Researchers say planktons are rapidly thriving in the North Atlantic, suggesting swift environmental change as a result of increased carbon dioxide in the ocean.

The study, led a by Johns Hopkins University scientist, shows a tenfold increase in the abundance of single-cell coccolithophores between 1965 and 2010, and a particularly sharp spike since the late 1990s in the population of these pale-shelled floating phytoplankton.

"Something strange is happening here, and it's happening much more quickly than we thought it should," says Anand Gnanadesikan, associate professor in the Morton K. Blaustein Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Johns Hopkins, and also one of the study's five authors.

In the research published in Science, Gnanadesikan notes that while it is good news for creatures that eat coccolithophores, it is not clear whether the rapid growth in the tiny plankton's population is good or bad news for the planet.

Their findings highlight the possibility of rapid ecosystem change, suggesting that prevalent models of how these systems respond to climate change may be too conservative, he explains.

The team's analysis of Continuous Plankton Recorder or CPR survey data from the North Atlantic Ocean and North Sea since the mid-1960s suggests that rising carbon dioxide in the ocean is causing the coccolithophore population spike, says Sara Rivero-Calle, a Johns Hopkins doctoral student and lead author of the study.

Carbon dioxide, or CO2, is a greenhouse gas that has already been established as one of the triggers of global warming.

Their statistical analyses on field data from the CPR point to carbon dioxide as the best predictor of the increase in coccolithophores, Rivero-Calle says. “The consequences of releasing tons of CO2 over the years are already here and this is just the tip of the iceberg,” she warns.

Coccolithophores are one-celled marine plants that live in large numbers throughout the upper layers of the ocean, according to Earth Observatory. Unlike any other plant in the ocean, coccolithophores surround themselves with a distinctive cluster of pale disks made of calcium carbonate, or chalk. They play a role in cycling calcium carbonate, a factor in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. In the short term they make it more difficult to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but in the long term—tens and hundreds of thousands of years—they help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and oceans and confine it in the deep ocean.

In vast numbers and over eons, coccolithophores have left their mark on the planet, helping to show significant environmental shifts. For example, the White Cliffs of Dover are white because of massive deposits of coccolithophores.

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