On 14-16 April 2026, partners from the OceanICU project met in Bergen (Norway) for the project's annual meeting. OceanICU is a five-year European project (December 2022 - November 2027) that aims to produce new data, information and understanding on the role of the ocean in the global carbon cycle. It seeks to gain a new understanding of the biological carbon pump and its processes to provide fundamental knowledge and tools to help policy makers, regulators and ocean industry (i.e. fishing and mining), along with the wider blue economy manage and understand the impact of their actions on ocean carbon. To meet this objective, the OceanICU’s consortium of 30 partners brings together expertise and methods from different fields including Climate Science, Ocean Biogeochemistry, Biological Oceanography, and Marine Ecology as well as the Ocean Modelling community, Social Science, Software Development and Data Science from around Europe. As two thirds of the project’s duration has now been reached, the key objectives of the meeting were to discuss progress made across the different components of the project, share the current results of scientific research carried out in the project, organise team work and cooperation between experts, assess the impacts of the work achieved to date and discuss the next steps. From sampling water at sea to research experiments and modelling, experts in the project discussed a wide range of activities.
On this occasion, we focus on ocean carbon. Carbon is the foundation of all life on Earth. It is naturally present in the atmosphere and in ecosystems, both on land and in the water.[1] It is required to form complex molecules like DNA and proteins, a key ingredient in our food and a source of energy to drive economies. It is locked within the ground, dissolved in the sea, and is found in our atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2). CO2 regulates the Earth’s temperature. [2,3] The Earth and the atmosphere form a closed system for matter, meaning that particles, including carbon, stay in the system. Carbon moves between different states (e.g. carbon dioxide gas taken up by the ocean) over a large scale and long timeframe.[3] This movement is described in the carbon cycle.
Primary producers like plants on land and phytoplankton in the ocean take up carbon dioxide during photosynthesis, removing carbon from the atmosphere.[1] Organisms naturally emit carbon to the atmosphere during respiration or decay.[1] Other processes like volcanic eruptions and forest fires release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere too. [1] Human activities have caused the amount of carbon dioxide in the air to increase extensively since the 1800s, leading to climate change.[1,4] The main drivers of climate change are the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.[4] The greenhouse gases released during these activities (including carbon dioxide) act like a blanket around the Earth that traps the sun’s heat.[4]
The ocean absorbs about a fourth of the human-induced carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.[5] It does so by the ‘physical carbon pump’ and the ‘biological carbon pump’.
- Exchanging carbon dioxide at the water surface is described in the ‘physical carbon pump’.[5] At higher latitudes, the water temperature is cold and the solubility of carbon dioxide is higher, leading to more uptake (‘ingassing’).[5] From there, the carbon dioxide moves along with deep water formation, and is stored or redistributed by ocean currents.[5] At lower latitudes, the water temperatures are higher and carbon dioxide is less soluble in the water, enhanced as well by upwelling, leading to release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (‘outgassing’).[5] Wish to explore different latitudes on a map? Open the European Atlas of the Seas and use the measurement tool to see different latitudes across the globe.
- The ‘biological carbon pump’ describes the process by which carbon dioxide is taken up by phytoplankton at the surface (‘ingassing’), where light is available, during photosynthesis.[5] These tiny organisms use carbon to build essential cell structures. Phytoplankton are a food source for organisms in the food web like zooplankton, which again transport the carbon they contain.[5] A fraction of the carbon sinks into deeper ocean layers as fecal or dead organic material. Bacteria decompose this sinking matter during remineralization, releasing carbon dioxide. Released carbon is redistributed with ocean currents, reused, or exchanged with the atmosphere (‘outgassing’). However, some of the organic carbon sinks into deep ocean layers where it is stored sometimes for thousands of years.[5]
The OceanICU project focuses on the ‘biological carbon pump’. Several presentations during the meeting concerned phytoplankton. Did you know that chlorophyll-a is a proxy for the abundance of photosynthetic plankton? Phytoplankton contains the green pigment chlorophyll that allows them to use the energy of sunlight to transform CO2 to sugars and oxygen. Because of the distinct green colour of the chlorophyll pigment, we can use optical satellite sensors to visualise the distribution of chlorophyll and thus the phytoplankton in the ocean. Explore the Map of the Week on Global Ocean Chlorophyll (daily), which shows the near real time daily Chlorophyll-a concentration (in mg per cubic meter) at the ocean surface in regions which were not covered by clouds. Come back to this map layer later and see how it has changed. Phytoplankton evolves with seasons, with high concentrations during spring blooms.
Wish to learn more?
- Learn more about Ocean Carbon Uptake on the Copernicus Marine Service Ocean Climate Portal;
- Have a look at the Copernicus Marine Service ocean data visualisation tool, select MYOCEAN LIGHT and see Chlorophyll-a concentration at different times and at different depths;
- Consult the recently published Integrated Ocean Carbon Research (IOCR) report;
- Have a look at the reports provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change.
Make sure you follow the developments of the OceanICU project:
- Explore the OceanICU website, check out the visual on the biological carbon pump, watch the recording of past webinars, read the blogs and news articles;
- Subscribe to the OceanICU newsletter to stay tuned to ongoing research and upcoming activities!
The data in the map is provided by Copernicus Marine Service.
The European Atlas of the Seas is powered by the European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet). Don’t miss the latest news, register for the monthly EMODnet News Digest.
[2] https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/carbon-cycle.html#transcript
[3] https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/FutureEO/Space_for_our_climate/Carbon_cycle
[4] https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/what-is-climate-change
[5] https://issuu.com/copernicusmarine_service/docs/20181018_mercator_osr_2017_summaryi/10