Melting of Arctic ice due to climate change has exposed more sea surface to an atmosphere with higher concentrations of carbon dioxide. Scientists have long suspected this trend would raise CO2 in Arctic Ocean water.

Now University of Montana researcher Michael DeGrandpre and his patented sensors have helped an international team determine that, indeed, CO2 levels are rising in water across wide swaths of the Arctic Ocean’s Canada Basin. However, some areas have exhibited slower increases, suggesting other processes—such as biological uptake of CO2—have counteracted expected increases.

The work was published this month in the journal Nature Climate Change.

DeGrandpre is a UM chemistry professor, and in 2015 he and the company he founded, Sunburst…