Previously, Hamme's research demonstrated that the 2008 eruption of the Kasatochi island volcano resulted in one of the largest phyotoplankton blooms observed in the subarctic North Pacific, covering between 1.5 and 2 million square kilometres of ocean. Hamme also noted that this phytoplankton bloom had a minor impact on carbon dioxide absorption levels as it absorbed only 0.01 petagrams of carbon. Researchers later linked this bloom to an increase in the sockeye salmon population in British Columbia.