WHALES DOING THEIR BIT

Big whales are lowering the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.

That?s the result of latest research that goes against the general understanding that methane and manure are a big contributor to global warming.

According to a study whale excrement in the Southern Ocean actually lowers the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.

While cows are blamed for making climate change worse, whales are being praised for making things better.

Trish Lavery is a PHD candidate at Flinders University in Adelaide explains that whales defecate iron rich nutrients on phytoplankton, the microscopic plants of the ocean.

"It's sort of like manuring your garden. It stimulates the phytoplankton to grow and like all plants, when phytoplankton grow they suck up carbon" which more than offsets their carbon emissions.

"In fact from breathing whales add 160,000 tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere every year, but by stimulating phytoplankton with their poo they're actually removing 400,000 tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere every year."

When the phytoplankton die the trapped carbon sinks with them to the depths of the Southern Ocean.