Carbon Explorers have produced detailed information on the carbon cycle in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Southern Oceans – information that would be unaffordable or even impossible to obtain from shipboard. Now a new breed of Carbon Flux Explorers not only measures day-by-day variations in biomass sediment, they can determine exactly what’s in each collected sample. Knowing what’s in the sediment, including what’s eating the detritus, adds essential knowledge for understanding the ocean carbon cycle.

Following the SOFeX iron-fertilization experiment in the Southern Ocean, deep-diving Carbon Explorer floats continuously collected data for over a year, straight through the Antarctic winter. Earth Sciences Division oceanographers analyzed the data and found that most of the carbon from lush plankton blooms, whether artificially fertilized or natural, never reaches the deep ocean.