How Australian wildfires triggered massive algae blooms thousands of miles away in the ocean.
NASA's upcoming PACE mission aims to map the surprising link between land-based wildfires and marine life. By tracking carbon across ecosystems, scientists hope to refine climate models and better understand how fire, air, and ocean communities interact on a global scale.
Between September 2019 and March 2020, Australian wildfires destroyed over 200,000 square kilometers of forest, an area exceeding the size of Nebraska. Following these fires, massive phytoplankton blooms emerged in the Southern Ocean, covering a surface area larger than Australia itself.
The Plankton, Aerosols, Clouds, and ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission is designed to investigate these complex environmental connections. By monitoring carbon as it moves from land fires to atmospheric aerosols and into marine ecosystems, researchers intend to reduce uncertainties in current climate modeling.
