Select Page

SOURCE: BBC

DATE: June 18, 2019

SNIP: A huge international research programme has been launched to assess the health of the Atlantic Ocean. The iAtlantic project is the biggest ever mounted in the planet’s second largest ocean.It involves more than 30 partners, funded by the EU, and is being co-ordinated by Edinburgh University.

The scientists will use an array of hi-tech devices, including robot submarines, to scan the deep ocean from the Arctic to South America. They want to assess the effects of climate change on plants and animals.

“What will happen to these animals in the future as the Atlantic changes?” Prof Roberts says. “As it gets warmer, as it gets more acidic and also – in some areas – as it runs out of breath.

“Because the Atlantic, like many ocean basins in the world, is being deoxygenated – it’s losing the oxygen that is vital to life.”

The cause is climate change, 90% of the world’s global warming has been absorbed by the oceans.