4500m deep: remote observatory expands climate knowledge

David Boldeman speaks with CSIRO marine biogeochemist Dr Elizabeth Shadwick about one of Australia’s most important long-running ocean climate observation programs, the Southern Ocean Time Series south of Tasmania.

Anchored in waters around 4500 metres deep, this remote ocean observatory allows scientists to measure how the Southern Ocean absorbs heat and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and how these processes influence the global climate system.

Dr Shadwick explains how carbon dioxide moves from the air into the ocean, how physical circulation and deep water formation can store that carbon away from the atmosphere for decades to centuries, and how the “biological carbon pump” helps move organic carbon into the deep ocean.

The episode also explores the remarkable engineering effort required to deploy and maintain deep-water moorings in harsh Southern Ocean conditions, and what more than two decades of observations are revealing about ocean acidification, natural variability, and the challenge of detecting long-term human impacts in deep ocean ecosystems.

Further reading: IMOS Southern Ocean Time Series Voyage information and photo gallery Australian Antarctic Program Partnership Underwater observatory keeps pulse of the Southern Ocean for nearly 30 years

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