NASA's Ship-Aircraft Bio-Optical Research (SABOR) experiment will spend three weeks off the coast of the Atlantic to study how and why different species and concentrations of phytoplankton change each year.
From July 18 until August 7, NASA scientists and a number of other researchers will remain aboard the National Science Foundation's Research Vessel Endeavor and study the Atlantic Ocean's ecosystems from the Gulf of Maine all the way down to the Bahamas. They hope to find out more about phytoplankton, which are tiny ocean plants that absorb carbon dioxide and deliver oxygen to the Earth's atmosphere.
SABOR is bringing together marine and atmospheric scientists to conduct the three-week experiment. NASA's UC-12 airborne laboratory at the space agency's Langley Research Center in Virginia will make coordinated science flights for Endeavor starting on July 20. NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York will also communicate with the scientists aboard the Endeavor to provide them with measurements of reflected light via a polarimeter instrument that will be 30,000 feet in the air, which will help them observe marine ecosystems more clearly.
Additionally, the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) will provide information as it observes clouds and tiny particles, as will the Terra and Aqua satellites, which measure atmospheric, land, and marine processes.
"By improving our in-water and aircraft-based measurements of particles and material in the ocean, including phytoplankton, SABOR will advance understanding of marine ecology and the carbon cycle," said Paula Bontempi, ocean biology and biogeochemistry program manager at NASA Headquarters in Washington, in this NASA news release.
Measurements aboard the ship will validate those provided by the aircrafts while providing an up-close perspective of the ocean's carbon cycle and marine ecosystems through the use of an underwater video camera that is equipped with polarization vision, as well as other instruments that will analyze water samples for carbon and measure phytoplankton biomass and photosynthesis. Teams of researchers and scientists from the University of Maine, the University of Rhode Island, Oregon State University, and the City College of New York will be responsible for recording certain information.
All of the data that will be gathered on this three-week mission will help guide preparation for a new advanced ocean satellite mission called the Pre-Aerosol, Clouds, and ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission, which will further enhance observations and measurements of ocean ecology, biogeochemical cycling, and ocean productivity.
You can read more about NASA's SABOR experiment in this news release.
