This month two scientists from the University of Maine’s Darling Marine Center (DMC) in Walpole embark on research cruises to the Gulf of Maine and the North Atlantic, and the subpolar arctic.

Dr. Mary Jane Perry will board the R/V Araon, a Korean icebreaker, with an international group of 40 scientists to study the retreat of sea ice in the Arctic. The changing patterns in sea ice have significant implications for the planktonic food web, and flow of carbon and nutrients in the Arctic, including timing, magnitude and location of plankton blooms.

Perry will use small underwater gliders to collect data along and under the thin and melting sea ice of the Marginal Ice Zone. The data, collected over a two-month period, will offer the first comprehensive view of the spatial distribution and abundance of phytoplankton under ice in the Arctic.

The Marginal Ice Zone Program is led by the University of Washington and is funded by the U.S. Department of Defense Office of Naval Research. Read more about the program at www.apl.uw.edu. Perry is the interim director of the DMC and faculty in UMaine’s School of Marine Sciences.

Dr. Ivona Cetinić studies particulate organic carbon (POC) in oceans. POC includes phytoplankton, zooplankton and marine debris and is a key feature of the global carbon cycle. As this source of carbon settles to the ocean floor it essentially removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

This summer Cetinić and her team, including Nicole Poulton from the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, will collect and analyze seawater along the cruise track from coastal Maine, the Gulf of Maine, and the North Atlantic to see how POC distribution varies in different marine ecosystems. Their data will be compared to optical data collected simultaneously from aircraft and satellites in an effort to identify POC from space.

Cetinić is one of three scientists heading up the NASA funded SABOR (Ship-Aircraft Bio-Optical Research) project. The cruise departs on July 17 and student researchers will blog about their shipboard experience at earthobservatory.nasa.gov/blogs/fromthefield. Additional information about the SABOR project is available at espo.nasa.gov/home/sabor. Cetinić is research associate in the UMaine’s School of Marine Sciences based at the DMC.