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When it comes to sucking up carbon emissions, ‘the ocean has been forgiving.’ That might not last | PBS NewsHour

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The ocean helps relieve our atmosphere of a lot of the excess carbon dioxide we've pumped into it. Here's how its "twilight zone" makes that happen, and how the impacts of climate change make it harder for the ocean to do its job.

Our planet would be unrecognizable without the ocean for myriad reasons, not least of which is the key role it plays in keeping our climate in check. A specific ocean layer, known as the twilight zone, can take a lot of the credit for making that happen. Carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere "would jump by nearly 50 percent" without the many ecological services the twilight zone provides, according to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution based on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. Scientists at that research hub explored in a recent report what we already know about this complex marine…

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