UPDATE:  UK’s chief scientist warns of ocean acidification

The UK’s chief scientist says the oceans face a serious and growing risk from man-made carbon emissions. The oceans absorb about a third of the CO2 that’s being produced by industrial society, and this is changing the chemistry of seawater. Sir Mark Walport warns that the acidity of the oceans has increased by about 25% since the industrial revolution, mainly thanks to manmade emissions.

CO2 reacts with the sea water to form carbonic acid. He told BBC News: “If we carry on emitting CO2 at the same rate, ocean acidification will create substantial risks to complex marine food webs and ecosystems.” He said the current rate of acidification is believed to be unprecedented within the last 65 million years – and may threaten fisheries in future. The consequences of acidification are likely to be made worse by the warming of the ocean expected with climate change, a process which is also driven by CO2.

Sir Mark’s comments come as recent British research suggests the effects of acidification may be even more pervasive than previously estimated. Until now studies have identified species with calcium-based shells as most in danger from changing chemistry. But researchers in Exeter have found that other creatures will also be affected because as acidity increases it creates conditions for animals to take up more coastal pollutants like copper.

Click here for more information: http://phys.org/news185444922.html

New Report demonstrates the effect of ocean acidification

A major new international report has shown unequivocally that ocean acidification due to rising carbon dioxide is affecting marine life, with significant implications for human society. While the lowering pH of the ocean has been an unavoidable chemical response to rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, until now it has not been clear how it will affect life in the ocean. But the report from an international team of 30 experts, led by Dr Sebastian Hennige and Prof Murray Roberts from the Centre for Marine Biodiversity & Biotechnology at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, has concluded that ocean acidification is already underway and is an issue of serious environmental and policy concern. http://www.cbd.int/doc/publications/cbd-ts-75-en.pdf   Convention on Biological Diversity Report 75

Published today (8 October 2014), the report, ‘An updated synthesis of the impacts of ocean acidification on marine biodiversity’, shows beyond doubt that ocean acidification will worsen, causing widespread changes, mostly deleterious, to marine organisms and ecosystems, and on the goods and services they provide.

While the exact magnitude of the ecological and financial costs is still uncertain, due to complex interactions with other human-driven environmental changes, the risk to coral reefs, highlighted in the report, could cause economic damage nearing a trillion dollars a year.

In the tropics, these habitats help support the livelihoods of around 400 million people, while in European seas, cold-water corals have high conservation value and provide nursery grounds for endangered species, like deep-sea sharks, and commercial fish. Microscopic marine fossils show that global-scale ocean acidification has occurred before, but human activities now are directly causing additional physical, chemical and biological changes – at speeds unprecedented for at least 66 million years.

Published as part of its Technical Series (no 75) by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the report draws on modelling, laboratory and field studies by the £12m UK Ocean Acidification Research Programmewww.oceanacidification.org.uk (UKOA), co-funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and the Department of Energy and Climate Change.