Just as highways experience traffic on land, the ocean experiences its own daily commute. 🚗
But instead of cars, this commute involves tiny aquatic plants—phytoplankton—that soak up carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels, shielding us from the harmful impacts of climate change. And the data provided by Biogeochemical-Argo (BGC-Argo) floats gives us more insight into how this ocean “carbon superhighway” works.
The carbon superhighway, also known as the “biological pump”, is a process that transports carbon dioxide from the atmosphere down into the deep sea. Phytoplankton first take up carbon dioxide at the ocean’s surface into their bodies via photosynthesis and then are eaten by tiny animals called zooplankton. The dead bodies and waste products of phytoplankton and zooplankton, as well as fragments of other dead organisms, all sink through the water column. As the particles fall, they are eaten up in the deep ocean and transformed into carbon dioxide. That carbon dioxide gets trapped in the deep water layers, staying out of contact with the atmosphere for a few thousand years.
Understanding the carbon superhighway is important because the ocean is one of Earth’s biggest carbon dioxide storehouses, soaking up about 25 percent of the total human carbon emissions per year. This is due in no small part to the biological pump’s work in transporting atmospheric carbon dioxide to the deep ocean. However, as conditions in the ocean alter with climate change, responding shifts in plankton populations will influence just how effective the biological pump continues to be. The slower the carbon superhighway, the less carbon the ocean can store, and the faster our planet warms. That’s why the real-time information collected by BGC-Argo floats is so important: by giving us a window into the carbon superhighway and other ocean processes, these floats are helping scientists to better understand and predict the impacts of climate change, to improve ocean health.
