This Little-Known Marine Species is Helping Fight Global Warming

Nature has its own, little-known, immune system to combat climate change. It is the barrel-shaped, Jellyfish-like Salp that swallows the earth’s Carbon and safely deposits it at the bottom of the ocean.

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The barrel shaped jellyfish-like ‘Salp’ is what some scientists believe, a solution to the earth’s current crisis of carbon overdose. This strange creature multiplies by the thousands in large chains swallowing thousands of tonnes of carbon per day.

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They feed on phytoplankton, a microscopic organism that consumes carbon. While most species that consume phytoplankton, release carbon back into the atmosphere on assimilation; Salps, on the other hand, deposit carbon in the form of ‘fecal pellets’ at the bottom of the ocean!

The carbon isn’t replenished into the earth’s system.

Some researchers believe that these fast-growing swarms of Salp, is the planet’s own way of combating climate change. One of the largest such swarms to have been seen, extended to over 1 lakh sq kms,   transporting up to 4000 tonnes of carbon a day to the ocean floor.

Scientists also claim that salps are in a way, nature’s own ‘Carbon Capture and Sequestration’ (CCS) system- a system that reduces the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.

By capturing and depositing it below the earth’s surface, these organisms sure are a potent, practical & natural alternative to climate mitigation strategy.

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