Ocean Acidification History

G., Cong-Qiang, L., WeiDong, Z., Minella, M., Vione, D., Kunshan, G., & ... Hiroshi, S. (2016). Reviews and Syntheses: Ocean acidification and its potential impacts on marine ecosystems. Biogeosciences, 13(6), 1767. doi:10.5194/bg-13-1767-2016

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

Over the past couple of years, no other issue has received more attention in the marine community than ocean acidification. Marine biologists have been constantly working towards solving this issue and are hoping to see improvement’s very soon. Ocean acidification refers to the relentless growth in acidity of the Earth’s oceans. This on-going acidity has attributed to an important element; a constant rise of carbon dioxide levels in the Earth. The number one reason this issue is still happening is because of burning fossil fuels. In addition to burning fossil fuels, it has come to a point where it has enlarged a large amount of carbon dioxide by releasing it into the atmosphere. Chemists have taken this issue into attention that carbon enters the ocean and combines with seawater to fallout acid, which boosts the level of acidity. This process is known as ocean acidification.

The ocean has became nearly 150% more acidic. Which the ocean has experienced in nearly 20 million years.

Ocean acidification is likely the most important environmental issue on the planet today, yet most of us don’t know about it. It’s time to change the conversation. Raise your voice and get this message heard! Everyone needs to know about ocean acidification and the threat to ocean life. Environmental organizations, governments, the media, and all of us need to make ocean acidification part of the environmental conversation. Up until now, we’ve been missing a huge part of the puzzle.

Ocean acidification is the constant increase of acidity in the Earth’s oceans, caused by the unceasingly rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Anthropogenic CO2 is mainly emitted by the burning of fossil fuels, including coal, oil, and natural gas. Since the

Ocean acidification isn’t hard to understand because the name is self-explanatory but in simpler terms, carbon dioxide is pushed into the water become more acidic. Ocean acidification has much effect on how the flora and fauna of the sea adapt and live. The “subtle change in chemistry lowers the water’s saturation in aragonite” that Slezak (1) explains can be very effective how coral grow and build. Currently, oceans are staying at a rate of 3.8 aragonite saturation which isn’t entirely horrible but slezak (1) mentions many scientists believe “corals will stop building reefs when the saturation state drops below 2.5”. However, coral will just begin to ache once it hits the 2.5 point, but it’s “not a point of no return beyond to which they

Ocean acidification means an ongoing decrease in the pH of the Earth’s oceans, caused by the uptake of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Around 30-40% of the CO2 released by humans into the atmosphere dissolves into oceans, rivers and lakes.

ocean’s eco-system that we wouldn’t be forced to adjust to prosper in a safe and effective way of survival. An organization once stated that, “the air that you breathe, the water you drink, the food you eat, the products that keep you warm, safe, informed, and entertained — all can come from or be transported by the ocean, you hurt it is, its just going to hurt you back,” (Protect Plant Ocean). That quote relates back to this, ocean acidification is a socio- ecological system that will have to carry out the repercussions of being universal, evidently supported and complex. It is a wicked problem that will be hard to turn around and what our society is doing is we are learning how to deal with the effects by having the ability to survive without

Over the last decade, there has been much focus in the ocean science community on studying the potential impacts of ocean acidification (OA). Ocean acidification describes a change in the ocean’s carbon chemistry which is an emerging global problem. Oceans cover nearly 70 percent of the planet’s surface and play a crucial role in regulating atmospheric carbon dioxide through the interaction of physical, chemical, and biological processes (Orr, Fabry, Aumont, Bopp, Doney, Feely, ... & Key, 2005). As a result of anthropogenic emissions from fossil fuels, cement manufacturing, changes in land use and other human activities, carbon dioxide levels have built up in the atmosphere (Orr et al., 2005). Excess levels of CO2 then dissolve

The potential impacts of ocean acidification pose several threats on marine organisms and ecosystem processes. Many marine species are sensitive to changes in ocean. The effects of acidification on individual species will have ripple effects throughout the ecosystem. So, species that might not be directly affected by acidification may still be influenced by ocean acidification if their predators or prey are affected by changes in water chemistry. These food web interactions are difficult to predict, and may play out in unexpected ways. Acidification’s potential effects on marine ecosystems are an economic concern as well. These issues need to be addressed because they are all issues today, not the future. Ocean acidification may also be threatening not only marine life but our own way of life as humans. Although ocean acidification may not directly impact specific organisms, it’s impact will have a ripple effect that is felt in our own ecosystem we live in today. Threatening the health of

Its also very important to understand how increasing ocean acidification is going to affect marine life, in order to help with conservation of the populations. There have been multiple studies on the different affects of increasing CO2 on different marine organisms (Hoegh-Guldberg, et al., 2010) (Hurd, et al., 2009) (Clements, et al., 2015). There have been numerous studies on coral reef fishes with regards to ocean acidification. The increased CO2 had an effect on: metabolic rate (Rosa and Seubel, 2008) as well as behavioral laterization (Green, et al., 2014), olfactory (Dixson, et al., 2015), audio (Simpson et al., 2011), and visual cues ( Ferrari et al., 2012). The effects could have negative impacts on the lives of the coral reef

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.

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.

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