'Melting icebergs brake global warming '

oslo - (Reuters)- The biggest icebergs that break off Antarctica unexpected help slow down global warming.

So say researchers in a study published Monday in Nature Geoscience.

The rare and large icebergs, which are more common in the coming decades due to climate change, make as they melt into the ocean a huge trail of iron and other nutrients behind that act as fertilizer for algae and other microorganisms in the ocean. This extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they grow. This makes them a natural ally for the human efforts to slow the pace of climate change and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

So far the impact of this 'ocean fertilization' was by big melting icebergs assessed as small and local.