A report completed yesterday by the official Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows that increasingly acidic oceans due to climate change might just be the most profound change in the chemistry of the oceans seen for 20 million years.
I have some numbers from a talk by Alana Mitchell, a journalist researching a book about large-scale system shifts in our ocean. Carbon dioxide levels in the ocean were historically around 280ppm. Today they're 381 ppm. Historically, the pH of the ocean was 8.20 while today ocean pH is 8.05. The IPCC predicts that, by 2050, oceans will have a pH of 7.6.
Ocean acidification is expected both to disrupt the entire web of life of the oceans. More acid destroys the protective shells of calciferous organisms, like molluscs, and is detrimental to plankton and corals. Ocean acidification is also expected, in snowball style, to worsen the effects of climate change.
Read more on the report and its political implications (i.e., we really need the U.S. and China to act) at The Independent.
- Log in to post comments
Ocean acidification due to rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations is bad enough on its own, but some people want to push the trend even further by actually dumping CO2 into the sea: possibly through methods as crude as heaving blocks of dry ice off boats.
Great post, Milan. Worse still, they'll expect to be PAID for their services (by way of carbon credits) and will tuck the carbon they burn in the entire process out of sight...
And yet others will try to gain attention by coining new words like, "assification," just to exploit the situation. CO2 brings out the worst in all of us.
How optimistic are you about geological sequestration? Do you think it will prove cost-effective for large fixed emitters (like power plants)?
Randy Olson. You wouldn't even have read this post if it hadn't had that word in it...
Can't let carbon dioxide get us too down. Or too rich. I did my M.S. on carbon sequestration before it was made hip with new phrases like 'carbon credits' (any phrase with 'credit' in it appeals to the American soul), 'carbon offsets', and that dirty 'assification'. My advisor then spoke of Logs in Space (LIS) as the best sequestration idea. Imagine, we could grow trees (forestry is good) and launch them into outerspace (funding NASA is good) and save the world for a hefty price (money is VERY good). I hate to rain on the parade, but I tend not to be optimistic about anything that doesn't require sacrifice at some level.
p.s. That's acid rain on the parade, by the way.
What if we renamed "carbon emissions" as "carbon Britney sex" -- then people would feel good when it's talked about and it would get the most hits on the internet. I think Frank Luntz would be impressed.
Jennifer,
The logs idea occurred to me, as well, though I think it would be a lot easier to cut down whatever trees grow fastest, encase them in something airtight, and bury them as deeply as possible. Then, let the forest regrow and repeat.
Of course, this whole song and dance would have other ecological effects. It is probably a lot more sensible to deal with emissions head on.
P.S. Did you notice that the Summary for Policymakers for the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Review (released on Saturday) has a short section on ocean acidification?
Good graphics on this page:
http://www.pacificscience.org/tfoceanacidification.html
Thanks! Cool graphics indeed. Isn't it bizarre, though, that everyone keeps using that globe of the changes to the 1990s (it's even up on Wiki)? I considered using it but it's more than a decade old. Wonder who is responsible for the update...
I'd check with PMEL CO2. They link over to http://www.ocean-acidification.net/ (with other good graphics, including the bleak outlook for pteropods) but they don't have a new pH change map.
Last week, I heard zoologist Chris Harley speak on how climate change will affect intertidal diversity along our rocky shores. There was a typo in his poster ("acification" instead of "acidification") and he said he would like to officially coin assification for what we're collectively doing to the oceans (climate change, pollution, overfishing, etc.). Well, today there is greater consensus for ocean acifidication and, therefore, ocean assification.
very good thank you