Annotated Bibliography : Ocean Acidification

Ocean Acidification is a process that occurs everyday and majorly affects our planet, but most people don’t even realize it exists. Though it can technically be argued that Ocean Acidification has some benefits for the planet, most of the time the effects of this process are very poor and negatively affect the entire world around us. Human evolution has played a major role in contributing to Ocean Acidification. Whenever humans use energy we release Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere or also known as CO2. This can be in the form of burning fossil fuels from the ground or the removal of national forest by burning. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, which means whenever we can emit it in large quantities or unnatural amounts it can have negative effects on the atmosphere. These high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere result in climate change and more specifically Ocean Acidification. Ocean Acidification occurs when excess Carbon Dioxide is absorbed into the ocean. When this process takes place it can completely disturb the chemical balances of the water. For example, it can reduce pH levels, Biodiversity, and the abundance of calcifying species.

Hi Professor Searcy below is the link to the new paper that we briefly talked about in class. I haven't gotten a chance to look over it any further since we talked but maybe if you have some free time and have a strong desire to learn more about the effects that ocean acidification has on yellow tuna fish larvae you could glance it over just to see if there was any significance to them conducting two trials other than just for additional accuracy.

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, mankind has slowly increased the total greenhouse gas emissions that enter the atmosphere. Over time, this pollution began to add up. Now planet Earth is struggling to maintain its health with the combined forces of global warming and ocean acidification looking to bring demise. From all portions of the world, troubling changes are emerging in the chemistry of our oceans’ waters. The oceans takes in around a quarter of the Carbon Dioxide that mankind releases into the atmosphere every year, so as atmospheric Carbon Dioxide levels rise, so do the

Ocean acidification is becoming on of the most concerning subjects compared to global climate change. pH is the level of acidity, seven being neutral fourteen being most basic and zero being most acidic. The pH levels in the ocean are dropping and becoming more acidic. This is happening because of increasing carbon dioxide emissions. The ocean is taking in the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Ocean Acidification began over 200 years ago when the industrial revolution came along. This caused carbon dioxide levels to rise.

The Earth is a very miniscule piece in a much grander puzzle called the universe. Within that tiny rock in space are complicated systems that help to sustain life. The atmosphere surrounding us is a mixture of many different components. It is composed of roughly 78% nitrogen, about 21% oxygen, and about 1% other, which includes carbon, the most fundamental element on Earth (Hopkins 2010). Carbon is present in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (Hopkins 2010). Carbon dioxide may have a small presence in the earth 's atmosphere but it plays an important role in the processes within the ocean, having a huge influence over the chemistry of seawater carbonate and its equilibrium process (Hopkins 2010). One way it impacts the ocean is via a process called ocean acidification. Carbon dioxide is a compound that can be found in nature, but the elevated carbon dioxide levels caused by humans can have a lot of unintended consequences, particularly to the seawater carbonate chemistry (Hopkins 2010).

The debate of whether humans as a species are destroying their planet and violently pushing life to extinction has only intensified in recent years. But evidence has proved what we don’t want to hear time and time again – humans, and our actions (direct and indirect) are heavily involved in the extinction of flora and fauna species across the globe. We carelessly dump enormous amounts of c02 into our atmosphere, leading to ocean acidification and global warming that kill millions of animals and plants, and continue desecrating fragile ecosystems and habitats, resulting in the slaughter of now-rare life forms. We tamper with our climate as if it is a rather interesting puzzle piece, not the planet that supports our own existence.

As Dr. Stamper discussed, ocean acidification is a major factor that affects the environment. Both of these have had huge effects on the health and vitality of coral reefs. Since the Industrial Revolution, the pH of the ocean has decreased by 30% and this will have ramifications on the health of humans, food supplies and others. Dr. Stamper mentions himself that we are only focusing on calcium molecules in the acidification reactions instead of all the molecules and how they affect the organisms around them. He said changes in the normal calcification can lead to decrease muscle mass and decreased feeding which can harm the vitality of species in the ocean. He suggests gaining more control of our water usage since it generates 3% of our energy produced. In conjunction, he recommends people take personal steps in water conservation and energy conservation by buying energy efficient lights, low-flow toilets or dual-flush toilets, and gaining control of your heating costs by installing a low-energy system.

The effects of climate change on land are easily visible, with events like droughts and melting polar ice, for example, drawing considerable public attention. But out in the oceans, which cover over 70% of the globe, it seems that climate change effects are, for the most part, out of sight and out of mind. Our oceans contain between 50% and 80% of all the life forms on earth, and losing them would completely change the face of our planet, even if it wasn’t easily visible, at first.

Ocean acidification is the decrease in the acidity levels of the Earth 's oceans, caused by the intake of carbon dioxide emitted in to the environment and atmosphere. Since the industrial revolution, fossil fuel-powered machines have increased human technology and advancement. However, this has caused the emissions, large amounts of carbon dioxide, deforestation, and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Ocean acidification, in turn, has created a benefit to us by slowing down climate change by absorbing the emissions in the water that have remained in the air. However, studies are now starting to show that the massive amounts of carbon dioxide in the water bodies are altering the water chemistry and affecting the biodiversity and life cycles of many marine organisms, especially those at the lower end of the food chain. Other organisms living off the food chain would be part of a symbiotic relationship involving nutrient cycling: where all other organisms are feeding off of the larger one, yet are providing some benefit to the overall host.

A burden which lays on the shoulders of today’s man is that of climate change, namely, global warming. However, this evil has many ignored byproducts, some which are equally detrimental. In this thesis, we will write about the effects of one of the greatest of this, ocean acidification, known as “global warming’s equally evil twin”.

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, when humans began burning fossil fuel in large quantities, the world’s ocean water has gradually become more acidic even though this problem have only been noticed in the last decade. “Enough fossil fuels have been burned to emit more than 500 billion tons of Carbon Dioxide.” (National Geographic 2014) Of those 500 billion tons, 30% of the carbon dioxide dissolved into the oceans based on a research project that collected more than 77,000 seawater samples around the world. While this process might be beneficial for slowing down climate change, it can lead to ocean acidification, which is another global issue that’s threatening our world.

For many years people have thought that ocean acidification is really not that serious of an issue to our climate. They have claimed that releasing CO2 into the atmosphere is harmless and cannot acidify the ocean. However, scientists have refuted this claim and state that ocean acidification threatens the entire marine ecosystem.

The world we live in is so vast and exciting. Seventy percent of our world is liquid water we call the ocean. In the ocean there are many creatures that each are unique in their own way. However, it is possible that in our lifetime, many marine organisms will become endangered or possibly extinct. The loss of these mejestic marine creatures will be caused mainly because of human advancements in which fossil fuels are used to produce energy. Biodiversity is greatly affected by this increase in acidity. As the ocean acidifies, multiple social and economic issues arise. As humans, we rely on the ocean for almost everything. Much of our food, clothing, cleaning products and cosmetics come from the ocean. With the loss of

Ocean acidification will not only have a negative effect on the environment, but also the global economy. The issues found with ocean acidification in the previous section of the paper correlate with the effects of ocean acidification on the economy. Marine life forms, most of which will suffer from lower pH levels, are a large part of temperate and tropical costal regions’ economies. If ocean acidification is left as is, the world will start to see declines in various marine life’s population. This would spell disaster for costal economies that largely depend on fishing as a reliable commodity. Inland economies are also at risk since most likely import seafood to their local restaurants. Another aspect of the economy to factor into the equation is tourism. With potential decline in marine life populations, including coral reefs, the tourism sector would likely see a decline in tourist with the continual increase in ocean acidification. Dying reefs and less marine life would deteriorate from what makes visiting costal areas worth the trip. In addition, if no action is taken to combat ocean acidification, costal areas could potentially become political hotspots for environmental protestors, therefor making the area less desirable for a vacation spot.