Understanding the Cosmic Microwave Background as a Probe of the Atmosphere and Oceans: A Theoretical Analysis of the Mexican Startup Effort
The mexican government banned the experiments of the startup because of the potential to cause planetary consequences of deliberately manipulating the atmosphere. Tinkering with oceans and the atmosphere in this way falls in the realm of so-called geoengineering, which still faces stiff opposition from researchers and environmental advocates worried about unintended consequences.
There are two sci-fi scenarios that could be supported by this kind of research. There have been early studies that looked into ways to increase the absorption of Carbon dioxide by phytoplankton. There have also been headlines lately about one startup’s rogue attempts at launching aerosols into the atmosphere to try to stop global warming.
It’s funny that decades of work cleaning up aerosol pollution is a double-edged sword. The sun’s radiation can be reflected back into space by the clouds that can form around them. So fewer aerosols in the atmosphere might inadvertently hasten global warming. Two toaster-sized instruments on PACE are called polarimeters, which can detect what kinds of aerosols are present based on how they reflect light. Knowing what kinds of aerosols are out there can help scientists fine-tune climate models so they can make more accurate forecasts for the future.
Two other instruments on board the spacecraft will study particles in the atmosphere, specifically aerosols that can affect air quality. The importance of aerosols to human health makes it necessary to quantify what is out there, says a lead in a NASA video.
That way scientists will be able to find out if the kind of community that develops is a bloom or not. There are thousands of species that act as food for animals like small mammals and toxic ones that sequester carbon better. What modern satellites can see from space is like drawing with a box of eight crayons, but the species will look different to PACE’s eye. “What we’re getting with PACE is a box of 128,” says Werdell.
The surface of the sea is often too subtle to be seen by the human eye, due to the different kinds of plankton.
The base of ocean food chains is formed by Plankton and this makes them extremely important for the health of marine ecology and fisheries. Toxic red tide blooms are one of the benefits of the thousands of different species of phytoplankton that interact with their environment.
Phytoplankton from Space: Discovering the Nature of Climate, Climate Change, and Earth’s Solar Cycles with PACE
Bill Nelson said in the release that “PACE will help us learn, like neverbefore, how particles in our atmosphere and our oceans can identify key factors impacting global warming.”
It’ll examine microscopic plants and particles — things so small they’re invisible to the naked eye — from hundreds of miles above Earth. The goal is to better understand how such teeny tiny things can actually impact the whole planet.
Who knew you could see plankton from space? NASA, of course. The space agency launched a new mission calledPACE, which will study the benefits and limitations of the ocean.
Aerosols are little bits of dust, wildfire smoke, and fossil fuel pollution floating around the atmosphere, which both absorb and reflect the sun’s energy and help build clouds—wildly complex dynamics that climate models still struggle to account for. The basis of the food web is formed by plant-like organisms in the marine environment. Carbon is sequestered so that Earth’s climate does not warm even more. “Phytoplankton are basically moving carbon around, and we need to understand how that changes with time,” says Jeremy Werdell of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
Think about the forest you are looking into. The leaves on trees are green but they are not the same as plants. “Really what we’re searching for are these very, very subtle changes in color.”
How warm water affects phytoplanktonic communities: How do high sea surface temperatures translate into a glassy ocean? The case of zooplankton
Better understanding these phytoplanktonic communities is critical because of how rapidly the oceans are transforming. They’ve absorbed something like 90 percent of the excess heat humanity has added to the atmosphere, and over the past year or so in particular, sea surface temperatures have soared to record highs and stayed there. The high temperatures themselves might adversely affect the growth of some phytoplankton species, but might actually benefit others that thrive as the mercury climbs.
More subtly, warm water acts like a kind of cap at the ocean surface, with cooler waters swirling below. “It’s kind of like drinking a half and half at your favorite Irish pub: Guinness floating on top of Harp,” says Werdell. There is a barrier between the real estate and the water in the upper ocean because there is not enough cold water underneath the warm water.
Phytoplankton need those nutrients to grow, so if the cap of warm water persists in a given area, that’ll further shake up the community of photosynthesizing species. If there’s less of the species that zooplankton need for food, their numbers may decline too. And then the larger predators like fish that eat the zooplankton will be impacted, on up the food chain. That could eventually affect the food species that humans rely on for protein.