Acidifying Oceans Spell Bleak Marine Biological Future 'by End of Century'

[n2doc]

ScienceDaily (Aug. 25, 2010) — A unique 'natural laboratory' in the Mediterranean Sea is revealing the effects of rising carbon dioxide levels on life in the oceans. The results show a bleak future for marine life as ocean acidity rises, and suggest that similar lowering of ocean pH levels may have been responsible for massive extinctions in the past.

The scientists, from the University of Plymouth and the University of Santa Catarina, Brazil, studied a single celled organisms called Foraminifera around volcanic carbon dioxide vents off Naples in Italy. The study, published in the September issue of the Journal of the Geological Society, found that increasing CO2 levels caused foram diversity to fall from 24 species to only 4.

'Previous studies have shown a reduction in diversity of 30%, but this is even bigger for forams', said Dr Jason Hall-Spencer, one of the study's co-authors. 'A tipping point occurs at mean pH 7.8. This is the pH level predicted for the end of this century'.

Rising carbon dioxide levels acidify the ocean, which has a particularly devastating effect on organisms that have calcium carbonate shells, like Foraminifera.

'Forams are well preserved in the fossil record, which is why we chose to study them', says Dr Hall-Spencer. 'We knew the results were likely to show a decline in foram diversity but we weren't expecting such a seismic shift'.

more

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100825093651.htm

[dkf]

1. Are we causing this?

What to do?

[GliderGuider]

2. Are we causing this? Yes. What to do?

Simple. Stop burning oil, coal and natural gas.

Wait, what?

[dkf]

3. Why is this not part of the global warming discussion then?

[GliderGuider]

4. It is. It has been for several years now.

A click on http://www.google.ca/search?q=Global+warming+ocean+acidification will return 170,000 hits for your reading pleasure.

[dkf]

5. I've never heard of it in that discussion, just as a separate issue like in this op.

[GliderGuider]

6. It is a fairly recent addition to the discussion

The references in the Wikipedia article on Ocean Acidification show publications on this point dating from 2000 or so. That's only 10 years ago, and it takes a long time for scientific awareness to make it into popular discussions. The upsurge in popular awareness only began about 3 years ago.

Edited to add: Make no mistake, this is right up there with shifting rainfall patterns as the Big Story of global warming.

[The Doctor.]

7. The fear of acidification has been around for some time.

Studies, as has been pointed out, are relatively recent. Awareness that the oceans are being fished out has been more prevalent. Between the two problems, it's evident that we're really screwing ourselves in the process of screwing the biosphere.

[stuntcat]

8. Humans will KEEP on taking the oceans for granted

dump dump dump in it all we want. We needed to evolve a lot more before we had this much power over the Earth. Now we're wiping out species & forests and a lot of us don't care, I'm not kidding, I know a few who don't think this concerns them at all.