TROUBLED WATERS: Carbon dioxide emissions could alter the chemistry of the world's oceans to devastating effect.
Image: NASA EARTH OBSERVATORY
SAN DIEGO—For more than 30 years, scientists have understood the link between rising carbon dioxide emissions and climate change. But it wasn't until the middle of the last decade that they realized CO2 emissions could alter the chemistry of the world's oceans to devastating effect.
Now they're making up for lost time, researchers said this weekend at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Richard Feely, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said his agency is preparing to release its first ocean acidification research plan.
"It's going to be delivered to headquarters next month," he said. "Our plan includes coastal observations, technology development, remote sensing using satellites, an observational network with moorings to measure CO2, [and] physiological research on how various organisms respond to changes."
And the National Academy of Sciences is also expected to weigh in. An NAS committee will release a congressionally mandated study by the end of next month that will address everything from scientific questions about how ocean acidification will affect marine life and ocean-dependent industries to recommendations for a national acidification research program.
Victoria Fabry, a visiting research scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and a member of the NAS panel, said researchers can already detect and measure CO2-driven changes in ocean chemistry.
Feely, for example, led a 2007 NOAA expedition that found corrosive waters off North America's Pacific coast at levels not expected until 2050.
Now, Fabry said, the question is not whether acidification is happening, but how bad it will get -- which depends on future CO2 emissions.
"Today, the atmospheric CO2 concentration is about 388 parts per million," she said. "This is the highest that it's ever been in the past 800,000 years -- as far back as the record goes right now. And there are concerns about where we're headed."
A 30% rise since the Industrial Revolution
Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the oceans have absorbed about a third of human-caused carbon dioxide emissions. That has resulted in water 30 percent more acidic than it was before factories, cars, planes and other fossil fuel-burning machines became widespread.
By the end of the century, if CO2 emissions grow at the current trajectory, the world's oceans could become 150 percent more acidic. That doesn't bode well for sea creatures like oysters, corals and plankton that grow hard shells made of a chalky mineral called calcium carbonate. If ocean water becomes too acidic, it can begin dissolving those shells, sometimes faster than creatures can rebuild them. It's a development scientists believe could ripple up the food chain.
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10 Comments
Add CommentThis article seems to repeatedly refer to atmospheric CO2 levels and speculate about its affect on oceanic CO2 levels. Is no historical oceanic CO2 level data available? I would have guessed that seafloor drilling would provide at least indicators that could be used to generate reliable data, rather than simply presuming an apparently fixed relationship with atmospheric CO2.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHello Venus!!! We're coming to join you. I think the EPA is gonna have to start cracking down even harder on these CO2 polluters.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJamesDavis:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI've never seen somone so utterly enthralled with and cheering on destruction and disaster. I hope you won't be disappointed when it all goes...Yawwwnnn...
re jtdwyer comments....Yes SCIAM, change the headline. There is no mention of oceanic acid levels relative to 800K years in the article and no hard evidence presented to this effect. Add this to the shoddy body of reporting out there.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe story lacks substance. What does "30 percent more acidic" mean? Do we know the pH of the ocean before the industrial revolution, or is this just another "proxy"?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese are not idle questions; pH is not a linear relationship but a logarithmic scale. Going from pH 7 (neutral), each 10-fold change in H+ concentration produces a "1" change in pH. What that means is that the absolute amount of CO2 in terms of relative change depends on where you were to start with. To the extend that CO2 merely dissolves in water, it does not by itself change pH but a portion of the CO2 will or may change to carbonic acid, a weak acid.
This cite seems to have some problems but it is better than nothing:
http://www.acid-base.com/terminology.php
(The author makes a lot of noise about H+ when it loses an electron, but the fact is that H= is entirely appropriate since the atom has become positively charged).
Citation: (beware, it too appears to be a bit unscientific although it cites some good research)
http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/criteria/aqlife/marine-ph.html
"As more CO2 dissolves in the ocean, it reduces ocean pH, which changes the chemistry of the water." Up to a point, yes and that point ought to have been declared.
Meanwhile, it is like carbonated soda -- if the oceans have too much, they'll give up CO2 to achieve an equilibrium:
http://www.chem.usu.edu/~sbialkow/Classes/3600/Overheads/Carbonate/CO2.html
One of the papers in a series of argumentative papers showing that the science is NOT settled: (but getting more scientific!)
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/319/5863/570b
A weakness in this paper is the assumption that the rate ofCO2 emissions will increase (an integral of the actual accumulated CO2) to 2100 producing a sense of urgency. However, this is not only unrealistic, it is impossible to achieve. The advent of $4 per gallon gasoline changed driving patterns, initially by a small amount but as people change automobiles and driving patterns (shorter commutes) the cumulative effect is much gereater, this author below estimates 4 percent driving reduction for 10 percent increase in price. However, a feedback mechanism exists that impacts the total economy much more than is apparent from a simple price rise of gasoline.
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/88xx/doc8893/01-14-GasolinePrices.pdf
That's 58 pages but has plenty of charts 'n stuff.
I'd do about anything to avoid debating all of the questionable measurements and statistics being thrown around, but this article seems to be based solely on unfounded data. Not that I'm going to argue either way...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"A 30% rise since the Industrial Revolution"
"Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the oceans have absorbed about a third of human-caused carbon dioxide emissions. That has resulted in water 30 percent more acidic than it was before factories, cars, planes and other fossil fuel-burning machines became widespread."
Apparently the reader is expected to simply accept the author's assertions. Frankly, I'm extremely skeptical of all assertions related to the climate, but I certainly cannot blindly accept these.
Some of the complaining posters here, mggordon in particular would do well to follow some of the links provided with this post before attempting, unsuccessfully, I might add, to muddy the water (sic) in relation to ocean acidification
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJohn Saint-Smith - I must be missing something, but my attempts to follow links didn't lead me to any understanding of how any of these assertions had been determined. Maybe I'm just a natural born complainer, but I don't find anything substantive here.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wonder why the author does not mention the ph of ocean water? Perhaps it is because it is above 8. Making the ocean
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisbasic and thus there is no acidification of the ocean.
It is becoming less basic. There is 50 times the co2 of the atmosphere in the ocean. An atmospheric increase of co2 is not going to bring down the Ph level to 7 (neutral) let alone make the ocean acidic. I truly wonder how fresh water mollusks make their shells.
A couple of pictures of marine plants and corals thriving in a co2 volcanic vent.
<a href="http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/003220.html">A couple of pictures of bubbling co2.</a>
Science_rules_politics_drools - corals thriving in a CO2 rich vent does seem to be pretty substantial empirical counter-evidence! Would you please add a comment to the article: "Can Corals Adapt to Climate Change and Ocean Acidification?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks