The earth is warming, but temperatures in the atmosphere and at the sea surface that steadily rose in the last half-century have leveled off and slowed in the past decade, causing the appearance of an imbalance in Earth’s heat budget. Scientists are looking into the deep ocean to determine where this additional heat energy could be stored, and recently traced a pathway that leads to the Indian Ocean.
NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory is teaming up with NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, National Marine Fisheries Service, and Integrated Ocean Observing System, as well as the J.C. Venter Institute and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography to enhance ecosystem observation programs by integrating genome-enabled techniques and technologies (i.e., ‘omics) into the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI). CalCOFI is a multi-partner, long-term ecosystem and fisheries study off the coast of California. The first quarterly CalCOFI expedition that included ‘omics recently completed at the end of November.
