Research Highlights
The AMT provides a platform for scientists to capture and analyse data related to a range of oceanographic science areas. Over 250 scientists have participated in AMT cruises and many more have worked with the data which is accessible through the British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC).
The data has produced over 300 scientific papers (a list of which can be found on the publications page), the long-term nature of the data collected is useful in analysing trends over a wide time period which can help with forecasting future outcomes.
Below are examples of how AMT data has assisted various scientists and their research:
Mapping primary production
Using satellite ocean colour chlorophyll and radiance data, accurate maps of primary production have been developed, which provide spatially and temporally resolved global and regional estimates of primary production. These satellite measurements are validated by measurements taken on-board the AMT cruises. Here primary production is determined by the uptake of...
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Sea butterflies already struggle in acidifying Southern Ocean
Due to increasing concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the Southern Ocean will acidify in the upcoming few decades. This will affect shell growth in sea butterflies, useful biological indicators of ocean acidification, and important and abundant prey at the base of Southern Ocean food chains. In a new study, using...
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Ocean’s canaries have survived previous perturbations in the Earth’s carbon cycle
Pteropods, abundant aragonitic calcifying plankton, are the equivalent of “canaries in the coal mine” for our acidifying oceans. Their sensitivity to high CO2 levels and limited fossil record has led to the widely held view that pteropods only became abundant after the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM, approximately 56 million years...
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AMT study estimates over 10 times more plastic in the Atlantic than previously thought
The mass of &‘;invisible’ microplastics found in the upper waters of the Atlantic Ocean is approximately 12- 21 million tonnes, according to AMT research published in the journal Nature Communications. Significantly, this figure is only for three of the most common types of plastic litter in a limited size range....
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Bio-optical data and ocean colour
The colour of the ocean as “seen” from a satellite is related to the light absorbed and scattered by substances and organisms in the water. Once of the most important parameters that influences the colour of the ocean is phytoplankton, tiny plants which contain the green pigment, chlorophyll. Although microscopic,...
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Carbonate system chemistry
The oceans play a vital role in regulating atmospheric CO2. Currently the oceans absorb about one quarter of CO2 released by human activities on an annual basis. Without the oceans, CO2 would be rising much faster in the atmosphere than it currently is. Nevertheless, the accumulation of excess CO2 in...
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High evolutionary potential of marine zooplankton
Marine holozooplankton (the microscopic animals which spend their entire life cycle in the open water column) have been sampled during AMT cruises, with the aim of unravelling the barriers to dispersal of these species along the Atlantic Ocean transect. It is typically expected that these organisms should experience gene flow...
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High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and bio-optical data
AMT scientists have developed a conceptual model which describes how the phytoplankton community structure changes as total phytoplankton biomass (as indicated by chlorophyll concentration) changes. The model was developed using High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and bio-optical data collected on AMT transects. The findings have then been extrapolated to the...
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Optical observations of ocean ecosystems
Observations in the ocean are key understanding the ocean carbon cycle and ecosystem dynamics, but they are very scarce in the vast open ocean. Therefore AMT scientists have been working devise methods to estimate ocean carbon cycle and ecosystem variables by exploiting optical observations as these are relatively easy to...
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Net community production drivers identified in the South Atlantic Ocean
The first 16 year timeseries of net community production in the South Atlantic Ocean has been produced using satellite observations in a recent study by Ford et al. (2021). Net Community Production, or NCP, is a measure of the balance between phytoplankton photosynthesis and the respiration of the whole plankton...
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Hosted at Plymouth Marine Laboratory, funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council.