When more than 1,100 Bermudian primary school children took part in the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences [BIOS] Explorer programme at the East End research facility in the spring of 2011, two colourful lionfish, Simba and Nala, were among the stars of the show.
Saltus alum John Paul Skinner swears he has the “best job ever.” In his role as Education Officer at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS), “JP,” as he likes to be called, regularly divides his time between running a number of diverse educational programmes and taking students into the field—“the really fun part,” he says, as it typically involves a boat ride out to Bermuda’s reefs.
In the past, if you wanted to measure Bermuda’s reefs you had to don a scuba tank and dive, tape measure in hand; but now, a new scientist at Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences, Dr Eric Hochberg, hopes to get a little help from above.
As part of the natural carbon cycle, atmospheric CO2 reacts with the ocean’s surface waters to become carbonate, which can be converted by marine organisms into calcium carbonate. Many marine organisms—including corals, mussels, and algae—rely on calcium carbonate to build their shells or skeletons, making the molecule an important part of marine processes.
The global ocean absorbs roughly 25% of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. A significant portion of this is driven by the conversion of CO2 into organic compounds (e.g., photosynthesis) by single cell plants in the ocean, a process called the biological carbon pump. Despite the global importance of this process, it remains a daunting task to accurately predict the future strength of the biological carbon pump based upon existing knowledge and ocean ecosystem models. Furthermore, the response of phytoplankton physiology to changing ocean chemistry—such as ocean acidification—and the importance of previously underappreciated mechanisms of the biological carbon pump are additional complicating factors. The goal of this seminar is to present new and developing research on the ocean’s biological carbon pump.
For the past two decades, BIOS scientists have stood behind the idea that mesoscale eddies are a driving force in coastal and open ocean processes, including biogeochemical cycling and the global carbon cycle. As research technologies improved over this time period it became apparent that, not only were they correct, but that eddies are far more important to ocean and climate systems than previously imagined.