Are jellyfish increasing the ocean's capacity to absorb carbon?

Susan Kraemer in Eco Worldly: ….[J]ellyfish may be working to save us from our excesses. The massive new blooms of jellyfish might be burying more carbon dioxide deep under the ocean by pumping cold water to the surface with every meal. When they return, ferrying CO2-laden warm water down into the depths of the sea. In the process, they may be changing the overall carbon balance in the atmosphere.

The finding is the latest in a decades-old debate over whether swimming animals have much effect on ocean mixing, the process by which warm water on the surface combines with the cold water far below.

Carbon dioxide in the air dissolves in the ocean, reducing greenhouse gases in the air. Shellfish and corals are already at their absorption limits of how much CO2 we are pumping out. There are real limits to how much can be stored in oceans, and most scientists think we have reached those limits, but stirring it up by mixing it with deep water could increase the size of the ocean “storage tank.”…