During the last glacial period much of the Northern Hemisphere was blanketed by one or more sheets of ice.  Throughout this period, chunks of these continental ice sheets often broke off and surged into the North Atlantic, carrying with them large amounts debris and freshwater. These events, called Heinrich events, are often thought to have been responsible for changes in ocean circulation patterns; specifically, weakening the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a system of currents that transports water and heat from the Southern to the Northern Hemisphere in the Atlantic basin.

Late last month, a four-day research cruise on the Sargasso Sea gave two local educators and a senior school student the opportunity to gain unique insight into what it means to live and breathe science aboard a working research vessel. The cruise was part of a project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) investigating the daily migrations of small marine zooplankton called copepods.

Pteropods, which live in all the world’s oceans, are tiny cousins of the snail that spend their lives swimming in open water and serving as a primary food source for larger marine life, including salmon, sharks, and whales. With their delicate shells, pteropods are also in peril from increases in ocean acidity, said biologist Amy Maas, a champion for pteropods. The changing ocean chemistry caused by burning fossil fuels is reducing the mineral that pteropods use to build their shells, causing slower shell growth and rendering them weak and fragile.

In mid-May artist Samm Newton drew the tubular mouthpiece, transparent shell, and delicate swimming foot of a heteropod from the Sargasso Sea, a type of tiny sea snail studied by BIOS biologist Amy Maas and collaborator David Murphy from the University of South Florida. Newton spent several hours repeatedly watching the video to reconstruct the creature’s anatomy. Her sketches will form the base of a series of much larger acrylic paintings destined for an upcoming Oregon-based art exhibit.

For researchers interested in the global climate system, understanding what the future holds often involves studying the climate of the past—a scientific field called paleoclimatology. To understand what Earth’s climate was like thousands, even millions, of years ago, paleoclimatologists rely on preserved physical evidence of climate information, such as tree rings, ice cores, and even the shells of marine microorganisms.

Earth’s climate system is influenced strongly by ocean currents that are located both at the surface, as well as in deep water below 1000m.  Warm surface currents carry less dense water away from the Equator toward the poles, and cold deep currents carry denser water away from the poles. In this manner, ocean currents distribute heat energy and play a large role in regulating Earth’s weather and climate, in addition to cycling nutrients, salt, and gases such as carbon.

Plankton is a general term referring to any organism that does not have the ability to swim against prevailing currents. These organisms range from bacteria and viruses all the way to large gelatinous organisms, such as jellyfish.

Scientific conferences are an important, if not essential, part of a scientist’s life, both in academic and applied research. These gatherings, which often take place on an international scale, offer attendees the chance to learn about novel research, give presentations on their own research, and develop professional collaborations that can result in publications and funding opportunities.