SEAWIFS -Phytoplankton

Some of the smallest organisms inhabiting our oceans are among its most important residents. They’re called phytoplankton. They represent a source of food to other members of the oceanic food web, and they also help regulate the amount of oxygen in our atmosphere. Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by the American Museum of Natural History.

Gene Feldman is an Oceanographer with the SeaWiFS project at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. SeaWiFS is the name of a camera currently on board a satellite in orbit around the earth.

“The purpose of the SeaWiFS project is to monitor ocean color. For most of the world’s oceans, the color of the ocean is directly related to the amount of microscopic plants called phytoplankton, that are the most abundant plants on Earth, provide most of the oxygen that we breathe. And the best way to monitor the distribution and abundance of phytoplankton is from space. The more phytoplankton in the water, since they’re plants, the greener the water. The less phytoplankton, the clearer or the bluer the water is.”

Like most plants, phytoplankton absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen into the atmosphere. But with oceans covering about 70% of the Earth’s surface, phytoplankton play an especially important role in counteracting the effects of the cars, factories and fires that produce carbon dioxide.

“Since we’ve been pumping extra CO2 into the atmosphere over the last couple of hundred years, we know that phytoplankton and the oceans play a really critical role in balancing that carbon dioxide that we’ve been putting in. For the first time, with SeaWiFS, we’re able to monitor phytoplankton growth and figure out, perhaps, how much carbon dioxide is actually being trapped by phytoplankton in the ocean.”

Pulse of the Planet is presented by the American Museum of Natural History. Additional funding for this series has been provided by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.

SEAWIFS -Phytoplankton

The smallest plant in the ocean is also one of the most important.
Air Date:06/15/1999
Scientist:
Transcript:

Some of the smallest organisms inhabiting our oceans are among its most important residents. They're called phytoplankton. They represent a source of food to other members of the oceanic food web, and they also help regulate the amount of oxygen in our atmosphere. Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by the American Museum of Natural History.

Gene Feldman is an Oceanographer with the SeaWiFS project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. SeaWiFS is the name of a camera currently on board a satellite in orbit around the earth.

"The purpose of the SeaWiFS project is to monitor ocean color. For most of the world's oceans, the color of the ocean is directly related to the amount of microscopic plants called phytoplankton, that are the most abundant plants on Earth, provide most of the oxygen that we breathe. And the best way to monitor the distribution and abundance of phytoplankton is from space. The more phytoplankton in the water, since they're plants, the greener the water. The less phytoplankton, the clearer or the bluer the water is."

Like most plants, phytoplankton absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen into the atmosphere. But with oceans covering about 70% of the Earth's surface, phytoplankton play an especially important role in counteracting the effects of the cars, factories and fires that produce carbon dioxide.

"Since we've been pumping extra CO2 into the atmosphere over the last couple of hundred years, we know that phytoplankton and the oceans play a really critical role in balancing that carbon dioxide that we've been putting in. For the first time, with SeaWiFS, we're able to monitor phytoplankton growth and figure out, perhaps, how much carbon dioxide is actually being trapped by phytoplankton in the ocean."

Pulse of the Planet is presented by the American Museum of Natural History. Additional funding for this series has been provided by the National Science Foundation. I'm Jim Metzner.