Abstract
Climate change is one of the most serious threats for sustainable development of human society. The release of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere due to anthropogenic activities is one of the main causes of global warming and climate change. Reducing CO2 emission and increasing carbon storage are the two major solutions to control greenhouse effects. China is now one of the world’s largest greenhouse emitters, and actively dealing with climate change by reducing emission and increasing storage has become China’s strategic consensus for economic and social development. Oceans cover approximately 71% of the Earth’s surface, and the carbon content present in the ocean is 50 times that in the atmosphere and 20 times that in the soil (Holmén 2000). Therefore, oceans are the largest carbon pools on Earth, and it also serves as a “buffer” for climate change. Approximately 30% of the CO2 produced by anthropogenic activities is absorbed by oceans (Le Quere et al. 2014) (otherwise global warming would have become more intense). In particular, the coastal oceans are mostly affected by anthropogenic activities, which account for only 8% of the global ocean area, but the amount of 20% CO2 is taken by open oceans (Field et al. 1998).
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Authors thanks the University Grants Commission, Govt. of India, New Delhi, for fellowship (MD) and Postdoctoral Fellowship (SDK) (Ref. No. F./31-1/2017/PDFSS-2017-18-TAM-13681 dated 19.06.2017).
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Divya, M., Dinesh Kumar, S., Krishnaveni, N., Santhanam, P. (2019). A Study of Carbon Sequestration by Phytoplankton. In: Santhanam, P., Begum, A., Pachiappan, P. (eds) Basic and Applied Phytoplankton Biology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7938-2_15
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