Ocean Acidity

 cahttp://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/indicators/oceans/acidity.htmlption

This figure shows the relationship between changes in ocean carbon dioxide levels (measured in the left column as a partial pressure—a common way of measuring the amount of a gas) and acidity (measured as pH in the right column). The data come from two observation stations in the North Atlantic Ocean (Canary Islands and Bermuda) and one in the Pacific (Hawaii). The up-and-down pattern shows the influence of seasonal variations.
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/indicators/oceans/acidity.html

More proof that we're harming ourselves by not reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  Think it doesn't matter?  It does to these folks:

For four frustrating months in 2007, Mark Wiegardt and his wife, Sue Cudd, witnessed something unsettling at their Oregon oyster hatchery: tank bottoms littered with dead baby oysters...It turned out that "corrosive" seawater, which makes it harder for young oysters to build shells, was largely to blame. Like the atmosphere, the world's seas are burdened by our fossil fuel use and deforestation. The ocean has sponged up a quarter of the carbon dioxide humans have produced since the Industrial Revolution, steadily lowering its pH. Today's seas are 30 percent more acidic than their pre-industrial ancestors. http://www.hcn.org/issues/44.21/can-the-oyster-industry-survive-ocean-acidification/article_view?b_start:int=1

 

 

How  much proof do we need before denial cracks and we actually do something?    

 



The Law of Unintended Consequences

Apparently we're going to save ourselves by geo engineering the planet. In case you don't know, geo- engineering aims to fix the havoc wrought by greenhouse gas emissions by preventing sunlight from reaching the planet.  

Two Harvard engineers are to spray sun-reflecting chemical particles into the atmosphere to artificially cool the planet, using a balloon flying 80,000 feet over Fort Sumner, New Mexico.   http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/17/us-geoengineers-spray-sun-balloon

Vandana Shiva and Gwynne Dyer debated the propriety of geo-engineering back in 2010.    Democracy Now posted these videos on Youtube:

Part 1

Part 2

Debated may be a misnomer, don't you think?   As Vandana Shiva points out, geo - engineering is a  fix by the thinking that created climate change.   And, whatever the consequences of preventing sunlight from reaching the earth,  that won't do much to prevent the oceans from acidfying.

The Pacific Ocean is growing more acidic at a much faster rate than anticipated, scientists say, putting everything from corals to mussels in jeopardy.   Researchers say carbon dioxide from the atmosphere forms carbonic acid in the ocean, changing the seawater enough that it can dissolve the shells of coral and shellfish.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/07/16/bc-ocean-acidification.html?cmp=rss

Can you say Easter Island?    We keep doing the same old things while the bad news rolls in - but it's OK to cut down the last tree because ....otherwise we'd have to change.

Please write the Right Honorable Stephen Harper and instruct him to pass meaningful legislation on  greenhouse gas emissions.  (Yes, government need to do this - just how did your individual actions stop acid rain? Or fix the hole in the ozone layer?  They didn't - international agreements/ laws did.)

Individual actions do count  - especially in a community setting.  So start a Transition Town in your community to smooth our  inevitable carbon descent.   And plant some trees while you're at it.

The Evil Twin

From Al Jazeera - English.

Acid Oceans

http://www.aolnews.com/opinion/article/opinion-the-oil-slick-you-cant-see/19460901

The day after the gulf rig blew out, the National Research Council quietly issued a report on what exactly carbon dioxide, which is warming the atmosphere, is doing to seawater. As the oceans absorb some of the carbon our factories and engines pour into the atmosphere, the "chemistry of the ocean is changing at an unprecedented rate and magnitude," the report said. "The rate of change exceeds any known to have occurred for at least the past hundreds of thousands of years."

Say what?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification

Ocean acidification is the name given to the ongoing decrease in the pH of the Earth's oceans, caused by their uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/07/the-acid-ocean-the-other-problem-with-cosub2sub-emission/

Acidifying the ocean is particularly detrimental to organisms that secrete shell material made of CaCO3, such as coral reefs and a type of phytoplankton called coccolithophori.

We are running a giant experiment on our planet and ourselves and our ecosystems.  What will happen when we live on a much hotter planet with incredibly unpredictable weather where the oceans are too acidic for oysters and coral reefs to thrive?  We're gonna find out.  Correction: we already know.  I can see pine beetle killed trees from my window.