I drove up recently to work in the lab with my co-PI Dr. Brad Seibel at the University of Rhode Island. Our goal was to determine how long it would take to get 165 gallons of seawater to drop in pH by bubbling the seawater with pure carbon dioxide (CO2). Our goal was about a 0.4 drop in pH after 24 hours of bubbling. We reached our goal within 15 minutes! It was unexpected, but we now know we can manipulate pH rather quickly in large volumes of seawater for our experiments we will be running this field season in Antarctica.
Trial CO2 manipulation. We filled the 165 gallon tank with seawater, then cooled it to 2 degrees Celcius (about the temperature of seawater during the Antarctic summer….brrrr) using a chiller unit (shown in the left of the picture, protected by a wooden crate) to circulate and cool the water. Then we bubbled the seawater with carbon dioxide. And voila, instant ocean acidification! Photo by Brad Seibel
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