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The Catlin Arctic Survey 2010

The Catlin Arctic Survey 2010 is focused on what is widely considered to be the ‘other’ carbon problem beyond climate change....that of ocean change. The Survey is undertaking vital research into how greenhouse gases could affect the marine life of the Arctic Ocean, including some species that can be described as the core of life on our planet.

Stay right up to date with the expedition here, with diaries and pictures from researchers out in the Arctic.


Catlin Arctic survey leader Ann Daniels


The Catlin Arctic Survey 2010 team

This year’s team includes two of last year’s pioneering trio, Ann Daniels and Martin Hartley.  Pen Hadow hasn’t gone with them this time – he’s directing operations from London. Ann is leading the expedition on the ice, Martin is the main photographer again, and the third explorer is Charlie Paton, who was the ‘Ice Base’ manager last year.

They’ll be covering up to 500km of the Arctic, slightly more than last year, spending around 55 days in temperatures as low as -45°C (-75°C with the wind-chill factor). They may also have to swim for a total of 25 hours, through freezing water.

There are also a number of other researchers and scientists at a static Ice Base, one of whom, Dr Laura Edwards, from Bangor University’s School of Ocean Sciences, is being partly sponsored by WWF. They’re camping on the floating sea ice off the coast of the Sverdup Islands in northern Canada.

Their work includes capturing rare information on how the sea ice affects the movement of CO2 between the sea and air. It was previously believed that sea ice acted as a barrier to the movement of CO2, but it’s now thought that some CO2 transfer is possible.

Why does seawater acidity matter?

We know that many of the billions of tiny organisms living in seawater – forming vast and complex marine food webs and life support systems – have shells and/or skeletons made of calcium carbonate.

Increases in seawater acidity makes calcification more difficult, so these vital creatures could be under threat, with untold knock-on consequences that could affect us all.

We already know there’s been a significant 30% increase in seawater acidity since pre-industrial times. But if CO2 emissions keep rising the way current trends suggest, there could be a 300% increase in acidity by the end of this century – levels not known on Earth for tens of millions of years.

No one knows exactly what increased acidity levels will mean for the world’s oceans – all the more reason why we need the Catlin team’s research. But we can predict it will certainly have an impact, and it’s potentially disastrous.

The Catlin Arctic Survey 2010 is one of the first ever chances to investigate ocean acidification in natural field conditions beneath the Arctic sea ice, and will help scientists to refine their data and projections.

Click to watch an animation showing variations in the age of Arctic sea-ice and summer sea-ice extent, 1979- 2007 – from research by Rigor & Wallace.

Shrinking Arctic sea ice animation

The red dots show the location of buoys used to estimate the age of sea ice. The areas of older, thicker ice are shown in white, while younger, thinner sea ice is shown as darker shades of blue.