Climate Change Seeps into the Sea

Good news has turned out to be bad. The ocean has helped slow global warming by absorbing much of the excess heat and heat-trapping carbon dioxide that has been going into the atmosphere since the start of the Industrial Revolution.

All that extra carbon dioxide, however, has been a bitter pill for the ocean to swallow. It’s changing the chemistry of seawater, making it more acidic and otherwise inhospitable, threatening many important marine organisms.
Scientists call ocean acidification “the other carbon dioxide problem.” They warn that because it causes such fundamental changes in the ocean, it could impact millions of people who depend on the ocean for food and resources. “The growing amount of carbon dioxide in the ocean could have a bigger effect on life on Earth than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,” says JPL’s Charles Miller, deputy principal investigator for NASA’s new Orbiting Carbon Observatory, scheduled to launch next January.

There will be some winners and losers, says Doney, as the effects of growing ocean acidification are felt. “Although we don’t know exactly how many species depend on pteropods, clams, oysters, mussels or other shelled organisms for food, or on coral reefs for critical habitat, it’s clear that ocean acidification will cause a wholesale alteration of some marine ecosystems in ways we can’t predict,” he explains.

History isn’t much of a guide. While there have been times in Earth’s past when the ocean was more acidic than now, most environmental changes occurred at a considerably slower pace than today. “At the rates of climate change and ocean acidification we’re seeing now, many organisms may be not able to keep up,” Doney says.

Physorg