Discovering the Climate Change – Phytoplankton Relationship in Real-Time
Channel: Kassondra Watson
Date: 2021-05-03

Fellowship Award:  Student Academic Research Review
Oregon Space Grant Consortium, NASA
By Kassondra Watson, Thompson's Microbial Ecology Lab, Portland State University, April 9, 2021
Presentation for PSU Student Research Symposium

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Abstract
Phytoplankton are plant-like microscopic cells so abundant that they operate on a global scale and can be seen from space. Global functions of phytoplankton include oxygen production, carbon fixation, driving the marine food web, driving the biological carbon pump, and maintaining the microbial loop. They live in communities with one another, symbionts, and predators.  Measuring the abundance and distribution of different types of phytoplankton is essential to understand their extensive ecological roles and relationships to Earth's biogeochemistry.
NASA’s remote sensing data has been used extensively in 1980s. Even today, however, satellite data shows little distinction between diverse phytoplankton research since the phytoplankton types. Current remote sensing detects chlorophyll-a, which counts most phytoplankton together like a homogeneous mixture of light. However, other chlorophyll types, carotenoids, and pigments exist in ratios that are unique to different phytoplankton types. Remote sensing technology with higher spectral resolution could identify these distinct pigment ratios as ‘fingerprints’ of different types.
To address this gap, NASA and partners have been working for over a decade to launch the Plankton Aerosols Clouds and Ecosystems (PACE) mission. The PACE satellite will be equipped with multispectral polarimetry, LiDAR, and hyperspectral resolution. This advancement in remote sensing technology will detect ocean color from the surface to 1000 M depths, aerosols, and reduce reflectance that otherwise obscure images. This review will focus on how PACE will detect more chlorophylls and other photosynthetic pigments like no other satellite before. With pigment information, scientists can determine plankton community compositions in oceans across the world. 
Algorithmic analysis of information as PACE collects it, along with in situ sampling, Argo biogeochemical floats, controlled in vitro experiments, and innovative climate modeling could reveal linkage between the health and stability of marine life to the flow of carbon through ocean systems in real-time. Using plankton information to monitor efficiency of the biological carbon pump would increase climate modelling accuracy (Dutkiewicz, 2021). Ultimately, the more we understand about phytoplankton, the stronger foundation we will have in mitigating and adapting to climate change.