Dr. Frank Hoge, principal investigator from the Wallops Flight Facility, said the researchers were expecting to see limited plant productivity in the Pacific Ocean as compared to the Atlantic. However, they found a large patch of the microscopic plants, called phytoplankton, with concentrations five to six times higher than that typically found in the Atlantic, Hoge said.
Phytoplankton play an important role in the absorption of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
The airborne data were linked with observations from the Space Shuttle to guide NSF ships to areas of high productivity. The phytoplankton patches, which could be seen with the naked-eye, were located 140 degrees West longitude and 2 degrees north of the Equator. The patches were at least 100 times more concentrated than expected in the equatorial Pacific Region, said Hoge. Hoge said the high phytoplankton concentration in the Pacific was probably the result of unusual ocean circulation that built up nutrients, which the plants need for growth, from the bottom of the ocean. The high Pacific concentrations decreased in the days following the initial discovery, he said.