Heading out to Sea

Hello, and welcome to our blog! I am Claire, a student working on Hilary’s team. I am a rising junior and am an Environmental Studies and political science double major. I wanted to give a little bit of background on the scientific research we will be doing on our cruise.

We are going to be researching the biological pump. At a basic level, the biological pump moves carbon to the deep ocean through biology (like plankton or phytoplankton). Phytoplankton use sunlight and nutrients in the water to change dissolved Carbon Dioxide (or CO₂) into organic carbon. I find this really interesting because I am curious about the effects of the biological pump on climate change. This research could help us understand how our oceans were going to react to increasing levels of CO₂ in our atmosphere. The oceans already take up 24% of anthropogenic emissions, and the biological pump gives us a clearer picture of how our oceans are going to react to the climate crisis.

Here is a diagram of the Biological Carbon Pump. Note that POC stands for particulate organic carbon and that the euphotic zone is the area of the ocean where there is light. Photo © Microbial control of the dark end of the biological pump by Thomas Reinthaler & Gerhard Herndl

We can better understand how the oceans might absorb anthropogenic emissions by looking at how carbon moves through the water column. Like I mentioned earlier, in the light areas of the ocean, phytoplankton use dissolved CO2, water, and solar energy phytoplankton create organic carbon and oxygen through the process of photosynthesis. Zooplankton then eat the phytoplankton and respire (the opposite of photosynthesis where the zooplankton eat organic carbon and create CO₂). A fraction of this carbon then sinks from the surface and collects in deeper levels of the ocean (or is sequestered). Below layers of the ocean with light, zooplankton and bacteria eat the sinking carbon, and in turn respire. The biological pump transports carbon to the deep ocean as it moves from the atmosphere, into the water, where it is used for photosynthesis and becomes organic carbon that moves down the water column.

Here are all three of the gliders we will be deploying on our cruise. They are autonomous robotic vehicles that will measure things like temperature, salinity, and  the ones modified for our research (525 and 560) will even measure oxygen in the air as well as the water, giving us even better calibration than the standard version!

This means that the biological pump has the ability to sequester carbon in the deep ocean. We are looking at this the biological pump in the Irminger Sea because it is the site of one of the largest phytoplankton blooms in the ocean. In understanding how this carbon moves down through the water column we can better understand how the ocean works, but also its potential affects on things like climate, and climate change.

We are going to leave the port in the morning, and head out on our cruise! I am so excited and hopefully you all will enjoy hearing about our trip.

A picture of me in the beautiful city of Reykjavik