Ocean Acidification Now 100 Times Faster Than In Millions Of Years

The oceans are gradually turning into a vast "fizzy drink:, a transformation that could be catastrophic for ocean life. Levels of carbonic acid - the reaction product of water and carbon dioxide that is found in soda water - are increasing at a rate one hundred times faster than the world has seen for millions of years.

The cause is the ever-increasing level of CO2 in the atmosphere. And as well as devastating marine ecosystems, the knock-on effects of increasing acidification include harm to major economic activities such as tourism and fishing.

These are the conclusions o the first review of the state-of-knowledge about the acidification of the oceans. The report was produced by an international group of scientists, commissioned by the Royal Society, the UK's national academy of science.

The oceans are naturally alkaline but, since the industrial revolution, the sea surfaces have been turning ever more acidic. The report says that if CO2 emissions continue at current rates then by 2100 the pH of the sea will fall by as much as 0.5 units from its current level of pH 8.2. The pH scale runs from 1 (acidic) to 14 (alkaline), with 7 being neutral. And in the case of the oceans, the change would be effectively irreversible. "It will take many thousands of years for natural processes to return the oceans to their pre-industrial state," says John Raven, at the University of Dundee, UK.

EDIT

http://www.cdnn.info/news/science/sc060329.html

And that plan involves several trillion tons of limes. And gin.

May I suggest Gringo Margaritas?

(Edit to get the fizzy one)

OK, new plan: we fix the problem, with several trillion tons of baking soda.

Terraform the earth!

1 (one) Acme inhabitable planet.

Some assembly required, batteries not included.

CO2!

:scream:

I'll stick to the margaritas.
:toast:

for all the times I played with baking soda and vinegar as a kid!
:dunce:

And God has a plan for all of us.

But we won't know until October. Fridays on the Sci-Fi Channel.

--p!
The lion has lain down with the lamb.
Starbuck is making nice with Tigh.
The world is coming to an end.
Oh, Frack.

Especially creatures that depend upon calcium carbonate shells and frameworks. They can't maintain their skeletons in less alkaline water.

Entire ecosystems are going to be destroyed by this, and later by rising sea levels.

It's really very simple when you get right down to it.

I watched that movie again - it seems ever more apropos.

As you point out, the oceans are dying....

Watching some oft-used videos to the end this morning (you never know what you'll find) and I ended up watching 80% of SG.
Almost as bad as the number of Yeats quotes I've seen on DU recently. :scared:

(Yeah PP, You too!)

to the "good" news. It is amazing how much, and how quickly, the planet is changing in response to the human load, and how oblivious most all of us are to what is taking place.

Great Britain and I think Norway are experimenting with piping liquefied CO2 deep into the ocean. This is their so-called solution to disposing of the excess CO2 that would result from "clean coal" use. No matter what they do, coal isn't clean if it results in incredible quantities of CO2.

Greenpeace studied this ocean carbon sequestration plan and concluded it was insane. All that CO2 could bubble up slowly, or it could come up in one huge bubble that could cause disaster.

http://www.news.uiuc.edu/scitips/02/1203climatechange.html

All the groups of hard corals of the time (rugose and tabulate corals) died out as a result of thier skelatons being desolved, and possibly, if they were similar to modern corals in physiology, got bleached as a result of global warming. Modern hard corals (sceleracinians) evolved from sea anemone ancestors after the extinction.

...the stronger the deja-vu. Should this concern me?

:scared: