Carbon Uptake and Seasonal Traits in Antarctic Remineralisation Depth (CUSTARD)

The surface ocean is home to billions of microscopic plants called phytoplankton which produce organic matter in the surface ocean using sunlight and carbon dioxide. When they die many of them sink, taking this carbon into the deep ocean, where it may be stored for hundreds to thousands of years, which helps keep our climate the way it is today. In this project we will tackle this by making new observations in a remote region of the Southern Ocean using an exciting combination of robotic vehicles and sophisticated new sensors. We will make new observations of how much carbon the ocean takes up in this key motorway junction of the Southern Ocean. We will examine the processes that control the uptake of carbon and its fate, in particular how seasonal availability of nutrients can affect the make-up of the phytoplankton which changes the depth to which carbon sinks before being dissolved.