Calling All Divers: Your Dive Could Help Understand Our Planet

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The next time you dive, think about sharing your dive information with Dive Into Science. Your dive log could help Scientists understand this Planet. 

On July 22 The Guardian reported that “Diving enthusiasts could be used to measure ocean temperatures”. 

“Millions of holidaying scuba divers are able to become Citizen-Scientists and take vital measurements of ocean temperatures, which are being driven by climate change. Decompression computers worn by recreational and commercial divers provides accurate data, a  new study shows,” the Guardian reported. 

Diving has become the World's fastest growing tourism market. Millions of divers from across the World are migrating to new waters thanks to developments made and divers certifications issued Internationally in the past decades. Globally they generate billions of dollars in incomes but scuba diving is also affecting the environment. Large influx of tourist lead to environmental impacts and degradation of the reefs and Ocean life. Now divers around the World have another golden opportunity to leverage the balance out. 

The idea of getting Recreational Divers to line up the ranks of Science is not new. Organizations such as PADI and Reef have been doing it for years but now a new study has revealed a much more simple way for them to contribute. 

Usually Volunteer Dive Science Programs require sign up, travels, skilling and training and investment on behalf of the diver but Dive Into Science only asks for divers to upload their dive log information. They assure that this information can solve the mysteries of climate change. 

Deeper Blue -one of the many Diving Media which picked up the news reported that the study which used scuba divers profile to monitor climate change proposed a key change of perspective for the field. 

Up until now Scientists used to get key information on climate change, ocean temperatures, salinity and other data from satellites, buoys and Argo floats. Now scuba diver enthusiasts could also help. 

The new study published at the Journal Nature authored by Scientists from the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science CEFAS in Scotland revealed that recreational Divers’ dive Computers have a potential to improve the monitoring of ocean temperatures.

“To undertake a Global Science Programme that could generate this information would be hugely expensive, but there are millions of sport and commercial dives every year. Making use of just a small fraction of those dives will greatly increase our knowledge of what is happening Worldwide,” Kieran Hyder leader of the Citizen Science project at CEFAS told The Guardian. 

The leader of the project went even further and assured that depth measurements data are often not taken into the equation by buoys and satellites while recreational dive computers pick up both temperature and depths on daily basis.

They “could provide an alternate and highly novel source of oceanographic information to fill this data gap,” Hyder added.

“We are increasingly concerned about global change and its regional impacts. Sea level is rising at an accelerating rate of 3 mm per year, Arctic sea ice cover is shrinking and high latitude areas are warming rapidly. Extreme weather events cause loss of life and enormous burdens on the insurance industry. Globally, 8 of the 10 warmest years since 1860, when instrumental records began, were in the past decade,” Scientists at Argo the global array of over 3 thousand free-drifting floats which measure salinity and temperature of the upper ocean explained the importance of measuring the ocean. 

Increased coastal flooding, severe droughts, more extreme and frequent heat waves and weather events such as severe tropical cyclones are linked to climate change and changes in the ocean.

“Understanding (and eventually predicting) changes in both the atmosphere and ocean are needed to guide international actions, to optimize Government's' policies and to shape industrial strategies. To make those predictions we need improved models of climate and of the entire Earth system,” top scientists measuring the Ocean assured. 

Scientists from CEFAS believe that the International community of divers can really help in this key global issue. They have already brought scientific proof to their thesis in their study published at Nature which used more than 7.45 thousand dives from across the World conducted by every day divers who decided to log their dive to Dive Into Science Website. 

“The potential of Scuba Divers to contribute to ocean monitoring is huge and I believe that this study demonstrates only the tip of the iceberg,” the leader of the project said. 

The report published at Nature also urges for simple developments in every day scuba diving gear which could help solve the problem even more radically. While dive gear measures depths, temperature, time of dive, decompression rates and other information they still don't measure other elements such as oxygen in water. 

“In the future, there is great potential to build on the Dive Into Science portal...The development of Dive Computers to include more sensors (salinity, oxygen) or the deployment of low cost in-situ sensors by dive schools and clubs...could further add to this potential,” the study says envisioning a spontaneous viral citizen-science program expanding and developing. 

If Dive computers would actually record oxygen levels in water a major breakthrough in another most concerning event taking place Worldwide may be wide open...Dead Zones and their influence. 

Dead Zones are just another example of how little we know about the Ocean and how it is changing. Dead Zones are areas of the Ocean where oxygen levels are extremely low. One would naturally infer that because there is no oxygen there is no life there but infact this is not the case. There is plenty of life in Dead Zones only that the life that there is there is not actually breathing Oxygen. Dead Zones are expanding and so are the lifeforms that inhabit them. 

In the past 50 years Low Oxygen areas have expanded 1.7 million square miles. Occurrence of Dead Zones have doubled in frequency every 10 years since the 1960s.

NOAA recognizes the expansion of Dead Zones and works hard to get on top of the issue. They have been following the expansion of the Dead Zone of the Gulf of Mexico for long time now. 

Dead Zones areas are no area for recreational Scuba Divers...in fact these areas have so low oxygen levels that when they expand they cause fish mortality and mortality of other oxygen breathing marine organisms life forms. 

Because Scuba Divers don't dive in these and other areas the use of buoys, satellites and Argo floats still remain of vital importance globally for science. However Recreational Scuba Divers´ logs can and do serve science specially with a focus on coastal areas and some coastal areas are under the influence of Dead Zones expansion. Adding dive sights of marine life and divers observation to the Dive Into Science logs could also serve science in this particular issue.

“Dead Zones are devouring Oceans’ Oxygen,” Ecowatch assures. Today expanding Dead Zones areas are located in the Southern Indian Ocean, the eastern tropical Pacific and the Atlantic. Models show that oxygen deprivation could become increasingly widespread across large regions of the Ocean between 2030 and 2040.

“Loss of oxygen in the Ocean is one of the serious side-effects of a warming atmosphere and a major threat to marine life,” Dr. Matthew Long Oceanographer at the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado explains. 

Scientists of the University of Washington have been following Ocean life in Dead Zones and their “Out of the Box” thinking is inspiring. 

On July 19 the University of Washington reported that University´s Oceanographers have been able to grow and sequence the genome of an ocean microbe that is very important to climate change. 

“Sea Turtles and Whales may be the charismatic critters of the sea, but the True Kingpins of the Ocean are those which make up 98 % of the Ocean’s biomass -and yet individually are too small to see with the naked eye...microbes and microorganisms,” Scientists at the Washington University explained. 

Marine microbes are a diverse group of organisms that includes microalgae, viruses, bacteria and archaea. They serve as the base of the marine food chain and are responsible for controlling much of the ocean’s nutrient flow and health. When out of balance some can flourish to what are considered “toxic” levels for the environment such as toxic algae blooms which thrive in Dead Zones. 

Although these small organisms are the predominant life form of the oceans and of the entire Planet we still know very little about them. The way they “breathe” has shaped the Global Weather and Global Atmosphere for millions of years. Oxygen levels in the Planet historically increased during the Oxygen Revolution because microorganisms flourished. Millions of years later life as we know it came to be. Throughout the history of this -our Planet microorganisms, small but powerful in numbers have shaped life. From nitrogen to carbon dioxide to oxygen global levels to nutrient availability microorganisms are the balance of the Ocean and the balance of life. 

The Team of Scientist was able to culture and sequence the entire genome of one of the most abundant microbes present in low oxygen areas. The microbe “significantly contributes to the removal of life-supporting nitrogen from the water”.

“If we want to understand how the oceans are working and be able to model them in any sort of predictive way, we need to more accurately understand what the inputs and outputs are,” Senior Author Robert Morris -Washington University Associate Professor of Oceanography said. 

“This is an important organism that fixes carbon, is involved in nitrogen loss and is in parts of the ocean that are shifting due to climate change. We now have the first-ever culture in the laboratory and we can study its physiology,” Morris added. 

The entire findings were published at the Multidisciplinary Journal of Microbial Ecology, a Nature publication.

The organism “Candidatus Thioglobus autotrophicus” is present in low-oxygen waters around the World and is one of the dominant organisms in these areas -between 40 and 60 percent of all cells in some regions.

“Living things use oxygen for their metabolic activities, but in low-oxygen areas, bacteria and archaea have evolved to “breathe” other elements available in seawater. One of those is a chemical called nitrate which, when respired, produces gaseous nitrogen. That gas escapes to the atmosphere, effectively leaving the ocean and removing valuable nitrogen from the water,” experts explained the process. 

At a global scale, the areas of the ocean where these bacteria live are getting bigger as climate change creates conditions that produce low-oxygen zones, including warmer ocean temperatures and less water circulation.

“In the very big picture, we know that different types of oxygen minimum zones that house these organisms are getting bigger and more persistent,” leader researcher said. “So, whatever influence these bugs have on water chemistry and the atmosphere is going to get more and more important -basically, their habitat is expanding.”

Weather it is in a lab, extracting live data from a free-floating buoys, tracking the temperatures through Close-Earth-Orbiting Satellites or Diving responsibly in our vacations the efforts to understand this Planet seem to never give up. 

Dive Into Science made it very simple for anyone who wants to submit their dive information to do so with just a few clicks. 

“We live in the midst of a changing climate reflected in changing sea temperatures. These changing sea temperatures result in diminishing fish stocks, destructive weather patterns, and flooding. There are an estimated 20-30 million certified divers, worldwide. The majority of these divers use dive computers. This extra data could prove crucial in the efforts to understand and predict the effects of our changing climate,” Dive Into Science kicks the ball to our court.