An international team of scientists discovered a surprisingly strong regional sea-level rise which occurred during the onset of Antarctic glaciation about 34 million years ago, while the global sea-level on average lowered. In an article, published today in Nature Geoscience, scientists of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), Utrecht University and TU Delft explain why.

Past increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations have led to acidification of the ocean and global warming. Petra Schoon of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) found that these climate events had a large impact on the climate of Northern Europe, such as warming of 5-8˚C and removal of most of the oxygen from the water of the North Sea. Schoon will defend her thesis on April 3rd at Utrecht University.

Former NIOZ director Carlo Heip died

Professor Carlo Heip died in his sleep on Friday 15 February. Carlo Heip was professor at the universities of Ghent and Groningen and he was director at NIOO-CEME (Centre for Estuarine and Marine Ecology) in Yerseke and later at NIOZ (Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research).

Carlo Heip (1945) studied Biology at Ghent University, where he started a research group for marine biology after he graduated. In 1987, he was appointed director of the Delta Institute in Yerseke, which was incorporated into the Netherlands Institute for Ecology (NIOO) as the Centre for Estuarine and Marine Ecology (CEME) in 1992 and has been a division of NIOZ since 2012. In 2006, Carlo Heip was appointed general director at NIOZ on Texel. He retired in 2011. After that, he stayed on as an advisor at NIOZ and he became the general editor of the Journal of Sea Research.

Science article reveals

Because in the summer of 2012 Arctic sea ice has melted off much more than usual, algae living underneath the ice could grow faster than normally. In addition, the melting of the ice also caused these algae to sink to the sea floor in large numbers. This resulted in enormous spots without oxygen at large depths, which has considerable consequences for the ecosystem in the Arctic Ocean. These are some of the results published today in the journal Science by a team of scientists from a various countries. The Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) also took part in this special expedition.