Phot By Jero Prieto

This past weekend marked the first anniversary of the launch of NASA’s latest ocean color satellite, PACE 🛰️! Happy birthday PACE!

Sharpening Our View of Climate Change with the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem Satellite

As our planet warms, Earth’s ocean and atmosphere are changing.

Climate change has a lot of impact on the ocean, from sea level rise to marine heat waves to a loss of biodiversity. Meanwhile, greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide continue to warm our atmosphere.

NASA’s upcoming satellite, PACE, is soon to be on the case!

Set to launch on Feb. 6, 2024, the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission will help us better understand the complex systems driving the global changes that come with a warming climate.

Earth’s ocean is becoming greener due to climate change. PACE will see the ocean in more hues than ever before.

While a single phytoplankton typically can’t be seen with the naked eye, communities of trillions of phytoplankton, called blooms, can be seen from space. Blooms often take on a greenish tinge due to the pigments that phytoplankton (similar to plants on land) use to make energy through photosynthesis.

In a 2023 study, scientists found that portions of the ocean had turned greener because there were more chlorophyll-carrying phytoplankton. PACE has a hyperspectral sensor, the Ocean Color Instrument (OCI), that will be able to discern subtle shifts in hue. This will allow scientists to monitor changes in phytoplankton communities and ocean health overall due to climate change.

Phytoplankton play a key role in helping the ocean absorb carbon from the atmosphere. PACE will identify different phytoplankton species from space.

With PACE, scientists will be able to tell what phytoplankton communities are present – from space! Before, this could only be done by analyzing a sample of seawater.

Telling “who’s who” in a phytoplankton bloom is key because different phytoplankton play vastly different roles in aquatic ecosystems. They can fuel the food chain and draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to photosynthesize. Some phytoplankton populations capture carbon as they die and sink to the deep ocean; others release the gas back into the atmosphere as they decay near the surface.

Studying these teeny tiny critters from space will help scientists learn how and where phytoplankton are affected by climate change, and how changes in these communities may affect other creatures and ocean ecosystems.

Climate models are one of our most powerful tools to understand how Earth is changing. PACE data will improve the data these models rely on.

The PACE mission will offer important insights on airborne particles of sea salt, smoke, human-made pollutants, and dust – collectively called aerosols – by observing how they interact with light.

With two instruments called polarimeters, SPEXone and HARP2, PACE will allow scientists to measure the size, composition, and abundance of these microscopic particles in our atmosphere. This information is crucial to figuring out how climate and air quality are changing.

PACE data will help scientists answer key climate questions, like how aerosols affect cloud formation or how ice clouds and liquid clouds differ.

It will also enable scientists to examine one of the trickiest components of climate change to model: how clouds and aerosols interact. Once PACE is operational, scientists can replace the estimates currently used to fill data gaps in climate models with measurements from the new satellite.

With a view of the whole planet every two days, PACE will track both microscopic organisms in the ocean and microscopic particles in the atmosphere. PACE’s unique view will help us learn more about the ways climate change is impacting our planet’s ocean and atmosphere.

Stay up to date on the NASA PACE blog, and make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of sPACE!

by daviddoubilet

Every once in a while, sanctuary researchers get a treat – like getting to see this tiny baby octopus! 🐙 . 

Each summer, researchers conduct expeditions in our West Coast sanctuaries as part of the ACCESS conservation partnership. Researchers get to see creatures big and small when conducting surveys in places like Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary!

A shark on a reef is a definite sign that the reef is healthy! Years ago people were terrified if the saw a shark, now were horrified that we may not see sharks on the reef or anywhere, because we have killed over 90% in the last 50 years. We must end to this needless slaughter! Sharks are essential to keeping our oceans healthy and in balance! The oceans are the heart of our planet! Over 50% of the air we breath and 70% of the protein we eat comes from the ocean. Without our the ocean all life on this planet will die. Please be the change the world needs to survive!

Best immediate way to save sharks here in the US…Support Oceanas Shark Fin Trade Ban! Please sign, share the petition and support this effort! https://www.change.org/p/congress-ban-the-trade-of-shark-fins-in-the-u-s - #regrann (at Tiger Beach)

Trump’s War on Science continues

Ars Technica

Editorial: Censoring the scientific enterprise, one grant at a time

Recent grant terminations are a symptom of a widespread attack on science.

The Ghost, Craig Parry’s photo of the famed white whale Migaloo won first place in the underwater world category at the 2017 Golden Turtle International Photography Competition in Moscow this week.

Diatoms: Algae in glass houses

Check out my new post! 

http://becausephytoplankton.blogspot.com/2018/09/diatoms-algae-in-glass-houses.html

Shark Week Takeover with photos by @BrianSkerry ! • • • Like a living wreath, small fish encircle the head of a whale shark cruising through coastal waters off Mexico’s Isla Holbox. The small fish have little to fear from this shark, since whale sharks are filter feeders, eating mainly plankton and fish eggs. Whale sharks are currently listed as ‘vulnerable’ due to human pollution and hunting, and populations remain unstable due to the slow reproductive habits of these magnificent creatures.

Swimming with whale sharks is one of my favorite experiences in the sea. Their massive size and gentle nature make for exhilarating encounters. • • • To see more shark photos and other ocean wildlife follow @BrianSkerry And keep following our feed all week to keep up with Brian Skerry’s very sharky takeover! #takeover #sharks #sharkweek #sharkweek2018 #allsharksallthetime #newenglandaquarium

Ocean heat waves increasing

This is a map showing a huge pool of warm surface water that formed in the North Pacific Ocean from 2013-2015. This pool of warm water was so stagnant that many weather scientists and forecasters casually started referring to it as “The Blob”, and it took the monster 2016 El Niño event to force the extra warm water to disperse. This huge pool of warm water likely contributed to some of the extreme weather events that hit North America in that timespan, as there was nothing like it in the North Pacific Ocean in the available weather records. Although this event was unprecedented in this location, newly available science shows that this type of event is happening with increasing frequency around the world as a result of the warming triggered by human release of greenhouse gases.

Keep reading