Off the east coast of New Zealand, cold rivers of water that have branched off from the Antarctic circumpolar current flow north past the South Island and converge with warmer waters flowing south past the North Island. The surface waters of this meeting place are New Zealand's most biologically productive. This image of the area on 25 October, 2009 shows the basis for that productivity: large blooms of plantlike organisms called phytoplankton. In addition to their importance as the foundation of the ocean food web, phytoplankton play a key role in the climate because, like plants on land, they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. When they die, they sink to the ocean floor where the carbon they took from the atmosphere is stored for thousands of years
Photograph: Aqua/MODIS/NASA
The Guardian
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