Ready, steady, go …
The game is on. Our long march begins. Today we have done the first CO2 addition. Five of our 10 mesocosms were catapulted several decades into the future. This was achieved by injecting 100 litres of CO2 saturated seawater into each of them. Now their CO2 levels are 350 µatm higher than in the surrounding fjord water. For a business-as-usual CO2 emission scenario this corresponds to the year 2070 or 2080. We will give the organisms some time to adjust before we go the next step into the future. The next CO2 addition is planned for Thursday.
The spider in action: going down to the bottom of the mesocosms and up again it ensures that the CO2-enriched water is distributed evenly throughout the water column.
The CO2 addition comes just in time. The nutrient data measured by Mario since the day the mesocosms were closed tell us that the phytoplankton is ready to run. The concentration of nitrate, one of the nutrients they utilize for growth, is slowly declining in all mesocosms. Before they take off, we want them to get a sense of the future. Do they like it or not? Do they care at all? In case they do respond, what does it mean to those who eat them? What does it mean to the cycling of elements and energy in the ocean? These are the questions we will try to address in the coming weeks and months. It will be an exciting, but also exhausting time for all of us here at the Sven Lovén Centre in Kristineberg.
The long march is on ….