Continuous Plankton Recorder: This Device Helps Scientists Understand the Ocean Better, Has Great Global Impact

An unusual metal box called Continuous Plankton Recorder has recently been introduced to help with climate change.

According to a Phys.org report, this device hauled from the waves and onto the deck of ships looks similar to a spaceship captured from a child's imagination.

But when Clare Ostle, a scientist, opened it up and drew out the silk scrolls inside, she was in search of the telltale green glow from among the essential creatures on Earth-Plankton.

As described in the report, this tool is a "torpedo-like" device that, for nine decades, has been towed by fishing boats and merchant vessels on an extensive network of routes.

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What the Continuous Plankton Recorder Does

This device helps scientists better understand the ocean by collecting some of its tiniest inhabitants. Specifically, as indicated in the report, what they have seen is that, as climate change is harming the sea, "plankton are on the move," with possibly evident consequences for both humans and life.

Plankton, organisms that carried on tides, are the marine food web's foundation. However, they are part of an intricately balanced system that helps keep everyone and everything alive.

More so, helping produce much of the oxygen breathed in, they are a critical part of the global cycle.

An AFP news report via the Yahoo! News site said, Ostle, the Pacific CPR Survey coordinator, explained while demonstrating the plankton recorder off the coast of Plymouth, Britain, the big thing seen is warming.

Furthermore, the CPR Survey has documented a decisive switch of plankton towards both poles in the past few decades as ocean currents are changing, and a lot of marine animals are heading for cooler sites.

Increased Impacts

Researchers have warned that climate change stressed the system, with rising ocean temperatures, lesser nutrients approaching the ocean's upper part from the deep, not to mention increased CO2 levels, acidifying seawater, a similar Bangkok Post report said.

According to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in a leaked draft report on the impacts of climate, slated for publishing next year, climate change has "exposed and coastal ecosystems to conditions" that is unmatched over hundreds of years to millennia with implications for ocean-dwelling plants and animals all over the world. The IPCC predicts escalating effects on marine life.

As phytoplankton are comparatively strong and will continue to switch territory as the seas become warm, the IPCC is expecting that weakening conditions in the oceans will eventually result in an overall drop this century.

Changes in Carbon Cycling

The total weight or quantity measure, also called the average global phytoplankton biomass, is forecasted to fall by roughly 1.8 to six percent, depending on the emissions level.

But due to the outsized essentiality, even modest declines can enhance the marine food web, ultimately resulting in decreased marine life by approximately five to 17 percent.

According to Abigail McQuatters-Gollop, plankton ecologist from Plymouth University, there could be changes in carbon cycling and carbon sequestration as the plankton community changes with tinier plankton, possibly drawing down less CO2.

As the worldwide leaders get ready for a meeting at a critical UN summit on climate change, the issue is an unambiguous instance of how accelerating human effects destabilize complicated life-sustaining systems.

Related information about the Continuous Plankton Recorder is shown on The Marine Biological Association's YouTube video below: