Lipid pump

The lipid pump is the sequestration of carbon from the ocean's surface to deeper waters through the usage of lipids by overwintering vertically migratory zooplankton. This carbon enters the deep ocean through respiration and mortality of the zooplankton in question. This lipid pump also entails a lipid shunt, where other nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus that are consumed in excess must be excreted back to the surface environment. This means that the carbon transported due to the lipid pump does not affect essential nutrients in the ocean surface. The contribution of the lipid pump to the sequestering of carbon in the deeper waters of the ocean can be substantial: the carbon transported below by copepods of the genus "Calanus" in the Arctic Ocean almost equals that transported below the same depth annually by particulate organic carbon.