“Organics over the Ocean Modifying Particles in both Hemispheres, OOMPH” – A maritime research project

Over most of the Earth´s surface the atmosphere is in direct contact with the ocean. Therefore, gas exchange at this interface has an enormous potential to influence global atmospheric chemistry. As part of the European project “OOMPH” researchers from the MPI for Chemistry crossed the “roaring forties” of the South Atlantic on board a research vessel and encountered a giant phytoplankton bloom which forms there every summer. An investigation of such pristine regions gives important clues about how the atmosphere functions in the absence of man-made pollution.