(CNN Spanish) — “Las bubbles they are serious business,” says oceanographer Grant Dean, smiling but not a hint of a joke on his face.
At the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, he – along with two other scientists from different specialties – is gathering information from this unexpected source. Although it is difficult to imagine, the truth is that “everything revolves around the bubbles,” insists Dean, who has focused on studying the role of the ocean in climate.
His partner Kymberly Prather seconded him. “Bubbles give you a lot of information,” says the atmospheric chemist, who is focused on investigating how bubbles human activities influence the atmosphere, climate and our own health.
Bubbles reveal information from millions of years ago
Grant Dean and Jeffrey Severinghaus have dedicated themselves to using bubbles as a source of information for their research on climate and global warming.
The third expert dedicated to bubbles is paleoclimatologist Jeffrey Severinghaus, who focuses on greenhouse gases trapped in ice age ice, particularly in the Antarctica.
“There are a lot of things we can learn from air bubbles. We have found ice from 3 million years ago, ”he explains, which has made it possible to know, for example, what concentration of CO2 was on the planet at that time.
Severinghaus says this information from the past tells us how much humans are currently warming the climate. (This point is key, considering that the world is fast approaching catastrophic levels of warming, and international climate goals are far from being achieved unless immediate and radical action is taken, according to a recently published report supported by the UN)
What does a glacier sound like when it melts?
The bubbles are loud when a glacier melts.
One of Dean’s research areas is acoustic monitoring to measure the ice melt, a process that produces an ample supply of bubbles. When a glacier melts you literally hear the bubble popping that look “like bacon frying, like fireworks,” he says.
“We need to count those bubbles. If we can count them, we can get an idea of how much ice is melting. It is important because a lot of our civilization is in the coastal regions”, he explains.
Researchers have long warned regarding the impacts of sea level rise in the coastal regions. A study published in March of this yearfor example, raises the alarm especially in Asian megacities where more than 50 million people might be affected by the advance of the water.
Also on the western coasts of the United States and Australia, adverse effects are expected and worse than those known until this year, according to the investigation.
Stopping a hurricane before it makes landfall?
“The bubbles give you a lot of information,” says Kymberly Prather, explaining how they might help even study how to stop hurricanes.
For Prather, for his part, everything revolves around particles in the form of aerosol sprays and the microorganisms that come out of bubbles that form in waves known as ocean spray, and how the interaction can help warm or cool the planet.
“We are studying the connection between the microbes in the water and how they change the chemistry. And then how that chemistry changes what comes out and how that changes the way clouds form,” he says.
For his research campaign he will use an innovative technology: the Soars machine (Scripps Institution Simulator for Oceanic Atmosphere Research) designed to replicate oceanic storms.
Dean helped develop the Soars facility as a bridge between the laboratory and the open ocean, offering a controlled environment and a infinite supply of bubbles.
The study might help understand how spraying ocean modifies hurricanes. “Then we can start thinking regarding how to stop a hurricane before it makes landfall,” she says. “It’s a crazy idea, isn’t it? We might do that, ”she emphasizes.
