Ocean acidification
Ocean acidification is affecting the entire world’s oceans, including coastal estuaries and waterways. Ocean acidification is a predictable outcome of elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations, whereby the dissolution of atmospheric CO2 into the oceans results. CO2 dissolves in water to form a weak acid, and the oceans have absorbed about a third of the CO2 resulting from human activities, leading to a steady decrease. When these organisms are at risk, the entire food web may also be at risk. Certain fish's ability to detect predators is decreased in more acidic waters. This chapter begins by describing what is known and not known about ecosystem effects of ocean acidification for five vulnerable ecosystems: tropical coral reef. These changes in ocean chemistry can affect the behavior of non-calcifying organisms as well. Decreases in carbonate ions can make building and maintaining shells and other calcium carbonate structures difficult for calcifying organisms such as oysters, clams, sea urchins, shallow water corals, deep sea corals, and calcareous plankton. This increase causes the seawater to become more acidic and causes carbonate ions to be relatively less abundant.Ĭarbonate ions are an important building block of structures such as sea shells and coral skeletons. As the oceans soak up excess carbon emissions, the chemistry.
The map in the middle shows projected ocean pH levels by 2100 for a possible.
Because the pH scale is logarithmic, a difference of one pH unit represents a tenfold acidification.
#Ocean acidification series#
When CO 2 is absorbed by seawater, a series of chemical reactions occur resulting in the increased concentration of hydrogen ions. The worlds oceans absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. Since the Industrial Revolution, the pH of the ocean has already decreased from its historical global average of around 8.16 (slightly basic) to about 8.07 today. The ocean absorbs about 30 percent of the CO 2 that is released in the atmosphere, and as levels of atmospheric CO 2 increase, so do the levels in the ocean. For more than 200 years, or since the industrial revolution, the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO 2) in the atmosphere has increased due to the burning of fossil fuels and land use change.