A new citizen science project called Floating Forests was just started a few days ago to help scientists study the effects of climate change on kelp forests in the world's oceans. It turns out that computers are not effective at distinguishing giant kelp sitting below the ocean's surface in satellite photos, but the human eye is pretty good at it. Scientists at UCLA and UC Santa Barbara would like citizen's help to circle areas of kelp in thousands of satellite photos of the open ocean taken by Landsat satellites from 1983 to 2013. The project will start by providing images from California and Tasmania.
Kelp forests are unique ocean ecosystems that are host to a large variety of species, including many fish, crabs, sea urchins, and sea otters. Giant kelp grows very quickly - up to two feet per day - and stores carbon, so scientists would like to see how much of the globe's carbon is stored in these aquatic plants.
http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/?p=8840
You can check out the Floating Forests website at:
http://www.floatingforests.org/
Kelp forests are unique ocean ecosystems that are host to a large variety of species, including many fish, crabs, sea urchins, and sea otters. Giant kelp grows very quickly - up to two feet per day - and stores carbon, so scientists would like to see how much of the globe's carbon is stored in these aquatic plants.
http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/?p=8840
You can check out the Floating Forests website at:
http://www.floatingforests.org/
Here is a view of giant kelp off a cliff of Anacapa Island, located off the Southern California coast. This was taken when I visited for a restoration project in 2005.