The remote fishing village of St Abbs, Scotland, was made famous as the filming location of New Asgard in Marvel’s “Avengers” movies.
But to locals, it’s better known as a surfing and walking destination thanks to its sandy beaches and 200-acre nature reserve.
St Abbs is also home to a marine-research facility where scientists tackle an array of issues facing the ocean, with a focus on conservation.
Inside one of the facility’s labs are 40 small “future oceans” — tanks of seawater chemically altered to reflect potential future scenarios of the ocean impacted by climate change.
The ocean has absorbed around 30% of the carbon dioxide produced since the industrial revolution, making it an invaluable tool in the fight against climate change.
But all this CO2 is changing the ocean’s chemistry, making it more acidic. Increased acidity could devastate marine ecosystems, which are built upon coral reefs, and in turn, affect the fish and seafood humans eat.
The tanks, which hold dead and alive deep-sea coral, are part of a research project by the marine biologist Sebastian Hennige and Uwe Wolfram, a material scientist who focuses on bones.
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Tasmin Lockwood, Insider, 26 April 2023. Article.
