Phytoplankton mass has dropped 40 percent since 1950

Begin quote:
"My concern is that if phytoplankton continue to develop and grow earlier and earlier in the year, it is going to become increasingly difficult for those animals that time their life cycle to be in the Arctic... to be there at the right time of year," Arrigo said.
The microscopic organisms are the base of the food chain and drive the food and reproductive cycles of fish, seabirds and polar bears. How larger animals may react to phytoplankton changes remains unknown.
Phytoplankton are also important because through the process of photosynthesis they remove about half of the harmful carbon dioxide produced by the burning of fossil fuels worldwide.
Previous research has shown the microscopic organisms have been disappearing globally at a rate of one percent per year.
Since 1950, phytoplankton mass has dropped by about 40 percent, most likely due to the accelerating impact of global warming, said a 2010 study in the journal Nature.
end quote from:
http://news.yahoo.com/algae-blooms-discovered-beneath-arctic-ice-184514569.html

Since    "Phytoplankton are also important because through the process of photosynthesis they remove about half of the harmful carbon dioxide produced by the burning of fossil fuels worldwide" then a loss of 40% of them since 1950 in regard to Global warming is nothing short of catastrophic in the long run of life here on earth.

At the very least it means that what the future will be in this century and the next is not what the last 100 years were in regard to both oxygen and carbon dioxide in the air here on earth.

When the average temperature was 76 degrees Fahrenheit several million years ago at the north pole it took about 1 million years of ferns from the equator to the north pole to eat up enough carbon dioxide to create a world similar to the one we lived in during the 20th century.