates our climate by determining how much carbon is stored by the ocean and how much remains in the atmosphere.