Select a region
A survey has begun into Alderney’s seawater, with official records being collected on its temperature and composition.
"Up until now we have got quite poor records on [Alderney’s] seawater chemistry,” said Dr Mel Broadhurst-Allen.
“We felt that we needed to know the physical characteristics of the sea, because it's so important monitor for things like climate change or ocean acidification.”
Last year the Alderney Wildlife Trust won funding from a UK marine charity to support the AWT Seawater Parameters Survey.
It used this funding to buy specialist equipment that can record temperature, salinity and pH levels. In a statement released earlier this year the Trust said:
“Seawater chemistry plays an important role in influencing marine habitat and species presence, abundance, distribution and health/condition.
“The long-term monitoring of seawater can help identify wide-scale natural trends and climate change influences (such as sea temperature increases). Limited seawater parameter information exists for Alderney and in turn, identifying issues facing its marine environment in terms of seawater chemistry is unknown.”
Dr Broadhurst-Allen is the Living Seas Coordinator and is leading the work being done on the seawater survey:
“We are recording sea surface temperature, pH, salinity, the total dissolved solids - that's basically how busy is the sea is – and what is the total dissolved oxygen, which is obviously essential for everything that needs to breathe under the sea.”
The first series of surveys took place across several Alderney beaches, including Corblets and Saye. Dr Broadhurst-Allen said the data collected was fairly similar to data from other Channel Islands, however there was one surprise.
"We picked the sunniest day!You couldn't make it up, it was absolutely beautiful.There was no wind, and we took samples from three bays that day.
“I think the one surprise was that when we surveyed Corblets the seawater was 17 degrees, we were really surprised at how warm it was.”
She said Alderney’s average temperature in the summer stays around 16 degrees.
The public were invited along to the first series of surveys as Dr Broadhurst-Allen said they want “to take the public on this journey” with them. The results will eventually be posted online for everyone to see.
“If we've got some beach goers that are interested in what the sea surface temperature is, they will be able to go to our website and see which bay they want to go to, because the idea is to survey every bay.”
Picture Credit: Lou Collings.
Comments
Comments on this story express the views of the commentator only, not Bailiwick Publishing. We are unable to guarantee the accuracy of any of those comments.