Image of the month: June 2020
The ‘Wassermann’ in action for the mesocosms
Our image of the month shows the work boat ‘Wassermann’ (German for Aquarius) off the coast of Gran Canaria on its way to the Kiel KOSMOS offshore mesocosms. Each of these experimental enclosures contains 55 cubic metres of natural seawater. Scientists can use this water body to conduct experiments on future environmental conditions. They can, for example, simulate ocean acidification and study its impacts on the ecosystem, test the consequences of deep-water upwelling or investigate opportunities and risks of technologies for negative CO2 emissions. During the experiments, which often last several months, samples must be taken regularly from the individual mesocosms. For these sampling tours the Wassermann is a reliable and proven platform.
This spring, the mesocosms and Wassermann were in action off the coast of Peru. As part of the CUSCO project, an international team has investigated how climate change will affect the highly productive coastal upwelling system.
The next deployments are planned off Bergen (Norway) and again off Gran Canaria as part of the OceanNETs project. Researchers will then examine to what extent ocean alkalinization can help to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and slow ocean acidification, but also whether this technique could harm marine ecosystems.
