This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
It begins each day at nightfall. As the light disappears, billions of zooplankton, crustaceans and other marine organisms rise to the ocean surface to feed on microscopic algae, returning to the depths at sunrise. The waste from this frenzy—Earth’s largest migration of creatures—sinks to the ocean floor, removing millions of metric tons of carbon from the atmosphere each year.
This activity is one of thousands of natural processes that regulate the Earth’s climate. Together, the planet’s oceans, forests, soils, and other natural carbon sinks absorb about half of all human emissions.
But as the Earth heats up, scientists are increasingly concerned that those crucial processes are breaking down.
In 2023, the hottest year ever recorded, preliminary findingsby an international team of researchers show the amount of carbon absorbed by land has temporarily collapsed. The final result was that forest, plants, and soil—as a net …