Man-made carbon dioxide making oceans more acidic, study finds

Oceans worldwide are turning increasingly acidic as they absorb more carbon from the atmosphere, which could have negative effects on many forms of marine life at the base of the oceanic food chain, including plankton, coral and large mollusks such as oysters, a National Research Council study has found.

Oceans are an important part of the planet's carbon cycle, and hold the largest active pool of carbon near the surface of the Earth. They absorb about a third of man-made carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, eventually converting it into carbonic acid and carbonic ions.

The study found that the equilibrium of this cycle has been upset, lowering the Ph of the ocean about .1 of a unit since the beginning of the industrial revolution -- a rate of change not seen in hundreds of thousands of years. The study predicts more striking changes by the century's end.

Little is known about the long-term effects of a more acidic ocean, but studies have shown acidification affects many biological processes, including photosynthesis, nutrient uptake, growth and reproduction. The study predicts shifts in ecosystems, with some species winning and others losing. The overall consequences remain unknown.

-- Geoff Mohan

Photo: Coral reefs, such as this one off Palmyra Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, could be affected by an increasingly acidic ocean. Credit: Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Jere Krischel]

@Sue

The reason why people get upset is that the precautionary principle typically prescribed for this kind of thing is the dramatic increase of poverty and misery in the world. It angers me to think of left wing liberal elite environmentalists telling impoverished africans that they can't have cheap energy to pull themselves out of poverty, and that they should be doomed to be poor for generations to come. It almost makes me as angry as the fools who started the crusade against DDT with "Silent Spring", and caused the deaths of millions upon millions of african children due to malaria by limiting its usage.

The problem with "looking out for the future" as you put it is that these environmentalists make two dangerous assumptions -> 1) the know what the future will be if we continue on our path and 2), they know that the future will be better if we just listen to them. Neither is at all likely.

And BTW, the whole global warming cash cow has been funded to the tune of billions of dollars by governments around the world. You want to talk about really big money, look at the IPCC.

[sue]

I don't understand why people get so upset while others or even some look into what might become a problem. Why is that such a problem for them? We or even some of us can't have some concern over the effects the ever expanding human race and the activities from it? Why does it create so much anger in some people? What is wrong with looking out for the future? Every one that goes to the Arctic on a regular basis sees there are major changes happening. Why does that create hate instead of interest or even concern? We can be more careful and creative with what we are doing. We are a resilient species.

It’s not some government, avant-garde, private conspiracy or co conspiracies. Is it really so hard to believe that there are actually just some interested and concerned scientists and people that inhabit the areas where the changes are happening? But you might want to look at who really starts the anti-environmental and climate movements, and spread so much hate and contention. Then it all becomes much more obvious. There is some really big money involved. A hell of lot more than the science communities could ever hope to work with.

[russ]

A perceived reduction in alkalinity does not mean the oceans are turning to acid. The pH remains well above 7.

[Jere Krischel]

I call bullspit. The assertion that they can even measure ph differences with .1 accuracy over the past hundreds of thousands of years is just beyond belief -> you probably couldn't get a ph measurement of the oceans down to that level of detail (ph varies widely across different depths and areas of the world).

[Joseph]

Bob, this data is recorded in the geological record itself. Maybe if you took a science class or two in college you might understand this. When sedimentary rocks are formed, they capture aspects of the existing environment at the time. By doing a chemical analysis of the rocks and dating back to when these rocks were formed, we can paint a pretty good picture of what was going on at the time.

Jeff Daniels, are you saying polar bears are not dying off? Really? And you know this how? Whether or not global warming is due to humans or natural causes, the fact is that polar bears are losing their habitat because the ice is melting. You do know that the Arctic summer ice pack used to be huge, and impassable, right? And that soon the entire Arctic Ocean will be navigable during the summer because of rising temperatures? Gee, I wonder how such a change might occur. And how glaciers could be melting away faster than ever. It seems to correlate perfectly with this rise in CO2 and global average temperature. I wonder if it's all connected. Your anti-science bias will not fool anyone with enough intellect. I just wish more people were as smart as me, and not as foolish as you. And as an actual scientist who knows how to design experiments in order to get to the truth of the matter, I take offense at the insinuation that science is so easily and often corrupted. Good research design rises above any attempt to manipulate the data. I resent the accusation that there is some kind of massive and rampant fraud within the scientific community...that there is a huge conspiracy to collude and make up any data necessary to prove the existence of something that does not actually exist. THAT IS NOT HOW SCIENCE WORKS. It has always been the other way around. Scientists have always had to fight against conspiracies trying to discredit their work...centuries ago, you would have been assuring everyone that scientists are wrong about the Earth not being the center of the universe and that everyone is simply making up the data that the Earth is just another planet and they all revolve around the sun.

[Jeff Daniels]

Research was brought to you by the same group who brought to U the Global Warming Hockey Stick chart and that the ice caps are melting and the polar bears are dying off.
ALL lies.
I would like to see what government grants they received and how this influences their research reports. A direct correlation of money and data manipulation.

I am a Gross Polluter, as every human is, I exhale CO2.

So to help the environment, all enviro-marxists should commit hari kari and save face for the rest of the enviro-religious nuts who are hypocrites and would not abide by what they preach.

[Thenviron]

Future studies should attempt to document the contribution of underwater volcanic activity to ocean acidification. Oceanic seismic activity (an indirect indicator of underwater volcanic activity) rose exponentially from the early 1960's through 2000 - the same time period as the 'hockey stick' phenomenon of the global warming theory - yet this natural phenomenon has been totally ignored in climate change models. Underwater volcanic activity represents a direct injection of CO2 into ocean waters as compared to the water-air surface interaction required to absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide.

[enviroeditor]

Estimates of past ocean chemistry are routinely made through archeological methods:
http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.marine.010908.163749

[Bob]

I love the part about "a rate of change not seen in hundreds of thousands of years" who was around to verify this statement? Where is this data recorded?