Fate Of The Ocean

by Sheril R. Kirshenbaum     Department: Earth

What's going on here?


Ocean acidification illustrated by David Fierstein (c) 2007 MBARI

Well readers, the situation in oceans is frightening so it's time to review:

Ocean Acidification in a nutshell... errrr.... 'sea shell'....

It's true oceanic uptake of CO2 may have originally mitigated excess carbon in the atmosphere, but the unnatural human induced decrease in pH outweighs that potential benefit. While we don't yet understand the full ecological consequences of what a less basic ocean will be, we know enough to be certain that some marine species depending on calcium carbonate will be in trouble.

You see, a change in ocean pH can lead to reproductive or physiological effects for animals that utilize the compound for shell structure stability.  Critters like coccolithophores, algae, corals,and pteropods may suffer from decreased calcification rates.  But it doesn't end there.  When individuals become less viable, entire populations can shift in structure. That's when we need to be concerned about trophic cascades as predator-prey relationships change.

So don't forget about ocean acidification!  It's intimately connected to our altered climate and as important as global warming.  We're just not hearing about it in the news enough because the media has all but ignored the problem.  We must make the case that more scientists ought to be to be exploring the threat, educating the public as to why it matters, and implementing effective policy to mitigate the impact of excess CO2 in our oceans (and everywhere else).

Tags: climate change, ocean acidification, oceans

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