{"id":20105,"date":"2012-03-02T13:23:45","date_gmt":"2012-03-02T21:23:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/?p=20105"},"modified":"2012-03-02T13:23:45","modified_gmt":"2012-03-02T21:23:45","slug":"major-study-oceans-acidifying-at-unprecedented-rate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2012\/03\/02\/major-study-oceans-acidifying-at-unprecedented-rate\/","title":{"rendered":"Major Study: Oceans Acidifying at “Unprecedented” Rate"},"content":{"rendered":"

University of Southern California and 17 others surveyed 300 million years of ocean life<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Increasing ocean acidity can also affect nutrients like nitrogen.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The breadth of this study \u00a0\u2013 18 research institutions and 21 scientists worldwide \u2014 and the examination of hundreds of studies stretching so far back into the geologic record makes this conclusion a singularly solid statement about the present trend.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom everything we know today, it looks like the current rate of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions\u201d may spell the loss of \u201corganisms we care about \u2014 coral reefs, oysters, salmon,\u201d\u00a0says B\u00e4rbel H\u00f6nisch, the study\u2019s lead author, who I reached by phone in New York. She\u2019s a paleo-oceanographer at Columbia University\u2019s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory<\/a>.\u00a0The paper\u2019s being published today\u00a0in the journal Science<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The danger comes from what happens when CO2 is absorbed by the oceans: CO2 and water create carbonic acid, the stuff that makes soft drinks bubbly. It also makes the oceans more acidic. That acid can dissolve the shells<\/a> of \u201ckeystone\u201d species that are the building blocks for marine life. The world\u2019s oceans are already twice as acidic \u2013 a pH drop from 8.2 to 8.1<\/a> \u2014 as they were at the start of the Industrial Revolution. That\u2019s an acidification rate 10 times faster<\/a> than anything found in the record over the past 300 million years, according to this new survey.<\/p>\n

For her part in the study, USC doctoral candidate Rowan Martindale was looking at the juncture between the Triassic and Jurassic eras, 200 million years ago. It was a cataclysmic time when the earth\u2019s continents were splitting apart, huge strings of volcanoes were erupting, atmospheric CO2 was at one of the highest levels ever and \u2014 you guessed it \u2014 hardly any evidence of limestone or coral, two things that dissolve in acidic water. It marked one of the five biggest extinction events in the planet\u2019s history. Atmospheric carbon was increasing at the rate of one gigaton \u2013 about 2.2 trillion pounds \u2014 per year.<\/p>\n

[module align=”left” width=”half” type=”pull-quote”]\u201cThe modern ocean chemistry is changing, and nobody really knows exactly what\u2019s going happen.\u201d[\/module]<\/p>\n

Today, atmospheric carbon is increasing <\/a>at the rate of eight gigatonnes per year — about 17.6 trillion pounds. \u2018Something weird was going on in the ocean back then,\u201d Martindale says. \u201cThe modern ocean chemistry is changing, and nobody really knows exactly what\u2019s going happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

H\u00f6nisch says the team cited hundreds of studies \u2014 the journal had to put a limit on their end list of 218 items \u2014 and looked at many more over the past year-and-a-half. \u201cThe strength is that when we compare these different events [in the geologic record], we can see the similarities. We can also see where we need more information.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Honisch and Martindale will tell you the paleo record has its gaps and intriguing questions for further study \u2014 exactly how atmospheric warming interacts with ocean acidity, and key ocean sediments they\u2019d love to sample that have disappeared back below the sea floor, for example \u2014 but their conclusion is clear: the world\u2019s oceans are acidifying at a rate that has never been seen before.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe things are not as bad as we think, but we don\u2019t know, says H\u00f6nisch. \u201c[And] by the time we do, it may be too late to turn around.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

University of Southern California and 17 others surveyed 300 million years of ocean life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1272,"featured_media":20120,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[128,398],"coauthors":[],"series":[],"affiliates":[],"programs":[],"collections":[],"interests":[],"class_list":["post-20105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-thescience","category-water","tag-co2","tag-ocean-acidification"],"acf":{"template_type":"standard","featured_image_type":"standard","is_audio_post":false},"yoast_head":"\nMajor Study: Oceans Acidifying at "Unprecedented" Rate | Climate Watch<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2012\/03\/02\/major-study-oceans-acidifying-at-unprecedented-rate\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Major Study: Oceans Acidifying at "Unprecedented" Rate | Climate Watch\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"University of Southern California and 17 others surveyed 300 million years of ocean life.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2012\/03\/02\/major-study-oceans-acidifying-at-unprecedented-rate\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Climate Watch\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-03-02T21:23:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/cdn.kqed.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/54\/2012\/03\/offshore-smog-Santa-Ana-day.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"300\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"225\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kimberly Ayers\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Kimberly Ayers\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2012\/03\/02\/major-study-oceans-acidifying-at-unprecedented-rate\/\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2012\/03\/02\/major-study-oceans-acidifying-at-unprecedented-rate\/\",\"name\":\"Major Study: Oceans Acidifying at \\\"Unprecedented\\\" Rate | Climate Watch\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-03-02T21:23:45+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-03-02T21:23:45+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/#\/schema\/person\/ae2ac9e7d64b6fd9c370acdd75b474b5\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2012\/03\/02\/major-study-oceans-acidifying-at-unprecedented-rate\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"http:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2012\/03\/02\/major-study-oceans-acidifying-at-unprecedented-rate\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2012\/03\/02\/major-study-oceans-acidifying-at-unprecedented-rate\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Major Study: Oceans Acidifying at “Unprecedented” Rate\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/\",\"name\":\"Climate Watch\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/#\/schema\/person\/ae2ac9e7d64b6fd9c370acdd75b474b5\",\"name\":\"Kimberly Ayers\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/2ea85f7cfcaf6cfd0640f652c2eb52c2\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/08ee5b5027a2e1a24c1ede24f97fdf76?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/08ee5b5027a2e1a24c1ede24f97fdf76?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Kimberly Ayers\"},\"description\":\"Kimberly Ayers has lived in California for more than 20 years, both north and south. 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