Researcher Pablo Serret will carry out weekly measurements in the Ría de Vigo for 3 years to understand and predict the biological carbon pump, one of the challenges of current oceanography.
The researcher from the Marine Research Center (CIM) of the University of Vigo, Pablo Serret, is developing a project that will delve into the role of planktonic communities in the storage of carbon dioxide in the oceans. The PRO2MS project, which has funding of 56,250 euros from the State Plan for Scientific, Technical and Innovation Research (2021-2023), will address one of the main unknowns of current oceanography: how the respiration of marine plankton varies and how it conditions the capacity of the ocean to act as a carbon sink, a key process in the fight against climate change.
The so-called biological carbon pump (BBC) is the mechanism that allows carbon to be transferred from the ocean surface to its depths, contributing to reducing atmospheric CO₂ concentration. This process causes around 90% of the vertical CO2 gradient in the ocean and, in its absence, it is estimated that atmospheric CO2 concentration would be twice the current level.
Current climate models do not yet accurately incorporate the variability of this process, due to the scarcity of data on plankton respiration. The PRO2MS project seeks to fill this knowledge gap by combining field observations, mesocosm experimentation and predictive modeling. Specifically, through a weekly series of measurements over three years in the Ría de Vigo, Serret will collect data that could represent up to 50% of the global database currently available on ocean respiration. Likewise, these data will allow the development of new predictive models that improve the ability to project possible future changes in the biological carbon pump.
Esta serie temporal realizarase nas instalacións da Estación de Ciencias Mariñas de Toralla (ECIMAT), en colaboración co Sistema de Observación Costeira Radial Vigo do Instituto Español de Oceanografía (IEO-CSIC). Pablo Serret especificou que “nós medimos o metabolismo planctónico, o que é central para o proxecto (respiración e fotosíntese), a partir dos cambios na concentración de O2 na auga en incubacións de mostras naturais que se realizan nas instalacións do mesocosmos da ECIMAT do CIM”.
An essential process of which there is hardly any data
“The ocean functions as the planet’s lungs thanks to the activity of plankton,” explained Serret. “Phytoplankton photosynthesis removes CO₂ from the water, but planktonic organisms’ respiration returns some of that carbon. Better understanding this balance is essential to estimate how much CO₂ the oceans can store in the future,” he added. The CIM researcher stated that “we know the control of photosynthesis in the ocean relatively well, to the point that there are models capable of predicting its response to different environmental scenarios, but there is a significant gap in the knowledge of the magnitude, variation and control of respiration, which generates a large uncertainty in the estimate of the BBC and the storage of CO2 in the oceans.”
The database generated as a result of the project will be available in public repositories and citizen science activities will be carried out in educational centers in the area to disseminate the work carried out among society. In addition, the tools and models developed will be integrated into the climate risk assessment services that the CIM is promoting within the framework of the Horizon Europe project IRISCC (Initiative for Integrated Research Infrastructure Services for Climate Change Risks).
The CIM holds the CIGUS certification from the Regional Government of Galicia, which attests to the quality and impact of its research, and its activities are co-financed by the European Union through the 2021–2027 FEDER Program.
