During the relative warmth of late summer, the ice melts at the edge of the lake, forming a moat around Lake Bonney. This is where the scientists think most of the DMS may escape. DMS can play an important role in the earth's heat budget. MSA is important to our global atmosphere because it causes clouds to form, which may have an influence on how much sunlight reaches the earth's surface and how much heat escapes. A source is something that produces another thing.
Sinks are losses from a system such as through biological consumption or escape to the atmosphere.
John Priscu believes that the water in the bottom of Lake Bonney is a source for DMS in the environment. The focus of the study is to understand sources and sinks of DMS and related fluxes within the water column of Lake Bonney. These factors make it an excellent study site to look at just a few pieces of the ecosystem puzzle and then transfer what is learned to open ocean ecosystems where the variables are much more difficult to control. My role on the field team will be to try and culture, or grow, a number of species of phytoplankton that Drs. They will bring the cultures back to their university labs so they can design experiments to test growth rates, the effects of varying levels of light, salinity and temperature, the amount of DMS produced by the cultures, and what processes occur within the phytoplankton during decomposition.