Did you know climate change affects the ocean? Some of the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is dissolving into seawater. It's changing the pH, making seawater more acidic; some say "corrosive." This water actually dissolves the shells of certain shellfish and coral reefs. The effects are working their way up the food chain.
A Sea Change is a new documentary about ocean acidification directed by Barbara Ettinger and produced by Sven Huseby of Niijii Films.
In his testimony before the House Energy & Commerce Committee April 24, Al Gore said:
"Carbon dioxide pollution is changing the very chemistry of our oceans. Ocean acidification is already underway and is accelerating. A recent
paper published in the journal Science described how the seawater off the coast of Northern California has become so acidic from CO2 that it is now corrosive. To give some sense of perspective, for the last 44 million years, the average pH of the water has been 8.2. The scientists at Scripps measured levels off the north coast of California and Oregon at a pH of 7.75. Coral polyps that make reefs and everything that makes a shell are now beginning to suffer from a kind of osteoporosis because
of the 25 million tons of CO2 absorbed the oceans every 24 hours."
An NBC reporter goes to Tasmania to cover ocean acidification, where cold temperatures mean the effects of changing ocean chemistry are showing dramatically. The shells of tiny sea snails are dissolving.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is responding to a petition filed by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) last year by requesting information from scientists and policy makers on ocean acidification.
The information will help the EPA decide whether to revise their current pH water criterion, a move which might lay the groundwork for regulating carbon dioxide through the Clean Water Act.
"The agency published a notice of data availability in an April 15 Federal Register notice, and asked for commenters to provide existing information about ocean acidification as well as new scientific data and policy suggestions for addressing acidification. The goal is to use the information to decide whether to grant the CBD petition, which asked the agency to revise its national marine criterion for pH to protect marine life. . . .
The ramifications of this decision are potentially expansive. EPA's decision on the pH criteria could set an ecological goal for future CO2 limits."
A friend brought this legislation, HR 146, the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act, to our attention today. It's something all US citizens can take immediate action on, to support funding for research on ocean acidification and more.
The bill will most likely be coming back before the House of Representatives this week. It needs only a simple majority to pass.
We urge you, if you're not already familiar with the bill, to learn more at:
At the bottom of this email is the helpful summary our contact provided.
The immediate action you can take is contact your Congressperson, whether via email or preferably phone, and ask them to vote in favor of HR 146, the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act. Sorry, we're not yet set up to provide you with a ready-made form; however, you can find contact information for your representative here.
The bill contains many items (hence the title "Omnibus," we're guessing), but of especial interest to us is the Federal Ocean Acidification Research and Monitoring Act of 2009 (FOARAM), which:
Defines "ocean acidification," for this Act, as the decrease in pH of the Earth's oceans and changes in ocean chemistry caused by chemical inputs from the atmosphere, including carbon dioxide.
Requires the Joint Subcommittee on Ocean Science and Technology of the National Science and Technology Council to develop a strategic plan for federal ocean acidification research and monitoring that provides for an assessment of ocean acidification impacts on marine organisms and ecosystems and the development of adaptation and mitigation strategies to conserve marine organisms and ecosystems.
Directs the Secretary of Commerce to conduct research and monitoring and authorizes the Secretary to establish an ocean acidification program in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) consistent with the strategic research plan, including: (1) providing grants for critical research projects exploring the effects of ocean acidification on ecosystems and the socioeconomic impacts of increased ocean acidification; and (2) incorporating a competitive merit-based process for awarding grants that may be conducted jointly with other participating agencies or under the National Oceanographic Partnership Program.
Requires the National Science Foundation (NSF) director to continue to carry out ocean acidification research supporting competitive, merit-based, peer-reviewed proposals for research and monitoring of ocean acidification and its impacts.
Requires the administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to ensure that space-based monitoring assets are used in as productive a manner as possible for monitoring of ocean acidification and its impacts.
Reuters reported today (March 9) that a new study at the University of Tasmania in Australia shows that ocean acidification is reducing the shell weights of tiny creatures called foraminifera. Weights are falling between 30 and 35 percent.
"William Howard of the University of Tasmania in Australia described the findings as an early-warning signal, adding the research was the first direct field evidence of marine life being affected by rising acidity of the oceans. . . .Foraminifera, which live on the ocean's surface, play a major role in trapping CO2 and transporting it to the ocean depths where it can be locked away for decades or more. Disrupting this process could accelerate climate change." [emphasis ours]
If this lecture doesn't scare you straight, nothing will. Dr. Jeremy Jackson discusses human-created ocean impacts: habitat destruction, overfishing, introduced species, warming, acidification, toxins, and massive runoff of nutrients. We're facing major extinctions. Just for starters, he says that, because of ocean acidification, "some day we'll have no seashells on the beach."
Definitely a downer. But sometimes you need that to get out of your chair, no? Jackson does describe how these trends might be halted and reversed. "it's staggering what we have to do to fix this," he says. "We have to change how we live. We have to become citizens again. . . . Why haven't you demanded bullet trains between LA and San Francisco?" Then he became heated:
"Just don't go to the mall. . . . . If you want to really win the war, don't go shopping. . . . We can't unscrew the light bulb. We have to fix everything, at the same time, now. . . . When people ask me, what's the biggest problem, overfishing, climate change, dead zones, I say: Yes. . . . The oceans are in crisis. . . . . Are you willing to walk out of this room and actually change something? . . . . We [Americans] have zero credibility because of our consumption patterns. . . . What would probably do more good than anything is if every young person in this country [the US] had to go live somewhere else for six months."
Jackson was asked what academic scientists can do.His response:
"I have long felt that we scientists are at least 50 percent to blame for the last eight years because we collectively didn't have the courage of our convictions to speak out about basic science. . . . Scientists could make science fun and interesting. . . restore it to its rightful place, not just in government but in society. . . As professors, we have a bully pulpit. We have the opportunity to do this. And I think it's a little embarrassing how few people do do it. The students are doing it. That's the other thing that gives me hope. The students are doing it, big time."
Towards the end of the talk, he mentioned, smiling, that he and his wife are often referred to as "Dr. Doom and Gloom."
In answer to a question about Bush's "blue" legacy, the Pacific Ocean Monument he created just before leaving office, Jackson said: "It's spectacular. There's nothing bad about it. He [Bush] can now say he's protected more land than any other person." He also said, "It was easy. Nobody powerful lives there."
Jeremy Jackson is an eminent marine ecologist based at Scripps Institute of Oceanography. This lecture was given at UCLA Feb. 17, 2009.
James Baker discusses the impact of global warming on coral reefs, ocean acidification, chemistry of the atmosphere and ocean, and growing public awareness of the issues.
Formerly, Baker was NOAA's Undersecretary of Commerce/Administrator during the Clinton Administration. He currently serves as Director of the Clinton Foundation's Global Carbon Measurement Program.
The talk was given at Cornell University, Nov. 18, 2008.
The participating scientists have crafted a report on the proceedings, the Monaco Declaration, released January 30. The Declaration calls for an immediate, dramatic reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, in order to minimize environmental damage caused by ocean acidification. Signing were 150 scientists from 26 countries, including pteropod queen Dr. Vicki Fabry, currently of Scripps Institution of Oceanography (and participant in this film, in the interest of full disclosure).
"Scripps Oceanography is emerging as an international center of ocean
acidification research. Late Scripps geochemist Charles David Keeling is best known for his famous record of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations known as the Keeling Curve, but he also started the first time series of ocean carbon dioxide content in 1983 near Bermuda. Dickson established the reference standards for measurements of carbon dioxide content and alkalinity of ocean water that have helped
researchers accurately measure trends in acidification over the past 20 years. Additionally Scripps researchers have deployed one carbon dioxide sensor off the California coast and have plans to launch two more in 2009. . . . Prince Albert II of Monaco has urged political leaders to heed the Monaco Declaration as they prepare for climate negotiations at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change conference in Copenhagen this year."
Ocean acidification may be a winning topic for some Alaska high school students. Four of them, from the Kodiak High School Tsunami Bowl team, have focused on the subject for a state science competition coming up in early February. If they win at the state level, they'll go on to Washington, DC, in April to compete nationally.
The Kodiak students' paper is called “Projected Effects of Ocean Acidification on the Marine Ecosystem and Social Structure of Kodiak.” The team is solidly in fourth place so far out of the 11 teams in Alaska that submitted papers, according to Tsunami Bowl co-coach Switgard Duesterloh, a former fisheries scientist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
"Co-coach Kevin Lauscher, a first-year KHS freshman earth science and photography teacher, said the team did more than just hit the books for information in the extensive paper.
“We tapped into our local community of scientists and we did use them as a source to really make it relevant and specific to Kodiak,” Lauscher said.
The competition demands knowledge of many different scientific fields — physics, biology, oceanography, earth science, ocean technology and chemistry — and a few others like local history and economics.
The Tsunami Bowl team has been preparing for Seward each week since November in two-hour sessions. The practices involved team discussions, ocean sciences lectures by Duesterloh and practicing their presentation, which is on PowerPoint slides. Beyond that, the team has been doing a lot of independent study."
In apparent defiance of international law (and possibly commonsense), scientists are planning to start an experiment with iron fertilization. The Independent is reporting that the proposed location is the Southern Ocean. The plan: to create a plankton bloom big enough to be visible from space.
"The researchers – mainly from Germany and India, but including two Britons – plan to add some 20 tons of iron sulphate to a 186-square-mile patch of ocean about half way between Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope, to demonstrate a way both of combating global
warming and of saving the whale."
The bounty of iron will nourish a bumper crop of plankton, tiny plants, which will take up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The theory is that, when all the plankton dies, their bodies will sink to the ocean floor, carrying the CO2 with them, thus removing it from the atmosphere for centuries. If this "fertilization" took place on a humongous scale, climate change could be averted. Plus there's the potential for a lot of money to be made.
But other scientists foresee the potential for possible unintended consequences of devastating proportions. Eg, vast dead oceanic zones; release of methane and nitrous oxide, potent global warming agents. Also, what happens when all that sequstered CO2 is brought back up to the surface centuries later?
The UN's Convention on Biological Diversity banned iron fertilization in May 2008, unless conducted through small scale, scientific studies in coastal waters. This experiment is large scale, and will be conducted on the high seas, led jointly by the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research and the National Institute of Oceanography in India.
"Alarmed environmentalists, led by the Canada-based ETC Group, urged Germany's Environment Minister, Sigmar Gabriel, to stop the experiment. The German government suspended it while legal and environmental reviews were carried out, and the scientists expect to hear the result early this week.
Dr Richard Lampitt of the University of Southampton's National Oceanography Centre. . . says: "We desperately need to make this sort of experiment if we are going to make rational decisions in the future.""
It turns out that fish play an important role in mitigating climate change. But it wasn't known til now. A study published in the Jan. 16 edition of Sciencereports that fish help maintain ocean chemistry, specially the ph balance.
In other words, they are natural allies in combating ocean acidification.
Villy Christensen, fisheries researcher and co-author of the study, found that, fish take in a lot of calcium as they drink seawater. This calcium would create renal stones, if retained in excess, so fish naturally excrete it by binding the calcium to bicarbonate, which then becomes calcium carbonate pellets. These pellets then dissolve into the ocean, making it more alkaline, counteracting the effect of ocean acidification.
The researchers went on to document the current biomass of ocean fish, coming up with a range between 0.8 and 2 billion tonnes.
"This study really is the first glimpse of the huge impact fish have on our carbon cycle – and why we need them in the ocean," says Christensen. "We must buck the current trend of clear-cutting of the oceans and foster these unrecognized allies against climate change."
The results suggest that, if we were to foster the rebuilding of the world's fish stocks, rather than fish to excess as we currently do, there would be multiple benefits to human economies (fishermen & the seafood trade), human culture (the pleasures of eating sushi). Not to mention the environment and ameliorating the effects of ocean acidification.
And we wouldn't have to spend any money on the doubtful technological solutions being suggested for ocean acidification. We'd spend no money at all, just let fish do what they do naturally.
Coral growth in the Great Barrier Reef has slowed in the last 20 years. Specifically, the coral are less able to absorb calcium from the ocean water. Anthropogenic carbon dioxide is the cause.
"The data suggest that such a severe and sudden decline in calcification is unprecedented in at least the past 400 years," the researchers stated in the study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Science.
Both warming ocean temperatures and ocean acidification are cited as culprits.
It's time to implement Plan B, to use technology to address excess carbon in the atmosphere. That's the feeling of a growing number of climate scientists polled by The Independent.
The Kyoto Treaty has not served to limit the release of carbon dioxide. And recent research reports that the world's naturally occurring carbon "sinks" are becoming less efficient at absorbing human-produced CO2 from the atmosphere.
"Levels of CO2 have continued to increase during the past decade since the treaty was agreed and they are now rising faster than even the worst-case scenarios from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body. In the meantime the natural absorption of CO2 by the world's forests and oceans has decreased significantly. Most of the scientists we polled agreed that the failure to curb emissions of CO2, which are increasing at a rate of 1 per cent a year, has created the need for an emergency "plan B" involving research, development and possible implementation of a worldwide geoengineering strategy." [emphasis ours]
Technological methods proposed for intervention include injecting the air with particles to reflect sunlight, fertilizing the ocean with iron filings, and placing giant mirrors in space. All these methods are highly controversial; each could create problems of its own. That more and more scientists are willing to consider using these methods shows how deeply concerned they are.
Coral may be the canary in a coal mine, as far as ocean acidification goes, but more far-reaching disruptions of ocean biology may be in store.
Donald Potts, US Santa Cruz professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, expanded on this at the AGU Fall Meeting. His talk was entitled "Geobiological Responses to Ocean Acidification."
Potts acknowledged the deleterious impact of more acidic seawater on shell and skeleton formation among corals and other creatures.
'"It's not just a question of coral reefs, and it's not just a question of calcification," Potts said in a university statement. "What we are potentially looking at are disruptions of developmental processes and of populations and communities on many scales."'
Yet another species which may be vulnerable to ocean acidification: Humboldt squid. These giant creatures—they can grow up to seven feet long—dwell in the Pacific Ocean. They play a key role in the food chain, both as predators and as prey for fish and marine mammals.
Scientists from the University of Rhode Island report, in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that more acidic seawater may limit the squids' ability to uptake oxygen from the deep waters where they feed. And their oxygen demands are among the highest for any animal.
Brad Seibel and Rui Rosa conducted the research. They "exposed the squids to concentrations of C02 equivalent to those projected to be in the ocean in about a century because of manmade emissions. The squids took in less oxygen from the high CO2 water and as a result, their activity levels declined about 45 percent. Warmer ocean temperatures, which are expected to rise as global temperatures do, also hold less oxygen, exacerbating the effect." The overall effect? To slow them down. And a slow squid is one more easily captured by predators.
Coral reefs in Florida have generated 70,000 jobs and $5.5 billion in business for the state. But climate change could wreak the sort of havoc in Florida that sub-prime mortgages have for the U.S. A new analysis commissioned by the Environmental Defense Fund details these findings.
These reefs are already in jeopardy from pollution. Now changing ocean pH is increasing their risk.
"The groupers, snappers, jacks, angelfish, and spiny lobsters that thrive on coral reefs make Florida a destination for millions of fishermen every year - and back up Florida's claim to be the Fishing Capital of the World. On the commercial side, catches of reef-associated species in South Florida account for $158 million in annual sales.
Terry Gibson, the fishing editor of Outdoor Life magazine and a co-author of the Environmental Defense climate change report with University of Miami Professor Hal Wanless, says that "from scuba diving in the Keys to charter fishing boats in Miami-Dade to commercial fishing in Martin County, reef-related sales amount to more than $5.5 billion each year.""
A just-published BBC article reports that ocean chemistry is changing 10 times faster than previously thought, in response to increased CO2 absorption.
Researchers measured the acidity of seawater off the Pacific Northwest coast for eight years. Every half hour, so there's plenty of data.
"Professor Timothy Wootton from the department of ecology and evolution, University of Chicago, in Illinois, says such dramatic results were unexpected as it was thought that the huge ocean systems had the ability to absorb large quantities of CO2.
'It's been thought pH in the open oceans is well buffered, so it's surprising to see these fluctuations,' he said.
The findings showed that CO2 had lowered the water pH over time, demonstrating a year-on-year increase in acidity."
Research just published confirms significant ocean acidification across much of the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. It reports strong natural variations in ocean chemistry in some parts of the Caribbean that could affect the way reefs respond to future ocean acidification.
"Such short-term variability has often been underappreciated and may prove an important consideration when predicting the long-term impacts of ocean acidification to coral reefs....
The study supports other findings that ocean acidification is likely to
reduce coral reef growth to critical levels before the end of this
century unless humans significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
While ocean chemistry across the region is currently deemed adequate to
support coral reefs, it is rapidly changing as atmospheric carbon
dioxide levels rise."
Conducting the study were scientists from NOAA and the University of Miami. The rest of the article is available on the NOAA site.
Oceana just published a comprehensive report on oceans and climate change, Acid Test. We particularly like the graphic on their site which shows the chemical reactions between carbon dioxide, seawater, and calcium carbonate, the major building block of shells.
The report details the causes and implications—ecological and economic—of ocean acidification, and lays out solutions.
The basic solutions are straightforward. For example, minimizing our carbon footprints (no surprise, there, right?). And protecting marine ecosystems from stressors like pollution and overfishing. But we've got to motivate elected officials to legislate these solutions. For starters, let's see if we can get President-Elect Obama to Poland in December for COP-14, the upcoming international climate change conference building on Kyoto. (And make some pretty profound behavioral changes ourselves)
They also rolled out this video on YouTube. Short and to the point.
"The Southern Ocean may be 30 years closer to a tipping point for ocean acidification than previously believed, putting sea life at risk, according to research published in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
Analyzing seasonal changes in pH and the concentration of carbonate in the Southern Ocean, scientists from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and CSIRO found that seasonal swings will amplify the effects of carbon dioxide emissions on ocean acidity, speeding up ocean acidification by 30 years relative to previous estimates."
