For a while, Adam Martiny and some of his fellow scientists had suspected something was not right in how researchers understand the oceans. The object of their suspicion was something called the Redfield ratio, a principle stating that, when nutrients are not limiting, ocean microorganisms always have the same ratio of three elements: carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus.

Irvine, Calif. –Models of carbon dioxide in the world’s oceans need to be revised, according to new work by UC Irvine and other scientists published online Sunday in Nature Geoscience. Trillions of plankton near the surface of warm waters are far more carbon-rich than has long been thought, they found. Global marine temperature fluctuations could mean that tiny Prochlorococcus and other microbes digest double the carbon previously calculated. Carbon dioxide is the leading driver of disruptive climate change.

Plankton plays a bigger role in trapping CO2 than previous estimates by scientists.

Researchers at the University of California, Irvine found that all types of plankton absorb twice the amount carbon dioxide than previously thought.

Red Orbit said that the findings throw into question something known as the Redfield ratio.

Researchers conducted observations on oceanic plankton that puts solid data behind a phenomenon that is very important for our planets biogeochemical cycles but not well understood until now. The Scientists from UC Irvine demonstrated that the ratio of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorous ingested by plankton isn't constant, but varies widely. Currently, researchers use the Redfield ratio to understand the biogeochemistry of the oceans. The ratio of 106:16:1, defined by Alfred C.