OCEAN ACIDIFICATION SERIES
Climate change and high carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are, in turn, causing a domino-like series of changes in ocean conditions, including ocean warming, decreased oxygen content of deep ocean waters due to reduced mixing of oxygenated surface waters to depth, and ocean acidification.” “Environmental conditions throughout the world ocean are changing in response to fossil fuel emissions and greenhouse warming in the atmosphere. Will ocean life tolerate this massive and rapid change in ocean chemistry, in addition to warming and increasing hypoxia in deep waters? This excess CO 2 in the ocean reacts with seawater to form carbonic acid, which reaches an equilibrium under existing ocean conditions to increase the acidity of the oceans and reduce carbonate ion concentrations, a key mineral used for the formation of shells and skeletons of marine organisms. In addition to greenhouse warming due to these emissions, the oceans have absorbed much (~41%) of our fossil fuel carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere have raised atmospheric CO 2 levels far beyond the range of variation known to occur for the past million years, and perhaps as much as 30 million years.
The image above shows an experiment where we released liquid CO 2 into small ‘corrals’ at a depth of 3600 m off the California coast to examine how nearby organisms would respond as the liquid CO 2 slowly dissolved into seawater and drifted over the animals and seabed, bathing the organisms.Ī major focus of our laboratory is the response of marine animals and ecosystems to anthropogenic changes in ocean conditions – particularly ocean acidification. Physical oceanography and climate change.Bioluminescence: Living light in the deep sea.
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