Bringing global climate change to the classroom

Description

Ivo Grigorov from the EurOCEANS project describes how the deep seas can help us to understand and predict climate change.

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5726804

Subject

It’s spring. It’s dark, but then it always is. The drift is gentle, it’s
the calm before the storm. You would have to be on the Nautilus sitting next to Captain Nemo to experience it. At first sight not much lives here, and what life there is, is more suitable for a 1960s horror sci-fi film than for factual science.

The pressure is enormous and seawater corrosion is vicious. Even treated steel is reduced to crumbs after a year, yet delicate life forms thrive here. Gelatinous sea stars of all varieties and deep-sea cucumbers are all waiting for the ‘snow’. Pretty soon they are rewarded.

The ‘blizzard’ starts and covers the sea bed. Sometimes it is so intense that visibility is reduced to zero. This is deepsea whiteout. You can’t see much but it’s an awesome sight.