This piece of news might not be the best way to start the week but, as it turns out, there is evidence to suggest that, courtesy of an increase in global average temperatures, our planet's seas and oceans stand to become major carbon emitters.

To make matters even worse, specialists warn that, once released, this carbon that is now stored in oceans will build up in our planet's atmosphere and further fuel global warming and climate change. And this is why everybody hates Mondays.

Specialists with the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom explain that, in order to assess how the predicted increase in global temperatures will affect the chemistry of our oceans, they looked at a sediment core from the Gulf of California.

This sediment core that the researchers got to analyze was about 26,000 years old, and its makeup offered the researchers clues concerning how our planet's oceans have transformed over the years as far as their ability to capture and store carbon dioxide is concerned.

It was thus revealed that, during periods in Earth's history when temperatures were not what some would call cool, plankton present in the oceans absorbed less carbon dioxide than it did during times when Earth was fairly cool.

Science Daily tells us that, according to evidence at hand, plankton in the oceans sucks in more or less carbon dioxide from the environment depending on the amount of iron present in the surface layer of the bodies of water it inhabits. It is these iron levels that specialist believe increasing temperatures lower.

“Iron is known to be a key nutrient for plankton, but we were surprised by the many ways in which iron affects the carbon dioxide given off by the oceans,” Dr. Laetitia Pichevin with the University's School of GeoSciences explains in a statement.

Dr. Laetitia Pichevin and fellow researchers say that, should present day global warming also influence iron concentrations at the ocean surface, more carbon dioxide will accumulate in the atmosphere. As the specialists put it, “If warming climates lower iron levels at the sea surface, as occurred in the past, this is bad news for the environment.”

In a paper in the journal Nature Geoscience, the researchers explain that, for the time being, the southern ocean, together with the equatorial Pacific and coastal areas, are the regions that influence atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide the most. Hence, it is these areas that we should be the most concerned about.