Iceberg Birthday Ian, January 28, 2013
As a National Marine Facilities( NMF) Mechanical Technician, it is my job to provide support to the scientists using different equipment such as CTDs, Go-Flos, lab containers, pumps, snow catcher etc.( see previous blogs).
Among other jobs, one of my duties is to help with the preparation, deployments and maintenance of a type of big pump. The SAPS( Stand alone pumping system) are large autonomous pumps deployed at depth to collect large volumes of sinking particles. Or in other words, we lower them over the side to some depth and then they whirr away like vacuum cleaners, collecting anything in the water. These SAPS are used to estimate the amount of organic carbon sinking out the surface layer of the ocean. This occurs via diverse biological processes including the sinking of dead phytoplankton cells, aggregates and zooplankton faecal pellets, large and dense enough to sink. This process naturally pumps atmospheric CO 2 towards the deep ocean. Then after transformation this carbon is sequestered over long time scales. Without the ocean biological carbon pump, the atmospheric CO 2 levels would be almost twice as high as current concentration.
The pumps are deployed for two hours every other day and then given to the scientists for processing and analysis. However, these pumps require preparation and setting prior to deployment.
72