Planet Citizens, Planet Scientists

Thank you Planet Citizen Rebecca Moore, pioneering Bioneering vision and action with Earth Outreach, Google global mapping, and planet science and action!

Thank you Leonardo DiCaprio, a Planet Citizen "Bioneer", joins with PlanetLabs and PlanetAPI

Planet API

Reefscape

Satellite Doves to Aid Coral Conservation

To gather a more comprehensive understanding of the condition of global reef ecosystems, we need a way to assess and monitor them on a large geographic scale.

The Reefscape project aims to improve our understanding of the condition of coral reefs worldwide, while simultaneously developing spectral libraries needed to advance the development of a new satellite mission.

New satellites, such as those from Planet (formerly Planet Labs), are, as of 2017, able to capture near-daily imagery of coral reefs worldwide. Planet’s high-resolution imagery of reef locations provides new imaging, science and understanding of the composition and extent of shallow, horizontally oriented reefs.

Earth Observations with Perspective

Begin with The 'Big Picture'

... and now nod to the small life forms, the small creatures, the "Tiny Little Ones". so often unrecognized within the bountiful "Tree of Life".

Consider 'tiny blue-green' microscopic ocean life, rarely seen, studied, or appreciated.

How much of our Earth is covered by oceans - 71% - Visit NOAA for more information

The 'tiny, little blue-green ones' are essential to life on earth

Did you know?

"A single kind of blue-green algae in the ocean produces the oxygen in "one of every five breaths we take".

~ from "The World Is Blue: How Our Fate and the Ocean’s Are One" by Sylvia Earle / National Geographic

TinyBlueGreen

The "Tiny Little Ones", Plankton

Beginning points for "Ecosystems of the Sea"

Nearly all marine plants are single-celled, photosynthetic plankton-algae

Single-celled organisms comprise larger organisms like kelp

Kelp: "Forests of the Seas"

We Need Kelp, Seagrass, Plankton-as-Food and Lots of Blue-Green as the Beginning of the Marine Food Chain

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Soil, a Microbial World

Soil Biodiversity

Soil-Biology-Mapping

Soil Loss/Depletion-Soil Conservation

Microbiomes at Risk

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Life Beyond What Catches the Eye

https://www.evogeneao.com/explore/tree-of-life-explorer

Tree of Life

• https://youtu.be/AjvLQJ6PIiU

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew-6WuTo1Is

The Earth BioGenome Project aims to sequence 1.5 million genomes

• https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07279-z

“Variation is the fount of all genetic knowledge... The more variation you have the better — so why not sequence everything?”

The Earth BioGenome Project aims to sequence the genomes of the roughly 1.5 million known animal, plant, protozoan and fungal species — collectively known as eukaryotes — worldwide over the next decade. The initiative is estimated to cost US$4.7 billion, although only a small proportion of that money has been committed so far.

The project comprises more than a dozen existing sequencing projects that are focused on, for instance, specific branches of the tree of life — such as birds, insects and plants — or on the biodiversity in a particular country, such as the UK effort, officially called the Darwin Tree of Life Project.

“We don’t need one genome project to rule them all,” says Lewin. Rather, the effort’s raison d’etre, he says, is to ensure that ongoing biodiversity sequencing efforts are standardized.

You are here on the cladogenetic tree m.jpg

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Floating Forests

We look at "floating ocean forests" as we consider connections between oceans, atmosphere-oxygen-climate, food-chains and fisheries, science and sustainability policies...

○

Join in as a Planet Citizen, Planet Scientist to keep the oceans healthy

Take a look at the newly launched 'Floating Forest Project'' -- http://www.floatingforests.org/

Here's the Invitation from the Floating Forest website:

Citizen scientists are recruited via the Internet and are given instructions in how to hunt for giant kelp via satellite imagery.

They (you) are then given Landsat images and asked to outline any giant kelp patches that they find.

Findings are crosschecked with those from other citizen scientists and then passed to the Floating Forest science team for verification.

The size and location of these forests are catalogued and used to study global kelp trends.

As of January 11, 2015, more than 3,400 citizen scientists had joined up to look for kelp in 328,000 Landsat images...

GreenPolicy believes this is a planetary moment to jump, do it, sign up, help out!

Put a toe in first, test the waters (the water's fine) -- it could be time to become a "planet citizen, planet scientist"

Floating Forests - Earth Observatory/NASA-Landsat

Origin of Floating Forests Project

Landsat 8 detects near-infrared wavelengths of light to spot & monitor offshore kelp forests (NASA Earth Observatory image)

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

"Kelp, made up of tiny blue-green organisms, are the world’s largest marine plants. They regularly grow up to 35 meters (115 feet) tall.

We are dependent on marine algae for every breath we take.

"Breathe in. A conservative 70% of the life-sustaining oxygen in that breath came from marine algae.

Marine algae; the plant-like material of our oceans that ranges in size from the phytoplankton, to the giant kelp species that provide habitat as ocean forests.

These organisms are also attempting to scrub away the devastating impacts of our fossil fuel addiction, photosynthesizing carbon dioxide into oxygen and serving as carbon sinks.

Life on earth simply could not survive without marine algae and this conclusion is valid even without considering their role as the basis of ocean food webs..."

Watch the Forests of the Sea

Floating forest of kelp - https://vimeo.com/67962861

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Help with the Kelp, Join in -- Be a Planet Citizen, Planet Scientist

Floating Forests - Earth Observatory/NASA-Landsat

Origin of Floating Forests Project / 2014

○

Overall, the production of oxygen in the oceans is at least equal to the production on land, if not a bit more. Plants on land are easy to spot. Plants in the ocean are a bit more difficult to see..

There are more than 7,000 (so far identified) different species of algae. Most live in the oceans, but they also live in fresh water and even on land. Also, algae produce about 330 billion tons of oxygen each year.

More on Algae -- an Algae database, as scientists are at a first-stage of identifying sea-life

○

After a recent meeting on connections of kelp forests and climate change, researchers Byrnes, Cavanaugh, and other colleagues set out to consolidate all of the available kelp forest data from around the world. They wanted to take a step toward understanding how climate change is affecting kelp globally, but they quickly discovered they had a sparse patchwork of information.

"Byrnes was struck with a thought. They had used Landsat to expand their studies across time, so why not use Landsat to expand their studies around the world? Could Landsat be used to establish global trends in kelp forest extent? The answer was yes, but the problem was eyeballs."

"Unlike research on terrestrial vegetation — which uses Landsat data and powerful computer processing arrays to make worldwide calculations — distinguishing kelp forests requires manual interpretation. While kelp forests pop out to the human eye in near-infrared imagery, computers looking at the data numerically can confuse kelp patches with land vegetation. Programs and coded logic that separate aquatic vegetation from land vegetation can be confounded by things like clouds, sunglint, and sea foam..."

Byrnes and Cavanaugh put together a team and joined with Zooniverse that connects professional scientists with citizen scientists in order to help analyze large amounts of data. The result was the Floating Forests project.

"People-powered Research"

https://www.zooniverse.org/#climate

https://www.zooniverse.org/#nature

GreenPolicy360 & Planet Citizens Watching over Our Home Planet

The Silencing Science Tracker is a database initiative that tracks government attempts to restrict or prohibit scientific research, education or discussion, or the publication or use of scientific information, since the November 2016 election.

The Climate Deregulation Tracker identifies steps taken by the Trump administration and Congress to scale back or wholly eliminate federal climate mitigation and adaptation measures. The tracker is linked to a database of climate change regulations.