London, Oct 21 : British researchers from the University of East Anglia have found in a new study that the amount of carbon dioxide being absorbed by the world’s oceans has halved in the last decade.
The researchers gauged CO2 absorption through more than 90,000 measurements from merchant ships equipped with automatic instruments.
The result of their 10-year study in the North Atlantic showed that CO2 uptake had halved between the mid-90s and 2000 to 2005.
The findings assume significance as the ocean’s ability to soak up less of the greenhouse could worsen the global warming scenario.