International co-operation and co-ordination are vital for understanding the ocean and the impact of climate change, the executive director of Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans (POGO) told The Royal Gazette.

POGO is based at the Bedford Institute for Oceanography in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada. It is a consortium of major oceanographic institutes of the world, including Bermuda's own Bermuda Institute for Ocean Studies (BIOS). BIOS director Dr. Tony Knapp is now an executive member of POGO which has about 35 members.

Dr. Shubha Sathyendranath, who has been POGO executive director for about seven years, was on the island for the organisation's annual conference. This was the first year the conference was held in Bermuda at BIOS.

"Bermuda is an appropriate place to have the meeting because BIOS over the years has made many significant contributions to long term observations of the ocean," said Dr. Sathyendranath. "It is definitely well respected in the community."

"The meeting will be dealing with ocean observations in general, and why it is important for our society to have sustained, long-term integrated observations of the ocean at the global scale. We will also be discussing how best it can be achieved through international collaboration and co-ordination."

One of POGO's aims is to exchange information and avoid duplication of effort in the scientific community. It is also a way to share resources and minimise expenses.

"It is not about competition; it is about cooperation," she said. "Here we are talking about the scientific community coming together to achieve a common goal."

Dr. Sathyendranath's personal research focus is phytoplankton, the photosynthesizing organisms in plankton, mainly unicellular algae and cyanobacteria.

"I have been involved in the remote sensing of phytoplankton from space, and the study of photosynthesis by phytoplankton at sea and their role in the ocean carbon cycle and its relevance for issues related to climate," she said.

She said just how something that cannot be seen by the naked eye, can be seen from space is "rather interesting".

"Phytoplankton are microscopic plants," she said. "They carry out the same function as plants on land, which is photosynthesis. They have all the necessary instruments to do that and that includes having plant pigments. It is the same pigment that is in plants on the land that makes them green. Although, phytoplankton contain the same pigments in microscopic amounts, their collective impact is tremendous. If you look at the sea from space, you can see small changes in the colour of the oceans which is associated in changes in the amount of chlorophyll in the water. That is the basic signal we use to detect changes in the ocean."

She said it has been discovered that these microscopic plants cycle as much carbon in a given year on a global scale as do all the terrestrial plants all together.

"That is 50 gigatons of carbon," said Dr. Sathyendranath. "So they are very important. So what we would like to know next is how ocean climate change will affect photosynthesis and affect the carbon cycle. We can't ignore any part of the globe in these studies."

Bermuda is associated with the Sargasso Sea and is relatively barren in terms of phytoplankton, she said, but scientists do find changes in phytoplankton activity, even around Bermuda.

"When you are doing remote sensing (by satellite) you can look at Bermuda sitting in Canada," she said.

"So we have looked at the Sargasso Sea and the waters around Bermuda. Bermuda has a very long time series station here. [The time series takes ocean data such as temperature at regular intervals and records it.] So everyone is looking at that data to test or validate what the satellite is showing."