Took a Breath? Thank the Ocean

As I've started school, I've been reminded of how much I love the ocean. It's not the classes (although I've learned a lot) and it's not the excitement of pursuing discovery. A huge part of it is just coming in contact with the ocean. Every day, as I step out of my car, I stare at the Narragansett Bay as the clouds waft over the bridge and scuttle off to class as the biting sea breeze numbing my face reminds me how formidable New England can be in the winter.
It's been said before, but it continues to strike me how well the water holds its secrets. On the surface, an ocean in distress looks just like a healthy ocean (unless you are looking at huge blooms of algae, which does happen), so it's easy not to worry about it. My father grew up without seeing the ocean, and it wasn't until he married my sea-obsessed mother that he laid eyes on the vast expanse of the water. If you come from someplace inland, the plight of a far away body of salty water may feel very remote. After all, you aren't near it, you don't eat seafood, the salty breeze doesn't numb your face, and while you may have seen Jaws, your interaction with the inhabitants of the ocean has probably mostly centered around a childhood aquarium visit. If you live near a coast, you've probably enjoyed lobster or fresh fish and chips and have maybe gotten some pretty bad sunburns sitting by the crashing waves.
But I'm here to tell you something. Did you breath today? Did you yawn widely when you woke up? Did you inhale the smell of your coffee on the way to work? How many times have you breathed just reading this post? Well guess what. Just by breathing, you are interacting with the ocean, and it's time to say thank you.

Acadia Nation Park in October on a blustery day

About half of the oxygen in the air comes from the ocean. This is why famed marine biologist Sylvia Earle is known to say, "No water, no life." (Seriously, if you are looking to add another inspiring woman to your list of people to admire, look her up. She's incredible). What this means is that you, a human being living on land, are fundamentally sustained by the sea. Without it, we couldn't all be here today.
How does this happen? You can think of the ocean very much like you think of forests. Within the water, there are tons of single-celled organisms called phytoplankton. You can imagine them as tiny floating plants. One of my favorite varieties of phytoplankton are the diatoms, which are protected by a hard glass-like shell that frames their bodies. They are so beautiful that for years people would arrange them on slides to make artwork. Below is a photograph I took of Gomphonema, which is a freshwater diatom I found in our water samples from Lake Baikal. While you wouldn't find this particular diatom in the ocean, you would likely find many similar varieties.

A freshwater variety of Gomphonema from Lake Baikal

Diatoms and other phytoplankton come in a variety of shapes and species. Their density in the water can depend on temperature, nutrients (like nitrogen and phosphorus), the time of year, and even which part of the ocean you are looking at, but everywhere they are important. These miraculous little plankton go through the process of photosynthesis just like plants on land, taking carbon dioxide and water to create glucose (their food) with the energy of the sun, and in the process releasing oxygen. When you breathe this oxygen in, the cells in your body actually go through an opposite reaction, and you exhale carbon dioxide.

http://www3.syngenta.com/country/uk/en/about/learning-zone/KS345/biology/Pages/Photosynthesis_in_Action_Large.aspx

So even if the air you are breathing isn't salty, you are in a sense breathing in the ocean. Which brings me to the reason I am writing this blog. There are so many ways that we interact with the ocean every day that we don't even know about. If you ever read the book "The Giving Tree" as a child, you can think of our relationship a little like this. We go to the ocean, we say, "Oh ocean, we need some lobster to stock our New England restaurants," or maybe, "Oh ocean, we need your to delve into your depths to drill for oil," and also, "Oh ocean, we need your beauty to feed our souls on vacation as we snorkel through your reefs or surf in your waves." And just like the giving tree, the ocean gives as we keep asking. But if you remember the end of that book, at one point the tree is relegated to nothing more than a stump on which the old man sits, both of them a shadow of what they once were. This is not how I desire to see the ocean age with me.
In many ways, the ocean is in trouble. It's not something you can see on the surface. The waves are just as blue as they were when I ran into them as a child. Underneath it all, however, the ocean is changing, in no small part because of us. It's easy to go our whole lives without knowing exactly how we as individuals are impacting the planet, but that doesn't mean it isn't happening.
In the future, I'll talk about exactly how the ocean is changing and how we are largely the cause, as well as how we can better interact with the sea. For the moment, however, just take a breath, wherever you are, and consider the ocean.