Rachel's #910: Ocean Food Chain Imperiled

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>Peter Montague <peter

>Rachel's #910: Ocean Food Chain Imperiled

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>Rachel's Democracy & Health News #910

> " Environment, health, jobs and justice--Who gets to decide? "

>Thursday, June 7, 2007..................Printer-friendly version

>www.rachel.org -- To make a secure donation,

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>Featured stories in this issue...

>

>Acidic Oceans Affecting Food Fish

> Thomas Lovejoy, the executive director of the H. John Heinz III

> Center for Science, Economics and the Environment, says acidification

> of the oceans is " the most profound environmental change I've

> encountered in my professional career, " and says the consequences for

> ocean life are " shaking the biological underpinnings of civilization. "

>Climate Change: A Guide for the Perplexed

> How do you talk to skeptics about global warming? Here's a

> science-based response to 26 common myths.

>A World Without Corals?

> Besieged by pathogens, predators, and people, the " rainforests of

> the sea " may soon face their ultimate foe: rising ocean acidity driven

> by CO2 emissions, says the American Association for the Advancement of

> Science.

>Scientists Say Carbon Dioxide Is Turning the Oceans Acidic

> " I think there are very serious issues to be addressed, " said Dr.

> John Raven of the University of Dundee in Scotland, who led a study

> of ocean acidification for the British Royal Society. Increased

> acidity could also reduce populations of plankton with calcium

> carbonate shells, disrupting the food chain, other scientists said.

>Researchers See 'Massive Changes' in the Oceans

> Carbon dioxide emissions have increased acidity levels of the

> oceans by 30 percent and in the decades ahead will create new risks

> for coral, zooplankton and other creatures that help support the North

> Pacific fisheries, according to researchers at University of

> Washingtton.

>Oceans Growing More Acidic, Threatening Coral Reefs

> " What we're doing in the next decade will affect our oceans for

> millions of years, " says Ken Caldeira, a chemical oceanographer at

> Stanford University. " CO2 levels are going up extremely rapidly, and

> it's overwhelming our marine systems. "

>The Southern Ocean Is Approaching Its Limit for Carbon Absorption

> In a double whammy, the Southern Ocean has now absorbed so much

> carbon dioxide that is turning acidic, but it is also reaching its

> limit for further absorption -- thus accelerating the buildup of heat-

> trapping gases in the atmosphere.

>

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>The Daily Green, May 1, 2007

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>

>ACIDIC OCEANS AFFECTING FOOD FISH

>

>By Dan Shapley, News Editor

>

>Carbon dioxide emissions could shake " the biological underpinnings of

>civilization " as increasingly acidic water undermines the oceanic food

>web, according to fresh research from the Pacific Ocean off Alaska.

>

>The research shows that increasingly acidic Pacific water will affect

>king crabs and a snail that is a favorite food of Pacific salmon. How

>disruptions in the ocean food web could ultimately harm these and

>other popular food species is still uncertain.

>

>The Senate Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast

>Guard will hear testimony today on the acidification of oceans from

>private, government and environmental group scientists.

>

>Oceans had until recently been viewed as a great savior of the

>climate, because they have absorbed about one third of the carbon

>humans have emitted, buffering what would otherwise have been a

>greater warming of the atmosphere. But scientists have in recent years

>begun studying the consequences of oceanic carbon storage -- a 25

>percent increase in acidity since pre-industrial times.

>

>The scientific endeavor is still young, with many unanswered

>questions. But results have shifted from showing that the ocean has

>grown more acidic to showing how that acidification is affecting ocean

>life, including species important for human food.

>

> " We're starting to see now a real connection to fisheries, " said

>Christopher Sabine, a National Oceanographic and Atmospheric

>Administration scientist involved in the North American Carbon

>Program's effort to understand the role of carbon in the oceans.

>

>Victoria Fabry, a biological oceanographer at the University of

>California, has found that the shells of pteropods -- a set of 32

>planktonic snails sometimes called sea butterflies -- dissolve in

>acidic water, and that the layer of water acidic enough to do so is

>slowly expanding from the depths toward the surface as the ocean

>absorbs more carbon. If carbon dioxide emissions continue unabated,

>surface water could be corrosive to shells by between 2050 and 2100,

>depending on different emissions scenarios.

>

>Pteropods are widely consumed by a variety of ocean life, including

>several species of salmon. More than 60 percent of a salmon's diet can

>be pteropod, according to the research of Katherine Myers, the

>principle investigator for the University of Washington's High Seas

>Salmon Research Program. How acidification affects pteropods, and in

>turn salmon, will be the subject of future research.

>

> " We know the chemistry of it very well, and with a great deal of

>certainty, but what the ecological impacts will be on fisheries, on

>overall productivity, regional productivity, we simply do not know, "

>Fabry said. " This is a case where we do need additional research. "

>

>The importance of pteropods to a popular food fish like salmon gives

>the acidification research a sense of urgency: The effects of

>acidification could creep up the food chain.

>

> " And we're at the top, " said Thomas Lovejoy, the executive director of

>the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the

>Environment. He made his remarks at a Wildlife Trust lunch, and in an

>interview with The Daily Green.

>

>Lovejoy called the acidification of the oceans " the most profound

>environmental change I've encountered in my professional career, " and

>said the consequences for ocean life are " shaking the biological

>underpinnings of civilization. "

>

>New research also shows that acidification is having effects on king

>crabs, though the lead scientist on that project, Jeff Short of the

>National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, said he was

>withholding details until his research has been peer-reviewed and

>published.

>

>The vanguard research has been conducted as scientists try to quickly

>come up to speed on the role of carbon in the oceans. Conferences in

>recent weeks have allowed scientists to share results and frame goals

>for future research.

>

>A grade school science experiment can demonstrate how carbon dioxide

>makes water acidic. Blow into a glass of water with a straw, creating

>bubbles of breath -- largely made up of carbon dioxide -- and the pH

>of the water will drop. Still, the wholesale acidification of the

>oceans, " really sort of snuck up on everyone in the scientific

>community, " Lovejoy said.

>

>The stakes are potentially huge. Tens of thousands of species --

>representing the first critical link or two on the food chain -- use

>calcium carbonate to construct shells. Different species produce

>different forms of calcium carbonate, with pteropods and corals among

>those that produce a form that is highly susceptible to corrosive

>conditions.

>

> " We're not at the panic stage, obviously, but it certainly is a

>concern, and there's a direct link to CO2 emissions, which is very

>important, because it's something that humans have control over, and

>we can change that if we want to, " Myers said. " Whereas global warming

>has both natural and anthropogenic [human] causes, it looks like

>there's a fairly direct link between acidification and carbon

>emissions by humans. "

>

>Copyright 2007 Hearst Communications, Inc.

>

>Return to Table of Contents

>

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>New Scientist, May 16, 2007

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>

>CLIMATE CHANGE: A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED

>

>By Michael Le Page

>

>Our planet's climate is anything but simple. All kinds of factors

>influence it, from massive events on the Sun to the growth of

>microscopic creatures in the oceans, and there are subtle interactions

>between many of these factors.

>

>Yet despite all the complexities, a firm and ever-growing body of

>evidence points to a clear picture: the world is warming, this warming

>is due to human activity increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the

>atmosphere, and if emissions continue unabated the warming will too,

>with increasingly serious consequences.

>

>Yes, there are still big uncertainties in some predictions, but these

>swing both ways. For example, the response of clouds could slow the

>warming or speed it up.

>

>With so much at stake, it is right that climate science is subjected

>to the most intense scrutiny. What does not help is for the real

>issues to be muddied by discredited arguments or wild theories.

>

>So for those who are not sure what to believe, here is our round-up of

>the 26 most common climate myths and misconceptions.

>

>There is also a guide to assessing the evidence. In the articles

>we've included lots of links to primary research and major reports for

>those who want to follow through to the original sources.

>

>** Human CO2 emissions are too tiny to matter

>

>** We can't do anything about climate change

>

>** The 'hockey stick' graph has been proven wrong

>

>** Chaotic systems are not predictable

>

>** We can't trust computer models of climate

>

>** They predicted global cooling in the 1970s

>

>** It's been far warmer in the past, what's the big deal?

>

>** It's too cold where I live -- warming will be great

>

>** Global warming is down to the Sun, not humans

>

>** It's all down to cosmic rays

>

>** CO2 isn't the most important greenhouse gas

>

>** The lower atmosphere is cooling, not warming

>

>** Antarctica is getting cooler, not warmer, disproving global

>warming

>

>** The oceans are cooling

>

>** The cooling after 1940 shows CO2 does not cause warming

>

>** It was warmer during the Medieval period, with vineyards in

>England

>

>** We are simply recovering from the Little Ice Age

>

>** Warming will cause an ice age in Europe

>

>** Ice cores show CO2 increases lag behind temperature rises,

>disproving the link to global warming

>

>** Ice cores show CO2 rising as temperatures fell

>

>** Mars and Pluto are warming too

>

>** Many leading scientists question climate change

>

>** It's all a conspiracy

>

>** Hurricane Katrina was caused by global warming

>

>** Higher CO2 levels will boost plant growth and food production

>

>** Polar bear numbers are increasing

>

>Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

>

>Return to Table of Contents

>

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>Science (pg. 678), May 4, 2007

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>

>A WORLD WITHOUT CORALS?

>

>By Richard Stone

>

>KHURA BURI, THAILAND -- In the shallow waters off Lan Island in the

>Andaman Sea, Kim Obermeyer kicks his flippers and glides over a silent

>graveyard. Scattered below are shards of staghorn and other branching

>corals, shattered in fragments that look like detached finger bones.

>The conservation biologist swims farther out to sea, darts to the

>bottom, and peers under an overturned Porites coral head the size of a

>Volkswagen Beetle. Obermeyer points to a brown ribbon underneath: a

>ragged colony soaking up just enough sun to have survived the tsunami

>that struck on 26 December 2004.

>

>As a horrific tragedy unfolded on shore that day, ecosystems below the

>ocean's surface were getting hammered. Across Southeast Asia, the

>titanic waves ripped apart shallow reefs and buried others in silt.

>But tsunamis are not the worst threat. The main menaces are largely

>human-wrought: from divers clumsily breaking off chunks of coral to

>mass die-offs and bleaching of coral triggered by spikes in ocean

>temperatures. Last month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

>Change (IPCC) forecast " more frequent coral bleaching events and

>widespread mortality " with average global temperature increases of 1

>deg. to 3 deg. C.

>

>Surveys suggest that 20% of the reefs on Earth, the largest living

>structures on the planet, have been destroyed in the past few decades.

>Another 50% are ailing or verging on collapse. " Reefs are likely to

>witness a significant ecological crisis in the coming half-century --

>because of us, " says coral specialist Camilo Mora of Dalhousie

>University in Halifax, Canada.

>

>The decline of coral reefs may have staggering consequences. Globally,

>reefs generate about $30 billion per year in fishing, tourism, and

>protection to coasts from storm surges, says Mora. Although reefs

>cover a minuscule fraction (0.1%) of seabed, they are second only to

>rainforests in biodiversity, sheltering or nourishing up to 9 million

>species -- a third of all known marine life forms -- including 4000

>kinds of fish. " To predict that reefs will change dramatically across

>the globe in the matter of a single generation should keep people up

>at night, " says Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, director of the Centre for Marine

>Studies at the University of Queensland in St. Lucia, Australia.

>

>There are a few rays of light in this bleak seascape. Attempts to

>rehabilitate tsunami-damaged reefs are showing promising results. Some

>reefs blighted by bleaching have mounted spectacular comebacks. And

>efforts to limit fishing and human activity have paid dividends in

>healthier reefs and revived local fisheries. Over the past decade,

>hundreds of marine protected areas have been established to safeguard

>reefs, including innovative MPAs in Palau designed to help corals

>bounce back after bleaching (see sidebar, p. 680).

>

>Yet these gains could be erased by what's shaping up as the gravest

>threat of all. As the oceans soak up more and more of the carbon

>dioxide that humans pump into the atmosphere, marine chemistry is

>changing. CO2 emissions " have the potential to create chemical

>conditions in the ocean that have not occurred since the dinosaurs

>became extinct, " says ecologist Kenneth Caldeira of the Carnegie

>Institution of Washington in Palo Alto, California. Dissolved in

>water, CO2 becomes carbonic acid. Caldeira coined a term for this

>process in a paper in 2003: " ocean acidification. " By midcentury,

>ocean pH could dip so low that corals would be unable to form their

>calcium carbonate skeletons.

>

> " Acidification is the big elephant in the room, " says Terence Hughes,

>director of the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for

>Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University in Townsville, Australia.

>Reef building would grind to a halt, with grievous implications. If

>CO2 emissions are not curtailed, Hughes predicts, " we'll eventually

>see reefs dominated by sea anemones and algae. " Put another way, " soon

>we'll be having jellyfish and chips, " says biologist Michael Kendall

>of the Plymouth Marine Laboratory in the United Kingdom. In the

>darkest scenarios, most corals will be toast.

>

>A multiheaded monster

>

>As coral reefs slip toward chronic frailty, a picture of what this

>means to the world has begun to emerge. Coral scientists, backed by an

>army of snorkeling and diving volunteers, have put a watch on critical

>reefs among the nearly 300,000 square kilometers charted to date.

>Hidden gems continue to come to light, including a giant deep-water

>reef in turbid waters off northern Australia. " Not much is known about

>the reef because nobody wants to swim in that area. It's infested with

>crocodiles, " says oceanographer Alan Strong, senior consultant to the

>U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) Coral

>Reef Watch.

>

>A recurring theme of this heightened scrutiny is that reefs are

>vulnerable on many fronts. A March 2005 earthquake off Indonesia, for

>example, was as brutal as the 2004 tsunami, lifting some reefs clear

>out of the water (Science, 20 October 2006, p. 406). Corals are

>susceptible to pathogens and predators, too. The crown-of-thorns

>starfish, a periodic invader, denudes coral outcroppings with the

>efficiency of a slash-and-burn farmer. Meanwhile, corals are

>perpetually besieged by filamentous algae, which are held in check by

>fish that nibble at them. Overfishing can tilt the balance, as can

>sewage or agricultural runoff, which infuse seawater with algae-

>feeding nutrients. These abuses, along with coastal development, " are

>having fantastically large and negative impacts on reefs around the

>world, " says John Pandolfi, a coral reef expert at the University of

>Queensland in Brisbane, Australia.

>

>The latest and perhaps biggest present danger for reefs is bleaching.

>When sea surface temperatures exceed their normal summer high by 1

>deg. C or more for a few weeks running, coral polyps, for reasons not

>entirely understood, expel their zooxanthellae, the symbiotic algae

>that lend corals color and provide nutrients. The polyps turn pale and

>starve. " If they don't get their zooxanthellae back in a month or so,

>they die, " says Obermeyer.

>

>The dangers of bleaching came to the fore in 1998, when a potent one-

>two climate punch -- a strong El Nino warming in central tropical

>Pacific waters, followed by a La Nina that heated western Pacific

>regions -- killed 16% of living corals worldwide (Science, 27 October

>2000, p. 682). Some reefs have rallied from severe bleaching --

>recently and dramatically, off Darwin Island in the Galapagos. " We'd

>given up on the Galapagos " after a 1982-83 bleaching event annihilated

>most of the archipelago's reefs, says Strong. Now, he says, " it seems

>to be really coming back. " However, many bleached reefs are still

>sickly. At least half of those destroyed in 1998 have not recovered,

>according to the authoritative Status of Coral Reefs of the World:

>2004, compiled by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN).

>

>The catastrophic 1998 bleaching, and regional occurrences since then,

>highlight the vulnerability of reefs to global warming. " That's when

>we realized that corals could be a kind of canary in a coal mine, "

>says Jeremy Goldberg, co-author of a GCRMN report on tsunami-inflicted

>reef damage. Delicate staghorn and elkhorn corals, for example, were

>listed as threatened in the Caribbean in May 2006 under the U.S.

>Endangered Species Act. " Branching corals that are sensitive to

>bleaching might disappear, " warns reef ecologist Thamasak Yeemin of

>Ramkhamhaeng University in Bangkok.

>

>Some reefs are more tolerant to bleaching. However, says Hoegh-

>Guldberg, " the movement toward hardier communities of fewer coral

>species is hardly a 'win.' " Coral abundance is still plummeting, and

>even resistant corals may succumb in a warmer world, he says. " As

>climate change accelerates, we will lose an increasing number of coral

>species, making ecosystems less resilient to other pressures. "

>

>A case in point is the widespread bleaching in the Caribbean Sea in

>2005-06. At one reef off St. John, part of the U.S. Virgin Islands,

> " before people knew it, a disease infected the coral that had survived

>the bleaching. What was left was totally wiped out, " Strong says. " You

>can see how this gets to be a multiheaded monster. " NOAA and U.S.

>National Park Service scientists are now searching for clues to why

>some corals survived whereas others perished.

>

>In an attempt to boost reef survival, governments have been setting up

>MPAs, which range from free-for-all recreational parks to no-take

>zones that bar fishing. Fewer than 3% of the world's reefs lie inside

>no-take MPAs, says Mora. Many reefs are being fished out. Raising the

>specter of a pending food crisis, a recent study found that 27 of 49

>island countries are exploiting their reef fisheries in an

>unsustainable way, reports a team led by Nicholas Dulvy of the Centre

>for Environment, Fisheries, and Aquaculture Science in Lowestoft,

>U.K., in the 3 April issue of Current Biology.

>

>Lax enforcement and lack of local buy-in have undercut many MPAs. " If

>communities are not involved, they are very unlikely to support an MPA

>imposed on them, " says Obermeyer, coordinator for Reef Check Thailand.

>With volunteers from Reef Check and a second nonprofit, Earthwatch,

>Obermeyer endeavors to involve villagers -- and here near Khura Buri,

>the Ranong Coastal Resources Research Center of Kasetsart University

>-- in reef monitoring. " This is the only way to succeed, " he says.

>

>MPAs and measures such as stanching sewage and runoff cannot prevent

>bleaching. But resilience -- the capacity of a reef to absorb

>recurrent bleaching and still function -- can be enhanced, Hughes

>says. In 2002, more than half of Australia's 40,000-square-kilometer

>Great Barrier Reef bleached. Two years later, Australia created the

>world's largest no-take zones, extending fishing bans covering 4.6% of

>the reef to more than 33%. " This initiative provides real insurance

>cover against the inevitable impacts of climate change, " says Hoegh-

>Guldberg.

>

>To test this approach, Hughes and colleagues caged some reef sections

>and left others open to grazing by parrot-fish, known by their fused,

>beaklike teeth. Polyps reestablished on open reef three times faster

>than on caged sections, they report in the 20 February issue of

>Current Biology. The study shows that reef management after bleaching

> " has a big effect on the recovery rate, " Hoegh-Guldberg says. But the

>strategy works only in the short run; nations must move rapidly to

>stem greenhouse gas emissions, he says. " It is next to useless not to

>do the two things together. "

>

>A mortal blow?

>

>Until bleaching reared its head, many experts viewed rising sea levels

>as the chief peril of global warming for coral -- and a relatively

>toothless one at that. " We thought reefs would respond by just growing

>higher, " says Strong. " Nobody was talking about changing sea

>chemistry. " Then researchers came to the creeping realization that

>rising ocean acidity is likely to throw a spanner in coral physiology.

>

>The threat is glaringly simple. Currently, ocean pH hovers around 8.1.

>Carbon dioxide absorbed into the water column lowers the pH, and as it

>falls, fewer carbonate ions are available for shell-building critters

>to grab. Even in present conditions, corals are fighting an uphill

>battle: Erosion removes 80% of the calcium carbonate laid down.

>Acidification will accelerate that process as rising carbonic acid

>levels deplete carbonate. Eventually, corals, plankton, and other

>organisms will fail to form skeletons. And coral skeletons are to

>reefs what girders are to skyscrapers. " You have a potential world in

>which reefs and the limestone frameworks they have built are in net

>erosion, " says Hoegh-Guldberg.

>

>IPCC scenarios of global emissions and ocean circulation indicate that

>by midcentury, atmospheric CO2 levels could reach more than 500 parts

>per million, and near the end of the century they could be above 800

>ppm. The latter figure would decrease surface water pH by roughly 0.4

>units, slashing carbonate ion concentration by half, paleocoral expert

>C. Mark Eakin, coordinator of NOAA's Coral Reef Watch, testified last

>month at a hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives. Ocean pH

>would be " lower than it has been for more than 20 million years, " he

>said. And that does not factor in possible acidification from carbon-

>sequestration schemes now being considered.

>

>Some coral species facing their acid test may become shape shifters to

>avoid extinction. New findings indicate that corals can survive acidic

>conditions in a sea anemone-like form and resume skeleton-building

>when returned to normal marine conditions (Science, 30 March, p.

>1811). However, by pH 7.9, says Caldeira, " there would be a good

>chance reefs would be gone. "

>

>The potential for an acid-induced coral cataclysm has cast a pall on

>the tight-knit community of reef specialists. " The reality of coral

>reefs is very dark, and it is very easy for people to judge coral reef

>scientists as pessimists, " says Mora. " We're becoming alarmist, " adds

>Strong -- for good reason, he insists. " How are reefs going to handle

>acidification? It's not like sewage or runoff, where you may be able

>to just turn off the spigot. " Queensland's Pandolfi, however, argues

>that it's " too early to make really definitive doom-and-gloom

>statements. "

>

>No one disputes that urgent action on greenhouse gas emissions is

>essential. " We could still have vibrant reefs in 50 years time, "

>Hughes says. But these will not be the reefs we know today. " They will

>be dominated by a different suite of species, " says Hughes, who notes

>that the shakedown is already under way.

>

>More likely, steps to rein in emissions will be too little, too late

>-- and the world will have to brace for the loss of reefs. In

>Southeast Asia, says Hoegh-Guldberg, the threat of millions of people

>losing their livelihoods must be factored into policy planning.

>Coastal dwellings throughout the tropics will have to be strengthened

>against higher waves. Then there is the intangible, aesthetic

>deprivation if coral reefs wither and wink out. " Without their sheer

>beauty, " Hughes says, " the world would be an impoverished place. "

>

>Copyright 2007 American Association for the Advancement of Science

>

>Return to Table of Contents

>

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>New York Times, Jul. 2, 2005

>[Printer-friendly version]

>

>SCIENTISTS SAY CARBON DIOXIDE IS TURNING THE OCEANS ACIDIC

>

>By Kenneth Chang

>

>Whether or not it contributes to global warming, carbon dioxide is

>turning the oceans acidic, Britain's leading scientific organization

>warned yesterday.

>

>In a report by a panel of scientists, the organization, the Royal

>Society, said the growing acidity would be very likely to harm coral

>reefs and other marine life by the end of the century.

>

> " I think there are very serious issues to be addressed, " the panel's

>chairman, Dr. John Raven of the University of Dundee in Scotland, said

>in an interview. " It will affect all organisms that have skeletons,

>shells, hard bits that are made of calcium carbonate. "

>

>The 60-page report was timed to influence next week's Group of 8

>economic summit meeting. Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain,

>president of the group this year, has been calling for strong action

>to limit climate change.

>

>Unlike forecasts of global warming, which are based on complex and

>incomplete computer models, the chemistry of carbon dioxide and

>seawater is simple and straightforward.

>

>The burning of fossil fuels by cars and power plants releases more

>than 25 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide into the air each year.

>Roughly a third of that is absorbed by the oceans, where the gas

>undergoes chemical reactions that produce carbonic acid, which is

>corrosive to shells.

>

> " That's indisputable, " Dr. Raven said. " I don't think anyone can get

>around that. It's really rock-solid high school chemistry. "

>

>The pH scale, which measures the concentration of hydrogen, runs from

>1, the most acidic and highest concentration of ions, to 14, the most

>alkaline, with almost no ions. Ocean water today is somewhat alkaline,

>at 8.1, about 0.1 lower than at the start of the Industrial Revolution

>two centuries ago.

>

>But like the magnitude scale of earthquakes, one unit on the pH scale

>reflects a change of a factor of 10. The 0.1 pH change means there are

>now 30 percent more hydrogen ions in the water.

>

>Depending on the rate of fossil fuel burning, the pH of ocean water

>near the surface is expected to drop to 7.7 to 7.9 by 2100, lower than

>any time in the last 420,000 years, the Royal Society report said.

>

>Dr. Patrick J. Michaels, a senior fellow in environmental studies at

>the Cato Institute, the libertarian research group based in Washington

>that is skeptical that global warming will cause serious environmental

>harm, pointed out that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere had

>been higher for 90 million of the last 100 million years.

>

>But Dr. Ken Caldeira, a research scientist at the Carnegie

>Institution's Department of Global Ecology in Stanford, Calif., and a

>member of the Royal Society panel, said the difference was that the

>current carbon dioxide release was occurring quickly, over just two

>centuries. In the past, water from the deeper ocean would have had

>time to mix, diluting the effect of the carbon dioxide. " If we put it

>out over a few hundred thousand years, we'd have nothing to worry

>about, " he said.

>

>The pH change is likely to slow the rate of growth of coral reefs,

>which are already suffering from warmer temperatures and pollution,

>the report said.

>

> " By mid-century, 2050-ish, we will probably see noticeable gaps within

>coral reefs, " Dr. Raven said. " Any weakening of their skeleton can

>make them more prone to storm events. "

>

>The increased acidity could also reduce populations of plankton with

>calcium carbonate shells, disrupting the food chain and hurting some

>fisheries, the scientists said.

>

>Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

>

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>Seattle Times, Apr. 24, 2007

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>

>'MASSIVE CHANGES,' UNKNOWNS DISCUSSED AT UW CONFERENCE

>

>By Hal Bernton; Seattle Times staff reporter

>

>Carbon dioxide emissions have increased acidity levels of the oceans

>by 30 percent and in the decades ahead will create new risks for

>coral, zooplankton and other creatures that help support the North

>Pacific fisheries, according to researchers who gathered Monday at the

>University of Washington.

>

>In a two-day workshop that ends today, these scientists are reviewing

>what is known about this grim corner of climate change and

>brainstorming ways to measure and assess the threats to a marine

>ecosystem that yields North America's largest seafood harvests.

>

>The acidification is caused by the ocean's absorption of carbon

>dioxide produced by fossil-fuel combustion. Currently, this is about 2

>billion tons of the gas each year. As this gas dissolves, it sets off

>a chemical reaction that produces carbonic acid, which in high-enough

>concentrations can erode protective shells and other structures of

>some sea creatures.

>

> " We have significant changes in chemistry, " said Richard Feely, a

>Seattle-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

>oceanographer who helped to organize the conference. " And if we

>project over time... we are talking about massive changes that will

>take place. "

>

>Some of the most acidic waters are found in the North Pacific, which

>has absorbed more carbon dioxide than tropical oceans. The North

>Pacific appears to be more acidic because it is colder than tropical

>oceans, which enables it to absorb more carbon, and because it has

>older, more carbon-rich water than the North Atlantic.

>

>In some areas of the North Pacific -- at depths ranging from about 300

>to more than 1,000 feet -- researchers already have detected a kind of

>saturation point where acidity causes shells to disintegrate faster

>than they can grow. This contrasts to the North Atlantic, where the

>saturation point typically is at depths that exceed 7,500 feet,

>according to Feely.

>

>By the end of the century, these North Pacific saturation zones are

>expected to expand and extend into much shallower waters. Last year,

>Feely helped measure the acidity in these zones, and in the years

>ahead he will start to check the acidity levels of the most productive

>fishing zone: the Bering Sea.

>

>Researchers also are starting to understand the expanding saturation

>zones' possible effects on sea life.

>

>For example, there are some 200 species of coccolithophores,

>phytoplankton that play an important role in the food chain, according

>to Victoria Fabry, an oceanographer at California State University at

>San Marcos. So far, only six of those species have been exposed to the

>higher acid levels of the saturation zone. They showed markedly

>different responses that ranged from no effect to a 66 percent decline

>in the calcification process that builds shells.

>

>Fabry also has studied pteropods, tiny mollusks less than an inch long

>that are an important food source for pink salmon and are susceptible

>to increased acidity. These pteropods migrate between shallower and

>deeper waters. So, in some areas they may already swim -- at least

>briefly -- in carbon-dioxide-saturated waters.

>

> " The bottom line is we really don't know " the long-term effects on the

>pteropods and how that might affect the salmon, Fabry said.

>

>Another big question mark is the fate of corals.

>

>In tropical areas, researchers expect major reefs to reach a kind of

>tipping point around 2060. By then, coral organisms may not be able to

>adapt fast enough, and reef systems will crash or be seriously

>degraded, according to Chris Langdon, a University of Miami researcher

>who spoke at the conference.

>

>Much less is known about the deep-sea corals of the North Pacific,

>which are vital habitat for rockfish, cod and many other commercially

>important fish species.

>

>These are soft corals, found at much shallower depths than the

>coldwater hard corals of the North Atlantic that form vast reefs. Some

>researchers theorize that the differences may reflect the greater

>natural acidity of the older North Pacific waters, which limited the

>kinds of coral that could evolve.

>

>But at what point would these soft corals suffer from ocean acidity?

>

> " There is no research that anyone is doing on this, and we need this, "

>said John Guinotte, a researcher with the Marine Conservation Biology

>Institute.

>

>Hal Bernton: 206-464-2581

>

>Copyright © 2007 Seattle Times Company

>

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>Duluth News-Tribune (MN), Jul. 6, 2006

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>

>OCEANS GROWING MORE ACIDIC, THREATENING CORAL REEFS

>

>By Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post

>

>The escalating level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is making the

>world's oceans more acidic, government and independent scientists say.

>They warn that by the end of the century, the trend could decimate

>coral reefs and creatures that underpin the sea's food web.

>

>Although scientists and some politicians have just begun to focus on

>the question of ocean acidification, they describe it as one of the

>most pressing environmental threats facing the Earth.

>

> " It's just been an absolute time bomb that's gone off both in the

>scientific community and ultimately, in our public policymaking, " said

>Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., who received a two-hour briefing on the

>subject in May with five other House members. " It's another example of

>when you put gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, you have

>these results none of us would have predicted. "

>

>Thomas Lovejoy, president of the H. John Heinz III Center for Science,

>Economics and the Environment, has rewritten his new book's paperback

>version to highlight the threat of ocean acidification. " It's the

>single most profound environmental change I've learned about in my

>entire career, " he said last week.

>

>A coalition of federal and university scientists will issue a report

>Wednesday describing how carbon dioxide emissions are, in the words of

>a news release from the National Center for Atmospheric Research and

>the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, " dramatically

>altering ocean chemistry and threatening corals and other marine

>organisms that secrete skeletal structures. "

>

>For decades, scientists have viewed the ocean's absorption of carbon

>dioxide as an environmental plus, because it mitigates the effects of

>global warming. But by taking up one-third of the atmosphere's carbon

>dioxide -- much of which stems from exhaust from automobiles, power

>plants and other industrial sources -- the ocean is transforming its

>pH level.

>

>The pH level, measured in " units, " is a calculation of the balance of

>a liquid's acidity and its alkalinity. The lower a liquid's pH number,

>the higher its acidity; the higher the number, the more alkaline it

>is. The pH level for the world's oceans was stable between 1000 and

>1800, but has dropped one-tenth of a unit since the Industrial

>Revolution, according to Christopher Langdon, a University of Miami

>marine biology professor.

>

>Scientists expect ocean pH levels to drop by another 0.3 units by

>2100, which could seriously damage marine creatures who need calcium

>carbonate to build their shells and skeletons. Once absorbed in

>seawater, carbon dioxide forms carbonic acid and lowers the ocean's

>pH, making it harder for corals, plankton and tiny marine snails

>(called pteropods) to form their body parts.

>

>Ken Caldeira, a chemical oceanographer at Stanford University who

>briefed lawmakers along with NCAR marine ecologist Joan Kleypas, said

>the ocean is more acid than it has been for " many millions of years. "

>

> " What we're doing in the next decade will affect our oceans for

>millions of years, " Caldeira said. " CO2 levels are going up extremely

>rapidly, and it's overwhelming our marine systems. "

>

>Stanford University marine biologist Robert Dunbar has studied the

>effect of increased carbon dioxide on coral reefs in Israel and

>Australia's Great Barrier Reef. " What we found in Israel was the

>community is dissolving, " Dunbar said.

>

>Plankton and marine snails are critical to sustaining marine species

>such as salmon, redfish, mackerel and baleen whales.

>

> " These are groups everyone depends on, and if their numbers go down

>there are going to be reverberations throughout the food chain, " said

>John Guinotte, a marine biologist at the Marine Conservation Biology

>Institute. " When I see marine snails' shells dissolving while they're

>alive, that's spooky to me. "

>

>Copyright © 2006 Duluth News-Tribune

>

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>Financial Times (London, UK), May 18, 2007

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>

>CLIMATE CHANGE HITS CARBON 'SINK'

>

>By Clive Cookson

>

>Recent climate change has weakened one of the earth's most important

>natural carbon " sinks " , according to a four-year international study

>published today.

>

>An increase in winds over the southern ocean, caused by man-made

>global warming and ozone depletion, has led to a release of stored

>carbon dioxide from the ocean into the atmosphere and is preventing

>further absorption of the greenhouse gas.

>

>The study was undertaken by the University of East Anglia, British

>Antarctic Survey and the Max-Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in

>Germany and is published in the online edition of the journal Science.

>It suggests stabilising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere will

>be even more difficult than previously believed.

>

>To make matters worse, acidification of the southern ocean as a result

>of dissolved carbon dioxide is likely to reach dangerous levels before

>the projected date of 2050.

>

>Corinne Le Quere, the study leader, said: " This is the first time that

>we've been able to say climate change itself is responsible for the

>saturation of the southern ocean sink. This is serious. All climate

>models predict that this kind of 'feedback' will continue and

>intensify during this century. "

>

>Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

>

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