Climate Action reports that the Southern Ocean around Antarctica is absorbing an increasing amount of greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere and hence limiting the impacts of climate change, according to a new study released on Thursday.
The study found that the amount of carbon being absorbed by the vast Southern Ocean has approximately doubled to 1.2 billion tonnes in 2011 compared to the levels measured a decade earlier.
The research was based on 2.6 million measurements by ships over three decades, and suggests that whilst the Southern Ocean is the most effective ocean for absorbing GHG emissions, it is unclear how long the higher rate of absorption will last.