DR. JORGE SARMIENTO: It's a
very, very far away and it's a
very severe climate, and a
very hard place to work.
DR. OSCAR SCHOFIELD: It is
an extreme environment.
There' not many places on this
planet that is truly untamed
and unexplored.
DR. JORGE SARMIENTO: It's
mysterious, because there's a
lot of things going on that
are very, very complex.
DR. HEIDI CULLEN: We live in
anxious times, on a stressed
planet, where increasing levels
of carbon dioxide and
higher temperatures contribute
to a host of extremes--
more withering heat waves,
increased drought, torrential
rainstorms.
The oceans are rising and
becoming more acidic.
Earth is a place looking for
and needing solutions.
Key to a solution is the ability
to model and predict
our changing climate.
And for that, the answer may
rest not on land or even in
the atmosphere, but in a vast,
mysterious body of water the
size of Asia, Africa, North
America, and Europe combined--
the Southern Ocean.
DR. JORGE SARMIENTO: The oceans
take up about a quarter
of the carbon dioxide that
we're putting into the
atmosphere by fossil fuel
burning and deforestation.
And of that quarter, fully 50%
goes into the Southern Ocean,
even though the ocean is just
a quarter of the ocean area.
DR. HEIDI CULLEN: In addition to
absorbing such huge amounts
of the world's greenhouse gases,
the Southern Ocean also
accounts for about 60% of the
excess heat transferred from
the atmosphere to the ocean.
And this sprawling body of
water that encircles
Antarctica serves as a kind of
mix master to the planet's
oceans, a place where different
water masses from
around the world come together,
combine, and then
are sent back out, supplying
nutrients to a majority of the
Earth's seas.
Yet despite its critical
importance, the Southern Ocean
remains one of the least
understood and most
under-explored regions
on our planet.
DR. OSCAR SCHOFIELD: The
oceans are chronically
under-sampled.
We do a poor job studying it
with traditional techniques,
despite our best efforts.
DR. JORGE SARMIENTO: Now we have
something completely new,
a new way of studying this that
doesn't require us to be
there, which are these floats
that are capable of observing
the Southern Ocean remotely
on very rapid time scales.
They can resolve things in
time as well as space.
DR. OSCAR SCHOFIELD: The new
technologies are going to be
the only way we're going to get
enough data and the right
kind of data to essentially
help build the models to
simulate future oceans.
DR. HEIDI CULLEN: Here at
Princeton University, the
observational data and the
modeling come together under
the umbrella of C-SOBOM, short
for the Center for Southern
Ocean Biogeochemical
Observations and Modeling.
In addition to Princeton,
C-SOBOM draws on the talents
of top scientists at leading
institutions, including the
University of Arizona, the
University of Washington,
Rutgers, Johns Hopkins, MBARI,
Scripps, and my organization,
Climate Central.
Climate modelers, observational
scientists,
educators--
coordinated and committed to
unlocking and communicating
the mysteries of the
Southern Ocean.
DR. JORGE SARMIENTO: There's a
sense of urgency that I feel
that events, climate change,
carbon chemistry changes, like
acidification of the ocean,
are going to outrun our
ability to observe
the ocean to do
something about these things.
DR. OSCAR SCHOFIELD: When I see
the large changes and I
sort of look at it, I
have two reactions.
First, as a scientist, I get
really curious about
what's going on.
You combine that with a concern
about where the
ocean's going and how that might
affect the planet for my
kids, adds a little bit of extra
passion to make sure you
follow through to try to do
the best job you can.