Research highlights

Decline in Arctic Sea Ice thickness from 1958–2008 At the end of the Arctic summer, more ice cover remained this year than during the previous record-setting low years of 2007 and 2008. However, sea ice has not recovered to previous levels. September...	North Atlantic needs an ‘end-to-end’ research strategy ‘Studying the North Atlantic basin and associated shelf seas as an integrated ‘basin-scale’ system is the key challenge for the early twenty-first century’. An international group of scientists, led...
Acid test for pelagic species development What will happen to calcifying organisms as anthropogenic CO2 is absorbed by the oceans? Will they survive? And how will organisms with internal calcified structures, such as fish and cephalopods,...	GLOBEC Book - Climate Change and Small Pelagic Fish ''This book details the effects of climate variability on small pelagic fish and their ecosystems and fisheries. Particularly abundant in coastal upwelling regions off the west coasts of the Americas...
Mass carbon dumps by gelatinous organisms Gelatinous pelagic organisms deliver 20 times more carbon to depth in just two months, than an entire year of background sedimentation as recorded by sediment traps, according to a recent publication...	"Upper North Atlantic mixed layer already 0.5 C colder and fresher than in any winter since the inception of Argo" A surprise return of deep convection to the subpolar North Atlantic: or never underestimate natural climate variability. Open-ocean convection in the subpolar North Atlantic Ocean affects the...
Nitrate uptake inhibition by ammonium in phytoplankton A new study by l'Helguen et al. brings interesting evidence concerning the inhibition of nitrate uptake by ammonium. From experiments conducted with open ocean phytoplankton communities using a 15N...	Modelling Zooplankton Fitness Turbulence impacts zooplankton fitness in opposing manners, by increasing contacts with prey but at the same time increasing contacts with predators. Visser et al. (2009) investigate the fitness of...
More organic carbon gives less organic carbon The investigation of the stoichiometric coupling between carbon and growth-limiting nutrients within the biomass of marine microorganisms is central to understand biogeochemical dynamics such as the...	Organic Carbon in the Ocean's Twilight Zone An article written by Franck DEHAIRS, Anouck de BRAUWERE and Mark ELSKENS, from the Department of Analytical and Environmental Chemistry of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, concerning the meeting...
Are jellyfish increasing in response to ocean acidification? No large scale impact on jellyfish populations in the North Atlantic, report Richardson and Gibbons (Limnology and Oceanography 2008). While there is a consensus that increasing atmospheric CO2 over...	Not Enough Marine Input into IPCC reports ‘Marine ecosystems are undoubtedly under-resourced, overlooked and under threat’ as stated in an article in Science’s Policy Forum (6 June 2008), by Anthony Richardson and Elvira Poloczanska. There...