Phytoplankton, plant-like organisms, floating on the ocean surface support the marine food chain. They also play a vital role in absorbing roughly 50 Gigatonnes of carbon from Earth’s atmosphere each year – equivalent to net production by plants on land. Monitoring the green tinged seawater containing these photosynthetic creatures is an important part of our efforts to understand Earth’s climate.

Shubha Sathyendranath of the Plymouth Marine Laboratory is a leading climate scientist working with ESA. Shubha explores how ESA’s Climate Change Initiative is taking advantage of the observational power of satellites to understand ocean change.

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