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Seaweed and Climate
09/12/2002
Listen in RealAudio 
Seaweed. That multi-dimensional algae! Used in toothpaste, as fertilizer. A food.
Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton and this is the Weather Notebook.
Did you know seaweed also plays a role in our climate? Correspondent Allan Coukell has the
story from New Zealand.
COUKELL: On the seashore in Wellington, New Zealand, an automatic gas sampler continually
measures the atmosphere.
It's measuring the concentration of a gas called dimethyl sulfide, or DMS.
SMITH: So we're down beside the sea where there's a lot of seaweed around which is creating
the DMS that eventually gets into the atmosphere.
COUKELL: Murray Smith, a scientist with New Zealand's National Institute of Water and
Atmosphere, explains that DMS is produced by seaweed and other aquatic plants. But its effects
on climate occur high overhead.
SMITH: If it can be transported into higher reaches of the atmosphere, to cloud level, it can
aid in the formation of clouds or it can alter the construction of the clouds. And this has
important properties on the reflection of the clouds.
COUKELL: Because clouds reflect sunlight back into space, understanding the gas from seaweed
is important for understanding climate.
Allan Coukell reports from Auckland, New Zealand. The Weather Notebook is a production of the
Mount Washington observatory. It is underwritten by Subaru of America and the National
Science Foundation. For more on Seaweed go to our website at weathernotebook.org. If you
have a question, drop us a line at questions@weathernotebook.org. Thanks today to assistant
producer, Doug Sanborn, marketing manager, Melody Nester and executive engineer, Sean
Doucette.
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