Ecobreves – MEXICO: Science Mission to the Arctic

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

MEXICO CITY, May 31 2010 (IPS) - An international science team left last week for the Arctic Ocean to study the effects of climate change. “The objective is to document the acidification of the oceans, because in low-temperature waters it is easier to measure this phenomenon and its impacts,” Alejandro Olivera, coordinator of Greenpeace-Mexico's oceans campaign and sole representative of this country in the expedition, told Tierramérica.

The team is made up of six members of Greenpeace and nine scientists from Germany's Institute of Marine Research and the European Project on Ocean Acidification (EPOCA).

The first stage of the expedition will last two weeks, followed by two more stages. One is to study the expansion of fish stocks into the Arctic regions, and the other will study the melting of the polar ice in North America.