But it’s not - that was a global map, this is a local selection of an extreme event. Even if the papers thesis is correct, that average plankton counts are collapsing, there’s no reason to believe you won’t continue to see variances and even extremes.
The writing and language used aside they’ve found something worth trying to verify. They collected a bunch of samples from a lot of places and expected to find a lot more life than they did. This is concerning because it could mean some dire situation reflecting on the health of the entire earth. Seems like reasonable research that spurs further research, but I think if their observations are consistent with future research this would be a pretty serious situation.
The writing and language used aside they’ve found something worth trying to verify. They collected a bunch of samples from a lot of places and expected to find a lot more life than they did. This is concerning because it could mean some dire situation reflecting on the health of the entire earth. Seems like reasonable research that spurs further research, but I think if their observations are consistent with future research this would be a pretty serious situation.