Swirling Currents Deliver Phytoplankton Carbon to Ocean Depths
“Much of this particulate organic carbon, especially the larger, heavier particles, sink. But we wanted to find out what is happening to the smaller, non-sinking phytoplankton cells from the bloom. Understanding the dynamics of the bloom and what happens to the carbon produced by it is important, especially for being able to predict how the oceans will affect atmospheric CO2 and climate,” says Melissa Omand, who did this study as a postdoctoral investigator in Amala Mahadevan’s lab at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).