Ocean fronts revealed as key players in Earth's carbon cycle

Ocean fronts revealed as key players in Earth's carbon cycle

Narrow bands of ocean covering just over one-third of the world's seas are responsible for absorbing nearly three-quarters of the carbon dioxide that oceans pull from the atmosphere, new research shows. The study, published in Nature Climate Change, reveals ocean fronts play a far larger role in regulating Earth's carbon cycle than previously understood.

A Thin Line in the Ocean Is Doing What We Thought Was Impossible

New research featured on Nature Climate Change reveals ocean fronts are places where different water masses meet, usually with changes in temperature, salinity, density, and major impacts on carbon dynamics. While they don’t take up much surface space, they’re packed with activity. Until now, they’ve mostly been left out of large-scale climate models, which tend to focus on broader ocean areas and miss these smaller, more dynamic regions. The re…