Acidic Oceans

While checking the news feeds today I found an article by Deborah Zabarenko (an environmental correspondent) reporting on the rising acidic levels of our oceans and their effects on coral reefs.

What I know: Our oceans are the Earth's biggest carbon dioxide reservoir - partly because of all the plankton that use the carbon dioxide for photosynthesis.

What the article's message is: We really need to work together to cut down on those everextending greenhouse gas emission levels.

"Ocean acidification is another threat to corals caused by global warming, along with rising sea levels, higher sea surface temperatures and coral bleaching, the scientists said." According to the article, ocean acidification won't only affect marine waters, but terrestrial ecosystems as well. And it will influence humans too because "coral reefs offer economic and environmental benefits to millions of people, including coastal protection from waves and storms and as sources of food, pharmaceuticals, jobs and revenue".

So the article also claims that the oceans have been absorbing some 525 billion tons of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide over the last two centuries (1/3 of which is human generated). That's some heavy statistics.

What's really sad is that the article reports that in some places, the acidic phenomenon has started to dissolve shells and skeletons of starfish, clams, and corals. Places affected include the Pacific North American continental shelf from Mexico to Canada.

So how does the acidification of the ocean waters work?

Here's the equation for those chemistry-affiliated people (Sorry, no subscripts):

H2O + CO2 = H2CO3

Need an explanation?
Water combines with carbon dioxide to create carbonic acid. The equation balances out perfectly mathematically.

So what's being done?

Here are the last four sentences of the article:

"Stabilizing carbon dioxide emissions was the Honolulu Declaration's top long-term recommendation. The key short-term recommendation was to nurture coral reefs that seem to have natural resilience against acidification. This could be adopted immediately by managers of protected marine areas, Causey said. The Honolulu Declaration will be presented to the United Nations and to other global, regional and national forums".

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While cross-referencing the article's contents, I came across this site.

Gary Novak's theory, while interesting, is a bit questionable as it is hosted on his own site with no backing from an accepted scientific community or a credible media source. Furthermore, he seems to be somewhat of an extremist, seeking to discredit many prominent scientific opinions - most of his posts are labeled fraud and sham - and does not cite any evidence or measurements to support his strange theory that the oceans are becoming less acidic instead of more acidic.

See, I have full reason to support the theory that the oceans are becoming increasingly acidic. measurements taken of our earth's atmosphere overwhelmingly indicate we have increased the CO2 in our atmosphere by 1/3rd, from 280 parts per million to 380 - it's only natural that some of it would end up in oceans (since as Adrienne mentioned, the oceans are the biggest CO2 reservoir in the world). Given that CO2 + H2O = H2CO3, carbonic acid, it thus makes sense that increased CO2 = increased ocean acidity. Q.E.D.

posted by Sage @ 8/27/2008 08:16:00 PM Comments: 0