New Scientist
New Scientist was founded in 1956, this internationally-focused weekly British magazine aims at giving readers exhaustive information on recent worldwide developments in science from a scientific, technical and philosophical perspective. The magazine, based in London, is published in English by Reed Business Information, a Reed Elsevier subsidiary, and has US and Australian editions as well. The current Editor is Jeremy Webb, a professional physician. The New Scientist is widely read by both scientists and the general public, and often used as an information source for articles in the general press. The New Scientist website provides articles from the magazine’s weekly print edition as well as daily science updates.
www.newscientist.com
New Scientist was founded in 1956, this internationally-focused weekly British magazine aims at giving readers exhaustive information on recent worldwide developments in science from a scientific,...
Greenpeace is an international NGO focused on the defence of the environment, created in 1971. This association is present and active in 40 countries. Nowadays it counts nearly 3 million members all...
WWF, which originally stood for World Wildlife Fund, then for World Wide Fund for Nature and became simply WWF in 2001, is the world’s leading NGO devoted to the protection of Nature. Based in Gland...
Coastal carbon sinks are shrinking
05/09/2008 9:52 am
MANGROVE forests play a major role in pumping carbon from the atmosphere into the ocean, and may help regulate greenhouse gas concentrations. The trouble is, they are disappearing.Mangroves are the intertidal forests that fringe many tropical coastlines. Like all plants, mangroves fix carbon dioxide from the air through photosynthesis and return organic material to the soil when they decompose. But because their roots and soil are regularly washed by tides, much of this organic carbon leaches into the ocean.Researchers led by Thorsten Dittmar of Florida State University in Tallahassee measured how much mangroves contribute to the organic carbon dissolved in ocean waters off the coast of Brazil. They estimated that, worldwide, mangroves contribute a hefty 10 per cent to the ocean's dissolved organic carbon.This is roughly equal to the amount entering the ocean from the Amazon river, the largest single source of dissolved organic carbon. Much of the carbon produced by mangroves is in the form of molecules that are highly resistant to decomposition, so it is likely to remain in the ocean for decades instead of being returned to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.
New Scientist magazine. Issue 2542
March 11th, 2006
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