Heading for Arctic Spitsbergen

(c) Jiri Rezac/Greenpeace
This is the Greenpeace vessel Esperanza, which is already steaming up to the Arctic, carrying special equipment from the IFM Geomar, Kiel University, which I’ll talk more about later when I get a chance to see it for myself and interview the experts on exactly what it will help them find out and how.
As I write this, I am still in Germany, packing my cold-weather gear and reporting equipment, getting ready to fly up to Longyearbjen on Svalbard, then on to Ny Alesund, where I will join the Esperanza and her crew for a few days.

This is Greenpeace scientist Dr. Iris Menn.
(Photo by Daniel Mueller/Greenpeace.) She is one of the key figures in this whole enterprise. She\’s also packing right now, as well as preparing the expedition, and will be joining the boat up at Ny Alesund later. It takes a while for the boat to sail up to the Arctic, so not everyone is able to travel this more leisurely way.
The Greenpeace boat is spending the summer up there and ‘ll be joining them and the team from the IFM-Geomar, that’s the Institute for Marine Sciences at Germany’s Kiel University, for the first part of the expedition. As mentioned in a previous entry and described in our DW article, (link provided last time), the team will be looking at how acidification affects the Arctic ocean ecosystems and biodiversity there. And if you ever catch yourself out thinking there can”t be much life in that dark cold water down there, maybe these pics will change your mind.

They show a type of algae and a type of sea anemone. Beautiful? I got them from Max Schwanitz, who’s in charge of the scientific diving team with the Alfred Wegener Institute and is actually now back up at Ny Alesund getting ready for the season. He took these in the Kongsfjord, which is where I’ll be heading very soon.

The acidity of the oceans is increasing because the greenhouse gas CO2 not only warms up the planet but also leads to greater acidification of the oceans. The oceans soak up CO2. In fact they have absorbed about a third of the CO2 roduced by us humans since the Industrial Revolution. The CO2 is converted into carbonic acid in the water. This makes the water more acidic. This affects the polar areas worse than others, because more CO2 is absorbed in cold temperatures.
There hasn’t been too much research into exactly what effects this has on marine ecosystems. Scientists suspect it will have a massive effect on biodiversity, and that’s what the team from Greenpeace and Kiel will be looking into. More soon.