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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2009

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|NEXT STORY »

Acid Ocean Will Dissolve Sea Creatures' Shells

Researchers uncover another devastating impact of global warming

By Mary Papenfuss| Posted Oct 5, 09 2:40 AM CDT|

(Newser) – Waters around the North Pole are absorbing so much carbon dioxide that acid in the ocean will soon begin dissolving sea creatures' shells, scientists warn. By 2018 10% of the Arctic Ocean will be corrosive, spelling potential disaster for the food chain as crustaceans begin to die off, reports the Telegraph. "We knew the seas were getting more acidic and this would disrupt shellfish ability to grow shells. Now we realize the situation is much worse," said lead scientist Prof. Jean-Pierre Gattuso.

The world's seas are turning acidic as carbon dioxide from pollution is converted to carbonic acid in the water. The situation is more dire in polar regions because the gas is more soluble in cold water. "Over the whole planet, there will be a threefold increase in the average acidity of the oceans, which is unprecedented during the past 20 million years," said Gattuso.

Is the end near for crusty sea creatures? (©smallislander)

Global warming spells disaster for seashells. (©jeezychreezy)

Scientists say a corrosive Arctic Ocean will begin destroying crustaceans' shells in ten years. (©haemengine)

A Nautilus faces uncertain times as global warming changes the acid level of the ocean. (AP Photo/ Wong Maye-E)

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29 comments

VIEWING:

newtonew
Oct 5, 09 2:46 AM CDT

by 2008? ............or 2018? Reply

-2

IN RESPONSE:

kyleleitch
Oct 5, 09 2:55 AM CDT

Good 'ol Newser.

IN RESPONSE:

jagerhans
Oct 5, 09 8:48 AM CDT

if really there is a god i think it's just about time for him (her ?) to kick in and take over his old business, but i think that he just abandoned us and started to play with another toy while waiting that we clear this playground by ourselves. then he'll plough the earth and will grow a lot of watermelons.

| 0 minutes ago

newtonew
Oct 5, 09 2:46 AM CDT

2008? must mean by 2018 Reply

-1

| 0 minutes ago

newtonew
Oct 5, 09 2:49 AM CDT

2008??????? maybe 2018 Reply

-2

IN RESPONSE:

sully4411
Oct 5, 09 10:05 AM CDT

no i think you had it right th first time you said it

| 0 minutes ago

kyleleitch
Oct 5, 09 2:54 AM CDT

It's sad that it isn't enough that our bodies are poisoned by our air and water, polar bears are running out of a place to live, forests are disappearing at an alarming rate, and fish in the sea are getting smaller and smaller. And our legislation isn't slated to pass any sort of legislation until December of this year. And if it's even passed, it'll be 10 years down the road when anything is supposed to change. Reply

| 0 minutes ago

shonangreg
Oct 5, 09 4:15 AM CDT

Here is a much more detailed article with some of the same info ----------------- http://climateprogress.org/2009/09/02/a-sea-change-imagine-a-world-without-fish-ocean-acidification-film/ --------------- And from what I can recall, there is another big worry with acidification. Methane, perhaps MASSIVE amounts, might be released from the depths. There is some research that even hypothesizes that some of the earth's mass extinctions have resulted from methane being released from the oceans. This is a serious subject . . . Reply

| 0 minutes ago

Hububba
Oct 5, 09 4:25 AM CDT

this is a natural progression for any planet as it becomes a star Reply

-8

IN RESPONSE:

Aelius28
Oct 5, 09 4:33 AM CDT

Planets don't become stars... and even if they did, stars are formed over billions of years.

IN RESPONSE:

shonangreg
Oct 5, 09 5:09 AM CDT

Hububba, haha................. Aelius, I hope you saw my reply to you about fiction being a waste of time from a few days ago.

IN RESPONSE:

Snowleopard
Oct 5, 09 7:15 AM CDT

planet's don't have enough mass to become stars. Not even Jupiter is big enough.

IN RESPONSE:

sully4411
Oct 5, 09 10:07 AM CDT

hahahaah hubabba I appreciated your comment - i ment to thumbs up but i hit th wrong one :/ your sarcasm was well received here tho.

| 0 minutes ago

drlarrymitchell
Oct 5, 09 4:25 AM CDT

Just one more thing the human race has fucked up. Reply

IN RESPONSE:

Aelius28
Oct 5, 09 4:38 AM CDT

In the grand scheme of things, this isn't too big of a deal. And by grand scheme I mean about a billion years. I guess what I mean to say is, the planet is fine. The PEOPLE are fucked. The planet will undergo massive changes in a short period of time, many species will go extinct but evolution will do what it does best and select for those with qualities making them ideal for a changing environment. In a million year's time, life will still be bouncin' around as it has for hundreds of millions of years. We're relatively insignificant and if this planet was its own body with its own immune system humans would have been destroyed a few thousand years ago as a pathogenic organism.

IN RESPONSE:

sully4411
Oct 5, 09 10:11 AM CDT

sorry aelius but thats just not true - the food chain will simply fall apart as we conntinue to remove links from it. once there is a large enough gap, animals will go extict at an unprecidented rate. im sorry to say that your just too optimistic, and too naive of the damage we have done/continue to do.

IN RESPONSE:

Aelius28
Oct 6, 09 12:06 AM CDT

I realize that. Mass-extinction events happen all the time; it won't be an unprecedented rate by any means though. But life never ceases to press on. This would actually be a rather minor mass-extinction event.

| 0 minutes ago

riffran
Oct 5, 09 4:50 AM CDT

A little something I found...and even slightly remembered from intro to chemestry....." As a matter of fact, seawater is alkaline. Dissolving the carbon dioxide from all the world’s known fossil fuel reserves would never make the sea acidic. The climate alarmists coined the phrase “ocean acidification” to make it sound alarming, whereas the process is actually what is known as neutralization. The term ‘acidification’ of course sounds more scary than talking about the oceans becoming slightly less alkaline or a little more neutral. To put this into perspective, the pH of seawater is, on average, around pH 8.2. Pure water is pH 7.0, and clean rainwater is pH 5.6. What is more, seawater is a highly buffered solution – it can take up a huge amount of dissolved inorganic carbon without significant effect on pH. There is not the slightest possibility that the alkalinity of the oceans could approach the neutral pH of pure water even if all the fossil fuel reserves in the world were burned, so all talk of ‘acid’ oceans is utter nonsense. What sort of change are we talking about? Possibly a change of pH of 0.2 units this century, say from 8.2 to 8.0. That would mean by definition that there were still no more than 10% of the ‘acidic’ H+ ions than there are in pure water." (ps nitric acid, and CO2 are both essential nutrients in photosynthetic processes, and the algea would provide a bit of a buffer also..then you have fresh water moluck, and crustations, THEY live in highly varied PH rangesfrom real acidic to real alkaline, and have great shells....More research is needed warmanuts Reply

-7

IN RESPONSE:

piyrwq
Oct 5, 09 10:18 AM CDT

riffan, you show a good basic understanding of acid chemistry, but you seem to lack the follow through. First off shonangreg below, makes an excellent point about sementics - acidification = more acidic than before, doesn't matter by how much. Second, the concern is about the carbonate saturation value (which you seem to neglect). Normal seawater (pH~=8.2) will be saturated by 4-5x, but acidified seawater (pH~7.9-8.0) will be saturated 1-2x, or less. Organisms, and it's the tiny critters the whole food change is dependent on we're mostly concerned with, need to be able to precipitate carbonate, and they need high saturation values to do it. They are going to have a very hard tome doing that if the seawater is undersaturated in carbonate (ie pH<7.9 or so). If there is one point you are absolutely correct about is that more research is needed. Organisms do not all precipitate carbonate the same way, and each will be affected very differently by ocean acidification - and nobody knows just how. As you mention some should an increase in growth with additional CO2 (and hence HCO3-), but others show a dramatic decrease. How will all this affect the food chain? If you know the answer to that, then you are THE preeminent scholar of ocean biogeochemistry. With all this in mind, and true costs of taking oil (ie price of oil + price of war) from the middle east - why are we still so dependent on fossil fuels???

| 0 minutes ago

Stuart
Oct 5, 09 6:43 AM CDT

Actually rif your pseudo science does not show anything except that you first had the answer that you wanted ans then searched (selectively) for facts. The pH of ocean waters varies, but 8.2 is a decent average mostly because below that, calcium carbonate (limestone, shells, etc) start to dissolve. The waters of the world do not instantly mix so local conditions do apply. What the article stated is that the increased CO2 in the atmosphere (which is a scientific fact) dissolves more readily in cold water than warmer water (also a fact) and that local conditions in the Artic are reducing the pH to such an extent that it is possible to plot a point at which it will be dissolving the shell off marine life. Plugging in only the facts you want to suit your 'greenhouse gasses are a myth' decision has nothing to do with science. And denigrating the overwhelming majority of scientists from all over the planet because they do not share your politically inspired viewpoints only shows the bankruptcy of your argument. Reply

IN RESPONSE:

shonangreg
Oct 5, 09 8:30 AM CDT

Good refutation, Stuart. I actually replied earlier as well, but my post didn't make it . . . The original article is just using "aciification" to mean lowering the pH. Riffran, you're just using semantics to evade the issue.

IN RESPONSE:

shonangreg
Oct 5, 09 9:07 AM CDT

"acidification"

| 0 minutes ago

divetrader
Oct 5, 09 7:02 AM CDT

I think we have already passed the tipping point. Sadly, many creatures as a result of humans will suffer and disappear as a result of our arrogance. Reply

| 0 minutes ago

MarkMcJackoff
Oct 5, 09 7:39 AM CDT

Does that mean soft-shell lobster, eeezee-open oysters will soon be available? Yummy! Cant wait. Reply

-3

IN RESPONSE:

zackmasson
Oct 5, 09 1:40 PM CDT

lol he thinks he can think. do you know what lobsters eat? nuff said.

| 0 minutes ago

schmidtkoff
Oct 5, 09 10:56 AM CDT

@jackoff - go jack off. i don't purport to understand ph balances and chemistry but i can surmise that this is a dire prediction. and that any weak link in the food chain will ultimately effect you and your taste for lobster and/or oysters, shrimp,clams, etc. you won't have any to enjoy bozo. Reply

| 0 minutes ago

riffran
Oct 5, 09 11:00 AM CDT

Past levels of CO 2 have been much much higher as evidenced by study of core samples. The oceans were not this so called "acid" miasmas the article is painting. Then either. The ocean is quite buffered. It's a case of too little info and drawing the wrong conclusion or a innacurate conclusion and extrapolating the effect into an error prone conclusion. I found as many articles for this conclusion as I. Have found refuting it. Meaning that the so called consensus al bloat crowed about existed only in his head and the blind goreites that fawn on his words. Bottom line. Cyclical climate change. Most likely. Man as an influence or factor sure. polution bad. All oceanic calcium being made unusable in less than nine years. Preposterous bovine balderdash. That reminds of of a sconce channel bunch of "Eco-engineers". Trying to use multi ton blocks of carbon dioxide sequestered from the air frozen and sank into the ocean. To save the planet. Lol what a joke. Almost as stupid as the solar sheilds in space. By the way. What do plants use in photosynthesis. Hmmmmm would that. Be carbon dioxide. And where is the greatest concentration of plant life????? Would that be oceanic phytoplankton and algae?? Let me geuss. I geuss that those organisms that can turn untold billions of gallons of sea water into a living ecosystem as the. Base of the whole thing is not going to also increase and possibly counteract or neutralize????? More more more research. Reply

IN RESPONSE:

piyrwq
Oct 5, 09 12:48 PM CDT

Ok Riffanscientistguy, you talk about the need for more research, maybe you should listen to what the researchers are saying. http://ioc3.unesco.org/oanet/OAdocs/SPM-lorezv2.pdf

IN RESPONSE:

shonangreg
Oct 5, 09 5:28 PM CDT

CO2 levels have varied, but they've not gone above 300ppm in 20,000,000 years, I think it was. All through the Ice Age and warming periods this level has not been breached -- till the 1960's. ................... Come on, riffran, this stuff is easy to check. Stop dissembling and focus on the basics.

| 0 minutes ago

View all 29 comments »

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Acid Ocean Will Dissolve Sea Creatures' Shells

Researchers uncover another devastating impact of global warming

Related Newser Stories

Team Discovers Mini-Monsters of the Deep

Thousands of bizarre creatures discovered in blackest black

MORE ABOUT: Atlantic Ocean • ocean • sea • scientists • marine life • jumbo dumbo • Atlantic Ridge

Blaze Erupts on Aussie Oil Rig

Leak spewing 400 barrels of oil daily

MORE ABOUT: oil • Australia • ocean • sea • oil rig • fire • oil leak

US Lensman Captures Life-Size Whale Pics

Photog praises 'gentle, friendly' beasts

MORE ABOUT: art • ocean • Norway • sea • photographers • minke • whales • Bryant Austin

carbon dioxide • global warming • ocean • North Pole • sea • Arctic Ocean • crustacean • sea creatures

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Help

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Team Discovers
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of the Deep

MORE ABOUT:
Atlantic Ocean • ocean • sea • scientists • marine life • jumbo dumbo • Atlantic Ridge

MORE ABOUT:
oil • Australia • ocean • sea • oil rig • fire • oil leak

US Lensman
Captures
Life-Size
Whale Pics

MORE ABOUT:
art • ocean • Norway • sea • photographers • minke • whales • Bryant Austin