University of Basrah to participates in a research project sponsored by the International Atomic Energy Agency

Dr. Ali Bassel Mahmoud, a researcher at Marine Sciences Center in Basrah University, participated within the Iraqi delegation to coordinate the management of ocean acidity monitoring project organized by the International Network for the Monitoring of the phenomenon of global ocean acidification of the International Atomic Energy Agency at its headquarters in the Republic of Ecuador.

The International Network is concerned with analyzing the factors, phenomena, and changes in the ecosystems of seas and oceans around the world, especially the marked increase in acidity levels and their increasing to dangerous rates.

The researcher aims to prepare data, information and surveys of the Iraqi marine environment, in addition to the scientific team, which includes marine scientists from the United States, Sweden, China, Kuwait, Chile, Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Slovenia, Turkey, Bangladesh, Namibia, the Philippines and Thailand.

The researcher pointed out the importance of addressing the phenomenon of acidification of water, which negatively affected various marine organisms, which is likely to rise to increase the dissolution of carbon dioxide gas in water from the air as a result of increased human fuels, not to mention the coral bleaching as a result of the reaction of carbonic acid with calcium as part of his interpretation of that phenomenon.