Most scientists studying global climate change look to the atmosphere.
Paul Loubere , a professor of Geology and Environmental Geosciences at Northern Illinois University, peers into the deep, dark abyss of the eastern Pacific Ocean. Because the marine life regulates the release of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, nature's watery pipeline also may provide a key to unraveling mysteries of climate change, including global warming. Until now, it's mostly been assumed that ocean conditions in the eastern equatorial Pacific were largely controlled by atmospheric conditions, such as the trade winds blowing across the tropics. Loubere's research presents the first evidence that there's something else to seriously consider here. Loubere studied marine life in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, a primary region for exchange between deeper and surface ocean waters and between the ocean and the atmosphere.