Former Darling Marine Center researcher leads phytoplankton expedition in Pacific
Ivona Cetinić, a former researcher at the University of Maine’s Darling Marine Center, set off Jan. 26 from Hawaii on a 27-day expedition to study the health of phytoplankton populations in the Pacific Ocean.
Cetinić, an oceanographer with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and the Universities Space Research Association (USRA), is working on board the R/V Falkor, a research vessel owned and operated by the nonprofit Schmidt Ocean Institute, founded by Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, Inc.
Joining Cetinić on the expedition are researchers and scientists from across the country. They include Jeremy Werdell, Meg Estapa and Wayne Slade, who all earned doctorates at UMaine, and three alumnae of the Darling Marine Center’s annual, ocean optics summer program.
Phytoplankton play an important role in reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. According to a press release on the NASA website, a study found that phytoplankton take roughly 24 percent of this greenhouse gas from the atmosphere. Scientists on the expedition want to know how much CO2 is being stored in the ocean over the long term and how rising levels of the gas are impacting phytoplankton populations.
The Schmidt Ocean Institute has posted a video from the expedition on its website.