Narrated by Auli’i Cravalho, “Expedition: Saving Our Seas” premieres on November 13 on the National Geographic Channel at 9:00 PM Eastern Standard Time, Science News reported.
The documentary streams the following day on Disney+ and Hulu. The film follows oceanographers racing to document and mitigate climate change impacts on ocean and coastal habitats.
Earth has five oceans—the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern, and Arctic—that function as a single body linked by the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt. “It’s this giant connected ocean that ignores all of the political boundaries, ignores all of the names we call them,” Andrew Thurber told Science News. Thurber is a biological oceanographer at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
- Interconnected Ecosystems: Global ocean currents link distant marine habitats, meaning regional climate disruptions cascade across planetary water systems.
- Keystone Species Vulnerability: Organisms like krill form the foundation of marine food webs and face direct threats from industrial warming and ocean acidification.
- Community-Led Conservation: Involving local and indigenous populations in marine research improves ecological cataloging and protection efficacy.
Thurber and his colleagues scanned the seafloor of the frigid Southern Ocean using a remotely-operated vehicle named SuBastian. The team located a large black smoker, identifying it as the southernmost hydrothermal vent ever found. These vents spew superhot, chemically-enriched seawater that acts as a food oasis in nutrient-poor polar waters.
Surrounding the vent, researchers observed swarms of pregnant female krill. “That blew all of our minds,” Thurber told Science News. Krill serve as the keystone species of the Southern Ocean food web, providing sustenance for baleen whales, seals, penguins, and fish. The discovery strengthens the scientific case for establishing marine protected areas where commercial fishing is restricted.
| Research Project | Location | Lead Investigator | Key Scientific Focus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Southern Ocean Vent Expedition | Antarctic Benthos | Andrew Thurber | Hydrothermal vents and krill populations |
| Mangrove Coastal Defense | Banjul, The Gambia | Maiyai Taal Hocheimy | Salt-tolerant mangroves and sea-level rise |
| Sherman Basin Bio-Catalog | Nunavut, Canada | Kristina Brown | Arctic species documentation with Inuit communities |
From the Southern Ocean, the ocean conveyor belt flows north to Banjul, the capital of The Gambia. Marine ecologist Maiyai Taal Hocheimy is tracking how rising Atlantic waters encroach on the West African coastline. She investigates whether salt-tolerant mangrove trees with dense root networks can stabilize coastal soil against rising seas.
Marine biogeochemist Kristina Brown of the University of Manitoba co-leads an expedition in Sherman Basin, a bay north of the Arctic Circle in Nunavut, Canada. Local Inuit communities have hunted and fished these waters for centuries. The local community invited Brown to create the first catalog of species present in the regional waters and seafloor.
“[It’s] the first project I’ve been involved in where the local community both defined the research questions and have brought their own unique expertise to the research project,” Brown told Science News. Katy Croff Bell, founder of the Ocean Discovery League, noted the importance of democratizing access to deep-sea exploration tools through low-cost technologies like the DORIS camera system.
- Expedition: Saving Our Seas. Premieres November 13 on National Geographic Channel and Disney+.
- Science News. The National Geographic Society’s documentary Expedition: Saving Our Seas covers marine research initiatives and oceanographers racing to mitigate climate change’s impacts.
