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Dr. Peer Helmke

I am a Post-Doctoral Researcher in the Neuer lab. Currently the main field of my work is remote sensing of phytoplankton growth and sea surface temperature in order to estimate ocean primary production and the export of organic carbon working as part of the NASA funded project "Analysis of nutrient budgets and carbon export in the eastern and western subtropical North Atlantic Ocean ". The global carbon cycle on land and in the seas is a continuous hot topic in ecology and climate research. While the interest in and weighting of different components of the carbon cycle has been shifting over the years, marine plankton turned out to be of crucial importance. Marine plankton which constitutes about one half of the global biomass has the potential to act as a long term sink for carbon dioxide when it is exported to the deep ocean and buried after sedimentation. In our NASA project we study the mechanisms and parameters controlling organic carbon export into the deep ocean in the subtropical North Atlantic. Although the surface expressions of plankton growth seem to be comparable between its eastern and western compartment, large differences in carbon export can be found. To pinpoint the origin of this difference we utilize remote sensing as well as the output of nutrient models and oceanographic and biological in situ measurements.