Ocean Chemistry Changing At 'Unprecedented Rate'
Date: 23-Apr-10
Country: US
Author: Deborah Zabarenko
Ocean Chemistry Changing At 'Unprecedented Rate'
Photo: Reinhard Krause
Clouds move over a resort island at the Male Atoll December 8, 2009.
Photo: Reinhard Krause
Carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming are also
turning the oceans more acidic at the fastest pace in hundreds of
thousands of years, the National Research Council reported Thursday.
"The chemistry of the ocean is changing at an unprecedented rate and
magnitude due to anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions," the council
said. "The rate of change exceeds any known to have occurred for at
least the past hundreds of thousands of years."
Ocean acidification eats away at coral reefs, interferes with some fish
species' ability to find their homes and can hurt commercial shellfish
like mussels and oysters and keep them from forming their protective
shells.
Corrosion happens when carbon dioxide is stored in the oceans and reacts
with sea water to form carbonic acid. Unless carbon dioxide emissions
are curbed, oceans will grow more acidic, the report said.
Oceans absorb about one-third of all human-generated carbon dioxide
emissions, including those from burning fossil fuels, cement production
and deforestation, the report said.
The increase in acidity is 0.1 points on the 14-point pH scale, which
means this indicator has changed more since the start of the Industrial
Revolution than at any time in the last 800,000 years, according to the
report.
The council's report recommended setting up an observing network to
monitor the oceans over the long term.
"A global network of robust and sustained chemical and biological
observations will be necessary to establish a baseline and to detect and
predict changes attributable to acidification," the report said.
ACID OCEANS AND 'AVATAR'
Scientists have been studying this growing phenomenon for years, but
ocean acidification is generally a low priority at international and
U.S. discussions of climate change.
A new compromise U.S. Senate bill targeting carbon dioxide emissions is
expected to be unveiled on April 26.
Ocean acidification was center stage at a congressional hearing
Thursday, the 40th anniversary of Earth Day in the United States.
"This increase in (ocean) acidity threatens to decimate entire species,
including those that are at the foundation of the marine food chain,"
Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey told a Commerce
Committee panel. "If that occurs, the consequences are devastating."
Lautenberg said that in New Jersey, Atlantic coast businesses generate
$50 billion a year and account for one of every six jobs in the state.
Sigourney Weaver, a star of the environmental-themed film "Avatar" and
narrator of the documentary "Acid Test" about ocean acidification,
testified about its dangers. She said people seem more aware of the
problem now than they did six months ago.
"I think that the science is so indisputable and easy to understand and
... we've already run out of time to discuss this," Weaver said by
telephone after her testimony. "Now we have to take action."
(Editing by Sandra Maler)
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