I have just heard that the experiment I reported on from Svalbard has been concluded. A press release from Greenpeace quotes Professor Ulf Riebesell from the IFM-GEOMAR Kiel Uni ocean acidification project as saying the experiment was a success.

(I took this pic of Prof. Riebesell watching the deployment of the mesocosms last month, see earlier posts).

That doesn’t mean the news is good:
“Not only do we now have the most comprehensive data set ever on the impacts of ocean acidification in Arctic waters, we have also learned from this experiment that ocean acidification in these waters has a definite impact on the base of the food web, which can have implications for the entire ecosystem.” says Prof. Ulf.
“If we keep emitting CO2 at the current rate, marine organisms will experience changes in ocean acidity beyond anything they have experienced in the last 20 million years of their evolutionary history.”
Worrying times indeed.

(Ice off Greenland, 2009)

Sitting here in Germany during a heatwave I often think of the pleasantly cool temperatures up in the Arctic where I was just a few weeks ago. But I just read a worrying report quoting figures from the National Snow and Ice Data Report.
It seems the Arctic sea ice has reached another record low. The ice covered area is smaller than ever since satellite measurements began in 1979. The report says 88,000 square km of ice melted during June. The average is around 53,000 square km.
It’s hardly surprising that wwf is watching with concern what this means for polar bears.
In Churchhill, Canada, western Hudson Bay, the current average daytime temperature is 17° C. says WWF. The average is 12°C. The conservationists are worried that a lot of bears may not survive the coming winter, especially if the sea ice starts to form as late in the year as it did last time. Without ice to hunt on, the bears lose a lot of weight.