Edited by: MICHELLE L. PETERS1 AND JENNIFER A. CASCINO2
Changes in the color of the ocean reflect how changes in Earth’s climate are transforming plankton ecosystems. Collecting data on both surface and underwater coloration is essential to monitoring the health of marine ecosystems across the ocean. Variations in ocean surface color, measured by satellites, hold information about the composition of plankton ecosystems. These ecosystems are sensitive to ocean temperature and to the availability of nutrients and light in the ocean. In underwater habitats, monitoring coral bleaching events serves as an important means for evaluating the health of reef ecosystems. Yet certain challenges remain to be addressed for acquiring and processing data in a standardized and reliable fashion. Current and future policies can be centered around data acquisition and integration as well as efforts for universal collaboration and broader societal impacts.
Highlights
The ocean surface’s color, measured by satellites, reflects the composition of the plankton community living beneath it. This community is the base of the marine food web and influences the ocean’s carbon uptake.
Monitoring the color of coral can serve as a measure for evaluating the health of reef ecosystems.
Dynamic adaptation approaches have gained traction due to the uncertainties of climate change. Policies can be centered around the acquisition, processing, and standardization of data collected from satellites and underwater imaging.
This MIT Science Policy Review article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/.
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0)-71721363891390-01723622413995.png)
