Susanne Neuer, founding director of the Arizona State University School of Ocean Futures, and her decades-long scientific connection with the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences. Beginning with her first research cruise to Bermuda in 1994, Neuer built lasting collaborations that shaped her career in ocean biogeochemistry. Now leading the School of Ocean Futures at Arizona State University, she continues to advance ocean time-series research and strengthen partnerships with ASU BIOS, providing students with opportunities to study and conduct research in the Sargasso Sea.

Built on decades of partnership, BATS continues to advance understanding of ocean change

Located southeast of Bermuda, Hydrostation ‘S’—a set of unmarked geographic coordinates (32 degrees 10 minutes North, 64 degrees 30 minutes West)—has yielded measurements of temperature, dissolved oxygen, salinity and other parameters every two weeks for seven decades.

Oceans are constantly changing. These changes don’t only affect marine life but also have wide-reaching consequences for land dwellers. To document them, monitoring stations in the North Atlantic Ocean have been active for decades. Now, researchers have reported on the latest changes, showing that compared to 40 years ago, the ocean near the island of Bermuda is warmer, saltier, more acidic, and has lost oxygen. Long-term monitoring can provide information about existential challenges societies will face in the near future, the researchers said.

We’re familiar with how climate change is impacting the ocean’s biology, from bleaching events that cause coral die-offs to algae blooms that choke coastal marine ecosystems, but it’s becoming clear that a warming planet is also impacting the physics of ocean circulation.

New research published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment uses data from two sustained open-ocean hydrographic stations in the North Atlantic Ocean near Bermuda to demonstrate recent changes in ocean physics and chemistry since the 1980s. The study shows decadal variability and recent acceleration of surface warming, salinification, deoxygenation, and changes in carbon dioxide (CO2)-carbonate chemistry that drives ocean acidification.

These are the findings from nearly forty years of shipboard observations made in the deep Sargasso Sea offshore of the verdant island and surrounding coral reefs of Bermuda.

BIOS marine superintendent and ship captain Quentin Lewis is calling the months ahead for the Institute’s research vessel the Atlantic Explorer “very healthy in terms of operating days.” At the start of 2021, BIOS has 195 days at sea funded for science programs, he said.

We’re familiar with how climate change is impacting the ocean’s biology, from bleaching events that cause coral die-offs to algae blooms that choke coastal marine ecosystems, but it’s becoming clear that a warming planet is also impacting the physics of ocean circulation.

New research published in Nature has revealed the importance of mineral forms of iron in regulating the cycling of this bio-essential nutrient in the ocean.