Since the industrial revolution began, we have released 2 trillion tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, and about one-third of it went into the ocean. We initially thought that the ocean taking up CO2 was a good thing – because it took it out of the atmosphere. Unfortunately, we were wrong. There has been a 30% increase in the acidity of the ocean since 1700, and we now expect that by 2100, it will have become a 100% increase. This constitutes a rate of change in ocean chemistry that is 10 times anything scientists can document over the last 50 million years.
The plants and the animals of the ocean evolved to thrive in a fairly neutral pH ocean. Thus, when the chemistry shifts and the ocean becomes more acidic, the plants and animals are immediately affected. The most immediate effects are on calcifiers, those animals who depend on taking up calcium carbonate from ocean waters to build their shells or external skeletons—an ability that is lost when hydrogen bicarbonate is formed instead. From the tiniest pteropods to corals, lobsters, crabs, and shellfish, the very basis of the web of life within our ocean is affected.
The food web impacts will affect the seafood industry: both the calcifiers we harvest (lobster, shrimp, scallops, crab, and oysters) and the pollock, salmon, and tuna. In fact, all of the commercial fish species who feed on phytoplanktonic calcifiers.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: National Geographic
