Save the whale...save the planet!
The great whales are important green allies in the fight against climate change; from storing carbon in the ocean depths, to encouraging phytoplankton blooms at the surface - the denizens of the deep are a natural, effective solution to removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Protecting whales is a nature-led solution to improving the health of our planet and mitigating against an increase in global temperature. Recovering whale populations to pre-whaling numbers - some of the larger species were decimated by up to 90% - could have a drastic impact on the capacity of these gentle giants to help mitigate against climate change.
CARBON SINKERS
Our oceans are a massive carbon sink – absorbing some 50% of global carbon dioxide. Whales, like all life on earth, are carbon-based organisms and so store carbon in their tissue. The sheer size of these creatures means that they can store massive amounts of carbon – it’s estimated that a single humpback whale can remove 33 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over its lifetime! When a whale dies, it’s body sinks to the seabed, locking the carbon away for thousands of years. It is estimated that a single humpback whale’s capacity for carbon sequestration (removing carbon from the atmosphere) is equal to more than 1,000 trees!
Large baleen whales, such as the humpback, have huge capacity to help tackle the climate crisis
MARINE GARDENERS
Whales play a critical role in fertilising surface waters by adding nutrients (through their poo!) and mixing nutrients through the water column (as they move between the deep and the surface layer). Whale poo injects iron and nitrogen to the sea surface waters, promoting phytoplankton blooms. Phytoplankton contribute up to 50% of all oxygen in our atmosphere, while capturing 40% of all carbon dioxide produced! Whales usually migrate from nutrient-rich feeding grounds to nutrient-poor breeding grounds so help stimulate plankton blooms by releasing nutrients in the areas which are lacking. By promoting these blooms, whales are helping extract carbon dioxide and releasing more oxygen into the atmosphere.
Whale carbon and oxygen flux. Source: GRID-Arendal 2019
NATURE IS THE BEST ENGINEER
As innovative as humans can be, nature-led solutions are the optimum - by protecting and recovering whale populations, we will strengthen our planet’s capacity to absorb carbon dioxide (among other benefits!). If whale populations were encouraged to return to pre-whaling numbers, it could significantly boost the carbon sequestration capacity available to our planet. If the forest is one of the Earth’s lungs, the ocean is the other.