Shifts in diatom and dinoflagellate biomass in the North Atlantic over 6 decades
8 comments
·June 26, 2025octaane
This is a pretty big deal. Decreasing bottom-of-the food chain biomass like diatoms and dinoflagellates in the context of climate change is a pretty big problem. These guys are everywhere, in fresh- and saltwater bodies, all over the planet. Disruption of them has implications vis a vis carbon sequestration (they die, their shells sink, and get buried at the bottom), but most importantly, every other species of animal in the ocean is dependent on them. It's food chain 101 stuff. Fish like, say, sardines, that filter feed on these guys may not have their populations do so well if there are big decreases, or, as the article suggests, increases and decreases in areas where this historically doesn't happen, and thus other species that feed on them cannot adapt.
Also, things won't get better unless some really big changes are made (i.e, actually combating climate change). Or, as the article so succinctly puts it:
> Assuming the underlying mechanisms do not change, the next few decades could bring further decreases in diatom and dinoflagellate biomass, with a shift towards diatoms in much of the North Atlantic and a shift towards dinoflagellates in the Arctic. These changes have likely had notable consequences for carbon export and the amount of biomass transferred up the food web.
SoftTalker
Maybe instead of restarting nuclear reactors to power LLMs, we should use that power to offset coal/gas generation.
People might have to type their own emails again, but sacrifices will need to be made.
g0db1t
[dead]
vixen99
'actually combating climate change' is turning out to be more complicated than we might think. It appears that 'Contraction of the World's Storm-Cloud Zones the Primary Contributor to the 21st Century Increase in the Earth's Sunlight Absorption'.
The authors' two key points:
"Satellite observations show that in the past 24 years the worlds storm cloud zones have been contracting at a rate of 1.5%–3% per decade
This contraction allows more solar radiation to reach the Earth's surface and constitutes the largest contribution to the observed 21st century trend of increased solar absorption"
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2025GL11...
breakyerself
What's complicated? Cloud formation turns out to be a positive feedback for global warming. We still need to stop dumping greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.
Seems like just yesterday the perennially wrong Richard Lindzen was still claiming clouds would have a negative feedback reducing warming.
matthewmcg
If you’re interested in more context for this, the book The Blue Machine by physical oceanographer Helen Czerski. There’s a great discussion of this and other ocean issues.
thymine_dimer
Finally some phytoplankton on the front page...if only for a second.
In Gregory Benford's novel "Timescape" a diatom bloom features as a crucial plot element.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timescape