A coccolithophore is a unicellular, eukaryotic phytoplankton (alga). Understanding calcification changes in coccolithophores may be particularly important because a decline in the coccolithophores may have secondary effects on climate: it could contribute to global warming by decreasing the Earth's albedo via their effects on oceanic cloud cover. A study in 2008 examined a sediment core from the North Atlantic and found that the species composition of coccolithophorids remained unchanged over the past 224 years (1780 to 2004). But the average coccolith mass had increased by 40% during the same period.