Phytoplankton…tiny, mostly single-celled organisms
that live in the oceans, creating energy for our ocean’s ecosystems.
They’re eaten by zooplankton, slightly larger organisms
that make a daily trek from the ocean’s sunny upper layer to its pitch-black depths.
In this cycle, they drift through an important region,
a dimly lit middle ground between light and shadow…an area scientists call
the twilight zone.
Enter the Export Processes in the Ocean from RemoTe Sensing, or EXPORTS project
– a team of more than 150 scientists…from 29 different institutions…
onboard two research vessels with a fleet of autonomous vehicles…
traveling west from Seattle to study these phytoplankton.
The team, made up of researchers from NASA, the National Science Foundation, including
the University of California- Santa Barbara, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute
and other university and agency partners, will deploy robotic explorers
and instruments from the two ships to study the diversity of plankton in the ocean.
The ocean absorbs approximately 1/2 of the carbon dioxide
from Earth’s atmosphere. Like plants on land, phytoplankton take in this carbon
and release oxygen. Their blooms can
be seen in images taken from space. As the phytoplankton die or are eaten
by zooplankton, that consumed carbon is exported into the twilight zone
zone and stored there. Understanding the diversity and makeup of plankton
in the ocean can help scientists understand the role the ocean plays in consuming,
and sequestering, carbon from the atmosphere.
In turn, understanding this can give insight into the ocean’s carbon cycle
and how it helps regulate our home planet’s changing climate.