Café scientifique - how the realm of microscopic oceanic algae influences our climate

The microscopic unicellular algae living in the lighted portion of the  oceans, which are called phytoplankton, have a photosynthetic  activity, like all plants on Earth. Through this process that depends  on sunlight impinging the ocean surface, they take up carbon dioxide  (CO2) and synthesize organic matter. Although they are small, their numbers and, above all, their capacity to double their  biomass roughly every two days, allows generating a staggering amount of ca. 50 billion tons of organic matter.

This is as much as what all terrestrial plants also produce every year.  The overall World oceans phytoplankton biomass is however about 500  times smaller than that of terrestrial plants, which testifies of their  excellent efficiency in turning CO2 into biomass. The  presentation will show how satellite Earth observations have  revolutionised knowledge about these processes, and how phytoplankton  are part  of the global carbon cycle and hence have a role in regulating…