The oceans play a massive role in regulating the planet’s overall health. Tiny organisms that live in the ocean, called phytoplankton or microscopic algae, produce somewhere between 40 and 80 percent of the planet’s oxygen (depending on which scientist you ask). There’s a reason, after all, that many people call oceans “the lungs of Earth.” They’re also an essential planetary food source and a massive carbon sink. To date, oceans have absorbed about 40 percent of the planet’s human-generated carbon dioxide. That means they regulate our atmosphere and the concentrations of various gases in our air, and they transport carbon away from the surface, where it would otherwise contribute to climate change.
This complex web of interaction between the planetary system as a whole, the oceans’ chemistry, and the animals that live within it is even more complex in the polar regions, where sea ice adds another layer to the impact of climate change. Trying to understand how this all works is an enormous challenge. Biologist Jess Melbourne-Thomas, a research scientist at the Australian Antarctic Division and project leader at the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre, is one of the field scientists and climate modelers attempting to put the…
