The United States is on the verge of losing its ability to monitor phytoplankton activity in the world's oceans from space, the National Academy of Sciences said yesterday. The loss of satellite-based "ocean color" measurements would be a blow to climate science, because phytoplankton -- tiny ocean plants -- help regulate the global carbon cycle. Like plants on land, phytoplankton produce energy by photosynthesis, pulling carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to fuel the process
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