A Sea of Minions and the Carbon Cycle

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the theme of this ted series is decoding

the language of climate

i study the ocean and to me the language

of the ocean

is through the data that we collect 100

years ago

we needed to collect a single sample of

water in order to be

able to get a word of that language 50

years later

we could construct sentences of this

language through the development of

sensors that could provide strings of

numbers

that would allow continuous monitoring

now we’re in an environment

where we can collect paragraphs of

information

huge data sets particularly through the

development of technology surrounding

acoustic measurements

and imaging tools i study a part of the

carbon cycle called the biological

carbon pump but you might be more

familiar

with what we call the inorganic pump the

process by which co2 in the atmosphere

is dissolved at the sea surface and then

through mixing

processes and subduction it’s folded

into the deep ocean this balance this

this exchange of carbon through a

biological form

and then remineralization back into an

inorganic form in the deep ocean

is very similar to the cycle that occurs

in our forests every year so in the fall

trees drop their leaves those leaves

accumulate on the floor and then

are re-mineralized by bacteria and

broken down

back into an inorganic form that can

eventually be used

by the tree the following spring during

the next bloom

our oceans are very similar to this in

that they have phytoplankton that are

fixing that carbon through

photosynthesis some of that material

is packaged and reprocessed into

detrital particles

that then sink out from the surface into

the deep sea

on the way down most of that material is

remineralized

by bacteria and converted back into

an inorganic co2 form a tiny fraction of

it actually does reach the sea floor

and this is actually what eventually

becomes our fossil fuels over millions

of years

what my lab has developed is an imaging

tool

for monitoring what we call the

biological carbon pump

this technology derives from technology

that’s actually been in existence for

over 50 years

an autonomous instrumented package that

can be deployed off of a research vessel

it’s pre-ballasted so that we’ve added

just the right amount of weight

so that it can sink down and hit an

intermediate level in the ocean

somewhere inside

what we call the twilight zone the

region below the sunlit surface

and the abyss these instruments are

deployed

for periods of days to weeks and

eventually maybe

even years they have sensors on board

that allow us to

monitor the temperature the salinity the

oxygen concentration

and changes in oxygen and also take

photographs

of what we call marine snow

the way that they do this is by drifting

in a water following frame that allows

the

snow particles that are falling down

from being produced by phytoplankton

above

and they land on an imaging surface

that’s upward facing

and provide us with a time-lapse view of

the accumulation of these particles

at the end of the mission the minion

will drop its weight

and then flip over and come back up to

the surface

on the other side on its head is the

tools that we use to be able to transmit

the data

through satellites back to the ship or

to shore

the reason why i’m building tools to be

able to monitor

the biological carbon pump is because we

don’t yet understand

how this very complex process that

constitutes a huge

quantity of this carbon exchange

will change under a changing ocean and a

changing climate

a hundred years ago we needed to collect

a single sample of water in order to get

one word of the ocean’s language imagine

with me now a future

where the ocean is filled with thousands

of robots my minions among them

that are collecting vast data sets that

will

allow us to fill books and libraries

with the ocean stories