This image of this swirling blue bloom was captured on July 15, 2012, by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. Note that the image is rotated so that north is to the right. Ocean scientist Norman Kuring of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center suggested the bloom was likely Emiliania huxleyi, though it is impossible to know the species for sure without direct sampling of the water.
Coccolithophores use carbon, calcium, and oxygen to produce tiny plates of calcium carbonate (coccoliths). Often called “stones” by researchers, coccoliths resemble hubcaps. During their lifespan, coccolithophores remove carbon from the air, “fix” or integrate it into what is effectively limestone, and take it with them to the seafloor when they die and sink or when they are consumed (and eventually excreted) by zooplankton and fish.
These micro-stones are thought to speed up the ocean’s biological pump, according to William Balch, a senior research scientist at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences and a member of the Suomi NPP science team. Without this dense calcium carbonate ballast for sinking particles to the depths, less carbon dioxide would be drawn down into the ocean. The net result would be higher atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide.
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