U. New South Wales - Southern Ocean Will Begin To Dissolve Marine Organism Shells By 2030 - ABC

[hatrack]

Oops.

ELEANOR HALL: Now to that alarming research on marine life in the southern ocean which shows that the tipping point where animals will struggle to survive will come sooner than scientists previously thought. Researchers at the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales are warning that acidity in the Southern Ocean will reach destructive levels where it will dissolve the shells of marine organisms by 2030. As Jane Cowan reports that is at least twenty years earlier than scientists had previously predicted.

JANE COWAN: When you're a marine organism with a shell made out of calcium carbonate, one thing you don't want is an acidic ocean.

BEN MCNEIL: I guess dangerous is not really, it's a sort of subjective word really. But I guess dissolving shells is definitely a consequence which would be quite problematic for a number of these organisms.

JANE COWAN: That's Senior Research Fellow Dr Ben McNeil from the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales. He's the one who made the unsettling discovery. The problem is carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. As humans pump billions of tonnes of it into the air, oceans absorb it and become more acidic. Previous estimates predicted the shells of microscopic zooplankton for instance would start to dissolve when carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere reached 550 parts per million, something that was anticipated to happen around the middle of the century. But Dr Ben McNeil has found that point will be reached when carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hits 450 parts per million; something that could happen as soon as 2030.

BEN MCNEIL: And the reason is that during winter in autumn in the Southern Ocean there are some circumstances which lower the PH levels quite significantly naturally and so we didn't realise there was such a large natural variation just throughout the year. When you take that into account, coupled with what we're putting up into the atmosphere that brings forth these problematic conditions a lot earlier.

EDIT

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2008/s2416423.htm

[xchrom]

1. recommend -- well now that's interesting. nt

[Nihil]

2. Wow! Understatement or what?

> I guess dissolving shells is definitely a consequence which would
> be quite problematic for a number of these organisms.

:wow:

[wroberts189]

5. and no doubt ..it will happen sooner as it always does

[stuntcat]

3. mmm yummy

That'll just make those animals easier to eat!

Sorry. I'm forwarding this article to the heaviest consumers I know and I'm guessing that will be their reaction. It just makes me sick.

[stuntcat]

8. .

(I meant to say "to the FATTEST PIGS"
I'm getting tired of being nice.)

[phantom power]

4. There's something I'm trying to get my head around...

If I read the situation correctly, the oceans have become this acidic in the past. Evidently, it's been at least 20 million years, but that's not an awful long time in the big picture. To my knowledge, the oceans did not suffer any major deficits of calcium-carbonate-using organisms during these periods, which implies that some kind of biochemical adaptation is possible.

Am I wrong about one of the above?
Is our current acidification happening too fast, compared to past events?
Can we expect a diversity collapse, followed by a period of re-speciation from the survivors? Is there any fossil evidence of events like this that correspond to past acidification events?

[hatrack]

6. It's the pace of change that's really spooking scientists - related article link here

I posted both these articles yesterday - related, but some non-overlap in the information each contained.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x175412

[phantom power]

7. Aha. Missed that one.

[bertman]

9. Too late to rec. Here's a kick. thanks for the post.

This is going to really screw up my shrimp and scallop scampi.

Oh wait. By 2030 I'll be 83 and eating chicken soup . . . or dead. Most likely.