Controls over Ocean Mesopelagic Interior Carbon Storage (COMICS)

COMICS is a four-year collaborative research project that aims to quantify the flow of carbon in the ocean’s ‘twilight’ zone in order to more accurately model global climate change. This ‘twilight’ zone is the part of the ocean between 100m and 1,000m below the sea surface, where only a small amount of light from the sun can still penetrate.

It is currently known that the efficiency of carbon transport from the atmosphere through this zone is key to regulating atmospheric CO₂ levels. However, the processes that control the efficiency of biological storage of carbon in the deep ocean are not well known, which is an obstacle to predicting how they may change.

By investigating carbon dynamics in the ocean interior, COMICS will help to improve predictions of future global climate change.