The Future, Buried in the Deep
A scientist’s study of microscopic sediment in East Asia could hold a key to feeding 20 percent of the world.
For farmers, fishermen, villagers, and city dwellers across East Asia—from the Philippines to Korea—the monsoon season brings both relief and apprehension. From May through October, the vast weather system known as the East Asian Monsoon funnels moist air from over the Pacific and Indian oceans, and dumps it on land. The rain nourishes rice and other crops that feed the region’s more than one billion people.
But when the monsoon deviates from type, it can bring typhoon-fueled flooding that pummels crops, or no rain at all, leaving drought-withered crops, hungry mouths, and economic losses. Such changes in the monsoon’s behavior and severity can have far-reaching consequences: over one-fifth of the world’s population falls under its influence.
To better understand the system and its potential for change, an international team of scientists is peering into its history, drilling deep beneath the ocean floor to unlock five million years’ worth of sediment—a time capsule of monsoons past.
The Next 100 Years
Most ocean-drilling ships are commercial vessels that suction vast amounts of oil and gas out of the oceanic crust. In fact, nearly every drillship from the United States is used for that purpose, except one: the JOIDES Resolution, which is funded by the National Science Foundation and operated for scientific ocean drilling by the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP).
Each year, the IODP sends the Resolution to a different part of the world to drill into the crust and extract core samples displaying layers of sediment going back millions of years. The scientists chosen for these expeditions are among the world’s elite in their fields. Each project varies in focus; the research team might be looking at climate, volcanism, earthquake activity, marine life, or other critical features of the Earth’s geologic history.
In fall 2013, the Resolution’s mission was to explore the Sea of Japan for evidence of changes in the behavior of the monsoon system. (Some countries have called for the sea’s International Hydrographic Organization–approved name to be changed to East Sea.) The eight-week expedition was co-led by CAS Professor of Earth & Environment Richard Murray and Professor Ryuji Tada, a paleoclimatologist and oceanographer from the University of Tokyo, Japan. The diverse international crew, which included scientists from almost every continent, wanted to more accurately assess how sensitive the monsoon system is to climate shifts. Click here to read the full article.