{"id":80826,"date":"2022-05-08T10:55:27","date_gmt":"2022-05-08T15:55:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=80826"},"modified":"2022-05-08T10:55:57","modified_gmt":"2022-05-08T15:55:57","slug":"80826","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=80826","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Observation O’ The Day
\nThe problem with the climate cult isn\u2019t even trying to fix a car while it\u2019s running. It\u2019s trying to fix a car while it\u2019s running and they have no idea how a car runs to begin with. We don\u2019t know enough to \u201cfix\u201d anything. We don\u2019t even know enough to know if anything is wrong. And chances are our influence on the climate is much smaller than they wish to think.–<\/em>Sarah Hoyt<\/p>\n

The Ocean Is Still Sucking Up Carbon\u2014Maybe More Than We Think.<\/a><\/p>\n

Recent studies looking at carbon-sequestering microbes suggest we still have a lot to learn about the ocean\u2019s biological carbon pump.<\/p>\n

By\u00a0Nancy Averett<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>3 May 2022<\/p>\n

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A newly discovered marine microbe has a \u201cmucosphere\u201d that chemically traps other microbes and their nutrients\u2014including carbon. Credit:\u00a0Nature Communications<\/em>,\u00a0CC BY 4.0<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The ocean plays a critical role in carbon sequestration. Phytoplankton, which live on the warm, light-filled surface, suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere for food. They also need nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen from colder, heavier,\u00a0saltier water that\u00a0upwells<\/a>\u00a0into warmer layers. When phytoplankton die, they sink, bringing some of the carbon and other nutrients they consumed with them back to the ocean depths.<\/p>\n

Key to this circular process, known as the ocean\u2019s\u00a0biological carbon pump<\/a>, is the vertical mixing of the surface and deeper water layers, which occurs through such mechanisms as currents, winds, and tides. However, because higher ocean temperatures cause greater stratification of these layers, traditional scientific models have long predicted that as the planet warms, this process would be disrupted, phytoplankton would be unable to thrive, and the ocean would sequester less carbon.<\/p>\n

Now, two studies have shown the limits of such models. One found evidence that\u00a0phytoplankton may become more efficient as the ocean warms. The other reported the discovery of a new, widely distributed ocean microbe species that also has the potential to sequester carbon.<\/p>\n

\u200b\u200b\u201cWe often view the response of ocean carbon cycling to global warming as an on-off switch, but these results show it\u2019s a dimmer switch and has some flexibility to take care of itself,\u201d said\u00a0Mike Lomas<\/a>, a senior research scientist at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Maine and lead author of the first study, published in\u00a0Nature Communications<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Better Methods on the Horizon<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Lomas and his colleagues analyzed 30 years of Sargasso Sea data through the\u00a0Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study<\/a>, in which scientists have been taking monthly ocean samples since 1988 to examine nutrients, carbon, salinity, temperature, and other properties of ocean water. Lomas and his coauthors found that even though fewer nutrients are traveling up from the ocean\u2019s depths, phytoplankton are still taking up carbon from the atmosphere. One reason for this phenomenon, they suggested, may be that distributions of phytoplankton favor those species that need fewer nutrients from the ocean\u2019s depths.<\/p>\n

Some species \u201ccan actually keep fixing carbon at a ratio that is now 2 or 3 times higher than the Redfield ratio, which basically translates to, they\u2019re still able to take up carbon dioxide, even when there [are] reduced inputs of nitrogen and phosphorus.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One of the key points of the paper, Lomas said, is the idea that the ratio of carbon to nitrogen to phosphorus in phytoplankton (known as the\u00a0Redfield ratio<\/a>) used by traditional climate change models may not apply to certain phytoplankton species. Some species, Lomas said, \u201ccan actually keep fixing carbon at a ratio that is now 2 or 3 times higher than the Redfield ratio, which basically translates to, they\u2019re still able to take up carbon dioxide, even when there [are] reduced inputs of nitrogen and phosphorus because the ratio with which they combine them is much higher.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steven Emerson<\/a>, professor emeritus of chemical oceanography at the University of Washington who was not involved in the study, said data collection from the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study was remarkable and important. However, he said, the station uses an older technique known as the sediment trap method to measure carbon particle flux (the rate at which carbon sinks to the deep ocean). \u201cThis particular method (sediment trap) is known not to make sense for determining this flux when you compare it with other methods,\u201d Emerson said.<\/p>\n

There are newer, more reliable methods for measuring the ocean\u2019s carbon particle flux, Emerson said, using high-powered optical instruments that are put on floats and can measure particles with greater sensitivity as often as once every 5 days. The floats are \u201cgoing to be all over the ocean very soon,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd they and the data from [them] will test whether or not this sediment trap flux (in Lomas\u2019s paper) is really right.\u2026 So it\u2019s, you know, to be continued.\u201d<\/p>\n

New Ocean Microbe Traps Its Prey<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\u201cIt takes this straw-like appendage and sucks the insides out of these microbes that it\u2019s trapped. And then it lets the whole thing go.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In a different study, also published in\u00a0Nature Communications<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0Martina Doblin<\/a>, an oceanographer with the University of Technology Sydney in Australia, and colleagues described a microbial marine species called\u00a0Prorocentrum<\/em>\u00a0cf. balticum.\u00a0<\/em>This species is a mixotroph, which means it can perform photosynthesis like phytoplankton but it can also consume other microbes, which allows it to live in deeper ocean layers. What\u2019s more,\u00a0Prorocentrum\u00a0<\/em>cf.\u00a0balticum\u00a0<\/em>uses the carbon it gets from photosynthesis to build a structure out of mucus, which researchers dubbed a \u201cmucosphere,\u201d that chemically attracts and traps other microbes, some of which\u00a0Prorocentrum\u00a0<\/em>cf.\u00a0balticum\u00a0<\/em>then consumes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt takes this straw-like appendage and sucks the insides out of these microbes that it\u2019s trapped,\u201d said Doblin. \u201cAnd then it lets the whole thing go.\u201d Inside the mucosphere are a variety of microbes (including carbon), she said, and because the mucosphere is \u201cnegatively buoyant,\u201d it sinks.<\/p>\n

\n
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The unique mucosphere of\u00a0Prorocentrum<\/em>\u00a0cf.\u00a0balticum<\/em>\u00a0may allow it to transport carbon to the deep ocean. Credit:\u00a0Nature Communications<\/em>,\u00a0CC BY 4.0<\/a>. Click image for larger version.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Doblin said the study began with the premise that if the ocean is becoming more unpredictable, then it might favor mixotrophs. She and her team took a sample of ocean water from an oceanographic station located 30\u2009kilometers southeast of Sydney.\u00a0Michaela Larsson<\/a>, a postdoc in Doblin\u2019s lab, then put the sample in low-light conditions so that any microbes would need more than photosynthesis to survive.<\/p>\n

A week later, Doblin said, Larsson noticed they had an abundance of one kind of organism, which she began feeding different types of food and exposing to different light conditions. The team matched the creature\u2019s DNA to samples from the\u00a0Tara Oceans<\/a>\u00a0project, in which a team of interdisciplinary scientists sailed around the world and sampled ocean microbes at 210 different sites.<\/p>\n

Having access to those data, Doblin said, allowed her team to show that their finding was significant. \u201cIt allowed us to really establish that this organism is really quite abundant, and widely distributed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014Nancy Averett (@nancyaverett<\/a>), Science Writer<\/p>\n

Citation:\u00a0<\/strong>Averett, N. (2022), The ocean is still sucking up carbon\u2014maybe more than we think,\u00a0Eos, 103,\u00a0<\/em>https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1029\/2022EO220220<\/a>. Published on 3 May 2022.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Observation O’ The Day The problem with the climate cult isn\u2019t even trying to fix a car while it\u2019s running. It\u2019s trying to fix a car while it\u2019s running and they have no idea how a car runs to begin with. We don\u2019t know enough to \u201cfix\u201d anything. We don\u2019t even know enough to know … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-econuts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80826"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80828,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80826\/revisions\/80828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}