Acidification Of The Ocean Research Paper

The oceans have been recorded to be rising in surface temperature, which in turn is causing fish to migrate to colder oceans near the poles; this disruption fisheries and other animals who prey on fish. The rise in temperature also can control currents, which caused a 40% increase in tropical storms since the 1950’s. The rise in temperature in our atmosphere has also caused for the melting of the ice caps, which has raised the sea levels almost 6.7 inches in the last century, with some locations on the eastern parts of Canada reading increases as high as 8 inches. These readings are more than double what they were in the previous century. The acidity of oceans is also increasing due to the increase of CO2 in the air. This is doing many things to different ecosystems such as coral reefs. The Great Coral Reef in Australia has lost half of its’ coral over the last 27 years alone. The rise in temperature and carbon dioxide causes the coral to bleach, which makes it weak and allows it to be destroyed very easily by any storms, or other predators. The rise in carbon emissions not only affects land life, but is also destroying our oceans as

As a science teacher, I feel that it is important to bring awareness to crucial topics as well as issues that are occurring in the world at this current time. I chose the article Ocean Acidification: Hands-on Experiments to Explore the Cause and Consequences because Ocean Acidification (OA) is an important issue that is affecting oceans around the world.

Serge M. Garcia and Andrew A. Rosenberg expect that global warming will affect the “availability, stability, access and utilization of food supplies” (2010). This will have important consequences for an already constricted system. Rising water levels will affect the habitat of ocean and land dwellers. The availability of fish will be altered as species acclimated towards warmer water migrate towards the poles, due to increasing water temperature (Garcia and Rosenberg, 2010). Ocean acidification is the foremost critical effect of global warming on the oceans. It results from the absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide by the oceans, which lowers the pH of the water. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the US states that there has been about a 30% increase in ocean acidity since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Moreover, current CO2 output levels would lead to a 150% increase in ocean acidity by the end of this century (NOAA). Increased ocean acidity will have drastic effects on shellfish and coral, due to their calcium based nature (NOAA). Reduced quantities of shellfish and coral will further alter presently dwindling habitats and amplify the loss of biodiversity. Garcia and Rosenberg explain that temperature changes will greatly affect fish’s metabolism, growth, and reproduction because they are cold-blooded. This will further influence the availability of food and the

obal Warming is caused by the built up of carbon dioxide and other air pollutions. These absorb sunlight and solar radiation, trapping the heat which causes global temperatures to rise. Ocean Acidification is caused when the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide from the air causing it to be acidic. Scientist believe that the ocean has absorbed about half of the excess carbon dioxide in the past 200 years. This has caused a drop of 0.1 in ph. Since the pH scale is logarithmic, this change represents a thirty percent increase in acidity.

The active decrease in the ocean’s pH is called ocean acidification. The pH of ocean water has dropped because of humans releasing carbon dioxide into the air. The ocean absorbs about a third of the carbon dioxide released by human activity. The absorption of carbon dioxide leads to changes in the chemistry of the sea water which causes it to becomes more acidic. Seawater generally has a slightly basic pH of 8.2, but in the past two hundred years, it has increased by 0.1 units to an 8.1 pH.

Global warming is a serious worldwide issue. Its effects are devastating; the increased heat waves that it causes will negatively affect wildfires, insect infestations, sea level rise, agriculture and human health. Moreover, the current issue is the elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide. This involves a process called ocean acidification, in which it is catastrophic for the life of the oceans. To better understand the concept behind ocean acidification, you must understand that pH represents the concentration of hydrogen ions. In addition, chemicals known as buffering agents are able to resist changes in pH. Now you may be wondering what buffer has to do with this article; well, little did you know the seawater acts as a buffer. The dissolved

If the temperature keeps increasing, oceans will absorb the excess emissions more which leads to becoming more acidic. Also, this will result in death of underwater life.

I think that the increase in the atmospheric levels of CO2 will definitely have a negative impact (ocean acidification) on coral reefs. Not only would it cause problems with the pH levels but it affects the balance between bicarbonate and carbonate ions. “Oceans are ready 30% More acidic than they were 200 years ago” (European Science Foundation, 2010). With the comparison of current percentages to those from before the industrial revolution, “proportions of bicarbonate and carbonate ions in surface tropical seawaters shifted from 88% and 11%, respectively, to 90% and 9%, respectively” (DUJS, 2012). Coral reefs are specifically vulnerable to ocean acidification because when calcification decreases the reef building capacity also decreases. Kleypas and Langdon have lately demonstrated that: “doubling pre-industrial concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide decreases the calcification rate of corals and coralline algae by 10 to 50%. Furthermore, the decrease in the calcium carbonate saturation state led to increases in reef dissolution rates. Anderson predicts that dissolution of carbonate salts will more than triple by the year 2300. Altogether, the decline in reef calcification and the rise in reef dissolution contributed to the thinning and disappearance of coral reef ecosystems” (J.A. Kleypas. 2009).

The growing issue of global warming and greenhouse gasses is affecting our world in many different ways now and into the future. This issue started at the beginning of the industrial revolution when humans were releasing carbon dioxide or CO2 from our newly created activities and services. This resulted in our atmospheric C02 to rise from 278 ppm (parts per million) to 390 ppm in pre industrial times. In the past 30 years we have seen this number increase by 50%, the outcome of our rapid development and our C02 emissions is we have a highest concentration of C02 in our atmosphere ever recorded for over 800,000 years. By continuing to emit CO2 into our atmosphere we will notice changes in temperature and the ocean in the upcoming decades and centuries. These changes to our world would have been noticed sooner if it hasn’t been for our oceans, since the industrial era the oceans have absorbed ¼ of all human made C02 emissions. This has caused the process of ocean acidification; the research presented will show how this process is affecting our pH, ocean chemistry and marine life.

Ocean Acidification is the ongoing decrease pH of the Earth's ocean, caused by the uptake of Carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere.

Due to the ocean’s continued absorption of carbon dioxide, it continues to acidify. This acidification is having a notable effect on the oceanic ecosystem, most notably in the phytoplankton. In fact, the continued acidification is a direct result of the drop in plankton population.

In the articles There’s Gold in That Ocean and Coral Reefs Need Care the similarity is the destruction of a habitat. From There’s Gold In That Ocean Paragraph 4 “ One possible danger is that the deep-seawater is highly acidic and could harm surface-level sea life.” Putting the acidic seawater into the normal sea water could result in lots of sea life being harmed like, shellfish, and coral reefs. ("What Is Ocean Acidification?" What Is Ocean Acidification? PMEL, n.d. Web. 05 June 2017. ) “ increasing ocean acidification has been shown to significantly reduce the ability of reef-building corals to produce their skeletons.” … This could compromise the long-term viability of these ecosystems and perhaps impact the estimated one million species

Unmistakable people are familiar with the probability that looks reefs to submerged rainforests. Coral reefs orchestrate the most biodiverse living spaces in the ocean, and their closeness is crucial to the survival of a clearing number of other marine species - an awe-inspiring piece of which we rely on upon for support. To understand carbon developing in ocean water we need to appreciate the carbon condition. Right when CO2 segregates in seawater to go on watery CO2 (CO2(aq)) it moreover shapes carbonic dangerous (H2CO3). Carbonic hurting quickly isolates to go on bicarbonate particles (HCO3). Therefore, bicarbonate particles can besides pull back into carbonate particles (CO32-,). Both of these responses in like course go on protons (H+) and in this way hack down the pH of the strategy (i.e., the water is starting now more acidic than it was — review that pH is the negative logarithm of the proton focus or progress, - log10[H+]. Ocean Acidification does not gather that sea waters will truly impact the chance to be acidic (i.e., pH < 7.0). Hard corals are the reef-building corals, and their stone like structures are made out of calcium carbonate, the same substance found in the shells of various marine animals including shellfish, molluscs and snails. Like these molluscs, corals must have part to available calcium in the seawater with a particular honest to goodness focus to develop their hard skeleton. This is especially focal in the early times of a coral polyps ' life,

Over the past few years, with the help of new technology, we can track the climate changes and were able to link them to some of the natural disasters that has happened. In a nutshell; we are cooking up our earth. Not only us, but the beings that do not use coal for generating electricity or gasoline for transportation are also becoming the victims of the climate change. Oceans act as one of the major sinks to store the anthropogenic carbon dioxide that’s left out in the atmosphere. Despite covering only 15% of global ocean area, North-Atlantic stores around 23% of the global CO2 that is absorbed into oceans. Also, the more CO2 oceans absorb, the more are the chances that carbon reacts with oceanic water and as a result carbonic acid levels increase making the oceans relatively more acidic than they are now. Scientists across the world have conducted numerous studies on the global oceanic CO2 levels and the common understanding from those studies is that most of the marine groups will have a negative impact on their survival. What’s worse is that

During the 20th and 21st century there has been growing concern about CO2 emissions and their toll on the environment. Human activities have largely increased the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, particularly CO2. With the increase in greenhouse gases, the temperatures on Earth have risen due to the gases’ ability to trap of heat. This increase in temperature has had many detrimental side effects on ecosystems. For instance, global warming has resulted in the melting of ice in the southern and northern latitudes, destroy valuable habitat and creating strain on the organisms that live there (Frolicher and Joos, 2010). A result of this melting of ice in the higher latitudes has caused sea levels to rise. Furthermore, with more emissions of CO2 there has been greater absorption of CO2 by the oceans. When CO2 is in the ocean it reacts to produce carbonate ions and H+ ions leading to ocean acidification. Major effects of ocean acidification are already being seen; mollusks, coral, and echinoderms that have shells composed of calcium carbonate are eroding away due to acidification (Kerr, 2010). Ocean acidification, climate change, habitat loss, and extinction of species will continue if there is no change in CO2 emissions. Such changes could be catastrophic on fragile ecosystems.