The ocean is Earth’s largest carbon sink, playing a critical role in regulating the global climate. With the effects of climate change posing increasingly larger threats to marine ecosystems, understanding the ocean’s capacity to store carbon has become especially urgent. To better observe the biological processes controlling carbon transport to the deep sea, MBARI scientists and engineers worked together to develop SINKER, a device that can measure what, when, and how much carbon is sinking into the deep sea. 

Image: Cristian Palmer, Unsplash