A close look at the ocean

have you ever looked up

at the night sky and seen the vast

universe in which we’re

existing and felt really really

small this is a great perspective to put

on our everyday life

but i’d like to give you a different

perspective one way we can look

down at the ocean see millions of

microscopic

life forms and particles and feel really

big

there’s loads of small stuff floating

around in the ocean

this is controlling our climate it’s

creating a sustainable ecosystem

and it’s producing about 50 percent of

the oxygen that you are breathing

right now

so what might we find in a typical glass

full of seawater well if we zoom right

in

we’ll see a lot of water molecules

we’ll see a lot of dissolved chemicals

trace elements dissolved gases some of

these are good

and some of these are bad but if we zoom

out of the water itself

we’ll see millions and millions of

bacteria

they’re working really hard to keep

these chemicals in balance

and make that water livable

it might be livable for example for

phytoplankton

they’re the next biggest thing we might

see these are microscopic

algae that float around they might just

be five

millionths of a meter across

they use their sun’s energy to

photosynthesize and grow

sometimes they might be in such high

abundance

that despite being so small they can

actually change the color of the ocean

so much that we can measure them from

space

if we zoom out a little bit further

these phytoplankton are eaten by small

bugs

this is one of them this is about

one millimeter tall it’s actually one of

the most abundant bugs that we might

find in the ocean

we call them zooplankton and this is a

type of zooplankton called a copepod

we can zoom out a bit further and if

we’re really really lucky

in our glass of seawater we might see a

small fish larvae

if we want to see anything bigger than

that we probably need a bigger glass

but you get the idea this is how things

survive in the ocean

big things eat many small things

but these aren’t the only things in the

ocean there’s plenty of other random

stuff

there could be sediments coming from

rivers it could be gas bubbles

could be salmon lice it could be

pollution

like microplastic or oil droplets

it’s my job to try to find ways to

measure all of these different types of

particles

by designing instruments we can take

into the ocean

and map and understand how these move

here is another thing this is about

three millimeters tall

and it’s a particle we call it marine

snow

and that basically means that we don’t

really know what it is

but it’s basically a bunch of everything

else i’ve already talked about

there’s bacteria who’s created mucus

phytoplankton that also excrete weird

things

and then they make this kind of sticky

blob which

might also contain sediment grains and

dead things

these things are actually really

important for our climate because

contained in this is a whole bunch of

carbon

which this particle can draw down from

the surface of the ocean

and sink to the seabed where it’s stored

for thousands of years

so how do we make these kind of

measurements of all of these different

things

well it starts with some clever

colleagues coming up with some very

random ideas

and we have to find a way to pitch this

to somebody who has some funding

and if we’re really lucky then we might

be able to start to screw some of these

ideas together into

some new technology and that might start

in our lab

it might look very messy we need to find

a way to make it waterproof

and withstand the huge pressure that you

get from water when you’re several

hundred meters down

then we might package the equipment up

and send it to some far away place where

these measurements are needed

perhaps we need to transport our

equipment out on

sea ice with snow scooters or maybe we

are on a research ship

in total darkness for several weeks

when we get there we’ll deploy our

equipment on a frame like like this one

here

we’ll lower it off the side of a boat uh

dangling maybe several hundred meters

down from the side of the ship

i’m going to play you that video one

more time but this time

from the perspective of one of the

instruments that’s on that frame

a kind of in-situ microscope so now the

screen here is about three

centimeters tall and this would be what

we see

if we zoom into the ocean

a couple of seconds ago i showed you a

copa pod did anyone see the copy pod

there

it was here it looks a little different

because it’s

in a different orientation but that’s

life so we need

computer algorithms to find these kind

of needles in haystacks

and what we can do with that is

essentially build a

panorama vertically up through the ocean

which might be several hundred meters

tall

but we’ve done that on microscopic

resolution

and then we can map where all of these

particles are and where they go

someone like me might be living in a

cabin on a boat sharing with a couple of

other people

in a small space smaller than this stage

actually

we might step outside onto a deck of ice

and snow

this boat will be moving by the way this

was the last

photo i took on this cruise it was an

expedition organized by university in

tromso

and this was the last photo i took

before the sunlight went away

we didn’t see the sun again until the

end of the trip

typically on this kind of expedition

there’s a lot of other scientists

all wanting to do their thing and

everything needs carefully scheduling

so we can go to the places we want to go

to and fit in everything we want to do

some people might need to work in the

dark because they’re studying organisms

that are sensitive to particular types

of light

so suddenly all of the lights on the

ship go off

and with no sunlight everything is

really dark

or we might be out on sea ice suddenly

find a software problem and end up

debugging software in a storm on

the middle of the ice typically what

happens then

is someone who is in charge of media and

outreach

points a camera at you and then asks you

to explain what’s going on

and as a scientist like me that can be a

bit stressful it’s a bit like what i’m

trying to do

now but we just have to smile and

explain it

and then one day it will end up on the

internet

aside from these kind of technicalities

sometimes we get a chance to look up

and appreciate the environment that

we’re working in

we get the chance to visit places and

cultures that

we would never actually choose to go and

visit

and we get the chance to take technology

that we’ve thought of here in trondheim

to some

totally remote place of the planet and

destroy and

deploy it to several 100 meters below

the ocean you might think that was a

slip of the time

at the same time we get to work with

some great people

really enthusiastic students and

colleagues

but this is really inefficient it takes

a lot of resources

it’s expensive and the amount of

measurements we actually get

for the effort and resources that we put

in is nowhere near what we

need to really understand the ecosystem

and the environment we’re trying to

measure

what’s needed is measurements on mass

over large scales and long time periods

and that’s why we are working more and

more now

with experts on autonomous platforms

which can be deployed under the ocean so

that we can

integrate our new technology for

measuring these particles

and send them out on robots to do the

job

for us now

anthony and synthetic are developing a

new laboratory here

in trondheim it will be a laboratory

inside tron homes field

for exactly this there’ll be new robots

being developed

new sensors on state-of-the-art data

voice

maybe in 10 years time there won’t be a

need for somebody like me to be out

on a expedition in the north of the

arctic ocean

instead we will sit at our computer and

drive some robots out of the fjord here

and just send them to where we want to

go

that makes me wonder how much

can we really learn about this kind of

environment

just through the lens of a computer

screen

perhaps most of you listening to this

talk

now have experienced this kind of

environment

just through your tv or your phone or

your computer

and that’s why i’m really happy that

today i can share with you

my first-hand experience of being in

these environments

so that maybe the next time you glance

at the ocean

you can remember these tiny things i’ve

talked to you about today

maybe you’ll feel really big and maybe

it will renew your appreciation

or responsibility for our natural planet

which is precariously balanced on a

bunch of

microscopic particles in

thank you