{"id":274562,"date":"2025-11-10T03:07:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T03:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/274562\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T03:07:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T03:07:14","slug":"nasa-satellite-experts-gather-in-hobart-to-study-southern-ocean-from-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/274562\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA satellite experts gather in Hobart to study Southern Ocean from space"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than 50 of the world\u2019s leading ocean scientists have gathered in Hobart to explore new ways of using NASA satellite technology to understand how climate change is reshaping the Southern Ocean.<\/p>\n

The Southern Ocean Bio-optics Workshop, hosted by the University of Tasmania\u2019s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, is focused on harnessing data from NASA\u2019s PACE satellite to study the vast, remote waters surrounding Antarctica.<\/p>\n

Launched in 2024, PACE \u2013 short for Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, Ecosystem \u2013 carries an advanced ocean colour sensor that can detect green pigments such as chlorophyll. <\/p>\n

These signals reveal the makeup of phytoplankton communities, the microscopic plants that form the base of the Southern Ocean food web and play a crucial role in absorbing atmospheric carbon dioxide.<\/p>\n

\"\"The PACE Satellite launch in February 2024. Image \/ SpaceX<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the first time, experts in bio-optics, who use light to study biological information, are getting together with photo-physiologists who study how organisms use light energy,\u201d phytoplankton ecologist Dr Robert Strzepek said.<\/p>\n

The Southern Ocean\u2019s extreme conditions \u2013 from its dramatic seasonal light swings to its icy temperatures \u2013 have given rise to unique phytoplankton communities that may behave very differently from those elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\"\"The PACE satellite in orbit. Image \/ NASA<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think the Southern Ocean may be different from other ocean basins because it has fundamentally different phytoplankton communities with unique strategies for using light,\u201d Strzepek said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPACE offers us a once-in-a-generation opportunity to better understand how phytoplankton will respond to climate change and what this means for nutrient and carbon cycling in the Southern Ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scientists from NASA\u2019s PACE mission team are attending alongside researchers from CSIRO, the Australian Antarctic Division, and institutions across the United States, Japan, Europe, New Zealand and South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 50 of the world\u2019s leading ocean scientists have gathered in Hobart to explore new ways of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,128,285],"class_list":{"0":"post-274562","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}