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Melting Glaciers Nourishing Oceans With Ancient Carbon

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the Coming Darkness
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« on: January 03, 2010, 08:42:21 am »

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The new study goes against a long-held belief that older carbon is less palatable to simple organisms, Hood added.

For instance, in most of the world's water bodies, the older the carbon, the less easily microbes can digest it.

"That's the stuff that's been worked over—it's no good," Hood said. "But in our case the older it was, the more the microbes wanted to eat it."

That's mainly because glacial carbon is made of dead microbes that have been essentially preserved in ice.

The dead microbes contain more easily digestible nitrogen and not much lignin, a plant compound that's tough for microbes to break down.

Overall, the contribution of glaciers to the productivity of rivers and oceans is "greatly underappreciated," the study authors write.

"It's good to understand the uniqueness of glacier ecosystems and the important role that they play as a source of water and nutrients," Hood added.

Findings published this week in the journal Nature.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/12/091230-glaciers-melt-carbon-alaska.html
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