LONDON, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- A team of scientists will set off Tuesday on board Royal Research Ship (RRS) James Cook to the Caribbean to study the effects of volcanic activity on the oceans which link with the climate change.

    The scientists will study a small volcano on the island of Monserrat in the Caribbean, which started erupting 10 years ago and is still active, Martin Palmer at National Oceanography Center (NOC ) told reporters who, with the arrangement by the UK Foreign Office, visited the center at the weekend.

    The center located in Southampton, southern England, is one of the world's leading institutions devoted to research, teaching and technology development in ocean and earth sciences with its mission to advance understanding of how the earth and its oceans function as dynamic global system.

    Current research shows that the oceans play a central role in regulating the climate of the planet, with rising sea levels one of the most serious impacts of global warming, according to scientists at the center.

    "Volcanos can influence the climate in a number of ways, as they emit a wide variety of gases including carbon dioxide, which we know is a green house gas, and also deliver materials to the sea floor, to the oceans," Palmer, a geography scientist at the center, said.

    Volcanic materials, "very reactive", suck up oxygen from the sea water, disturbing oxygen and carbon balances of the ocean atmosphere.

    Since the eruption of the Monserrat volcano 10 years ago, about90 percent of its materials ended up in the sea surrounding the island, Palmer said.

    Elaborating the 3-week long virgin research cruise of the RRS James Cook, Palmer said "What we are going to do for this cruise is to look at the impacts of the volcanic eruption on the sea water chemistries, we will also be looking at what happens to the biology living on the sea floor around the volcano and we are going to be collecting samples of sediments from sea floor using avariety of different devices, for analyzing on the ship."

    "No one studied this before. This cruise will be the first to study this." he said.

    "Another part of the work is that we are preparing for a expedition to go in few years time for deep sea drilling ship to do some deep drilling around the island to try to get some record of history of the volcano, what sets on the island at the moment does not actually give a very good record of its history," the scientist said.

    Through the study, the scientists could estimate what danger would be if there would be eruption in the future, Palmer said.

    The scientist stressed the climate change is really an important problem, "if we don't tackle it, the best can be said we will live in an uncertain world, the worst we will live in a dangerous world."

    The 40 million pound sterling ship James Cook, named in February 2007 after the British naval captain and explorer who charted New Zealand and the east coast of Australia, is fitted with the latest research equipment, with eight science laboratories, and its deck areas have specialized landing equipment which can deploy remotely operated underwater vehicles to explore the deep oceans and sea floor.

    There are hundreds of volcanoes which are more or less active any one time around the earth.