OOMPH Education and Outreach

What is OOMPH?

OOMPH is the abbreviation of the title of a research project, which has the full lengthy name “Organics over the Ocean Modifying Particles in both Hemispheres”.

But we just call it the OOMPH project and explain here what we are doing in simple words:

Basically we try to understand a part of our climate on planet Earth and of the Earth system. This part is the ocean and the atmosphere above it.

Where do we work?

We work on the ocean in field campaigns on two research ships. We work in the laboratory in order to simulate some processes in the ocean. And we work on the computer in order to simulate in a model, how the oceanic system works.

Why do we do this?

You may know, that most of our planet is covered by water. Besides from some lakes and rivers, nearly all of this water is in the oceans. Most people look only what is going on on land, since we are not used to live in the water. But the water world is very important for understanding all processes on our planet. So far we do not yet know enough, what is happening between the water and the atmosphere. There is a lot of exchange, flux of species out of the water and back into the water. We organise OOMPH in order to understand this better.

What exactly do we study?

There is not only water in the oceans, as we know. There are also fishes and other animals, corals and plants. And there is a huge lot of smaller organisms, tiny plants and tiny animals. We call all smaller living things plankton, those which are similar to animals “zooplankton” and those who are similar to plants “phytoplankton”. Zooplankton and larger animals eat phytoplankton and phytoplankton “eats” the light from the sun in order to grow and catch its energy. As plants and animals on land this life produces and takes up chemical compounds. Most of them are organic molecules, we call them “organics”. We study the transport and life cycle of this organics. How much and which compounds go into the water? How much is transported to the atmosphere? How much goes back? And what happens in the atmosphere? Some compounds stick to each other and form particles, and particles are necessary to form clouds.
These are the processes we study.

Who are we?

The scientists of OOMPH are a young team from research institutes in several European countries: France, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Hungary, Belgium and Greece. Click here for a portrait. -> Contact
 

4. OOMPH team, photo: Tom Custer