Ocean Acidification Unprecedented, Unsettling

Author(s): RICHARD A. KERR

Source: Science , 18 June 2010, New Series, Vol. 328, No. 5985 (18 June 2010), pp. 1500-
1501
Published by: American Association for the Advancement of Science

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40656413

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 Changing Oceans
NEWS instantly forms bicarbonate ions (HC03~)
and hydrogen ions - the H+ of pH. The "acid-

Ocean Acidification ification" resulting from the current carbon

dioxide emissions is massive and rapid, a
combination that is "almost certainly unprec-

Unprecedented, Unsettling edented in Earth history," says earth systems

modeler Andrew Ridgwell of the University
Humans are caught up in a grand planetary experiment of lowering of
theBristol, United Kingdom.
The closest analog in the geologic record
ocean's pH, with a potentially devastating toll on marine life
to the present acidification appears to be
the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum
ASIDE FROM THE DINOSAUR-KILLING these changes [in ocean acidity],(PETM)
but we55.8 million years ago. At its start,
still never
asteroid impact, the world has probably anywhere
don't have a good idea of how ecosys- from 2000 to 7000 gigatons of
seen the likes of what's brewing intems would change," says marinecarbon
today's were released as methane and car-
biologist
oceans. By spewing carbon dioxide Victoria
from Fabry of
California State Uni-
smokestacks and tailpipes at a gigatons-per-
year pace, humans are conducting a grand
versity, San Marcos.
geophysical experiment, not just onWith nothing in the
climate
but on the oceans as well. geologic record as
severe
Over the past 4 years, there's been as the ongo-
a cre-
scendo of concern that the oceaningexper-
plunge in ocean
iment may be scarier than itspH, climate
paleontologists
counterpart (http://news.sciencemag.org/
can't say for sure how
sciencenow/2006/07/05-Ol.html).organisms
Now the that build
carbonate
geochemists are weighing in, and they are notshells or
skeletons will
mincing words: The physics and chemistry of react.
adding an acid to the ocean are so well under-
In the laboratory, cor-
stood, so inexorable, that there cannot be an
als always do poorly.
iota of doubt - gigatons of acid areThe lab responses of
lowering
other
the pH of the world ocean, humans are organisms are Blue, blue, blue. Measurements to 1000 meters deep across the North
totally
responsible, and the more carbon dioxide
mixed I
(http://news. Pacific revealed that in 15 years carbon dioxide emissions drove down pH
sciencemag.org/
we emit, the worse it's going to get. Uncon- (blues) in all surface waters and as deeply as 550 meters. ζ

strained emissions growth is likelysciencenow/2009/

to leave
12/01-01.html).
the current era of human planetary domi- In the field, researchers
bon see
dioxide, the methane quickly oxidizing
nance "as one of the most notable, ifsigns to carbon dioxide. Where it all came from -
that coral growth does slow, oyster
not cata-
2
larvae
clysmic, events in the history of our planet," volcanoes, icy sea-floor methane hydrates,
suffer, and plankton with calcareous Ο
ζ

Statelose mais. There are enough marshy

skeletons
geochemist Lee Kump of Pennsylvania alarm- peat, or a combination - no one is
IJtóvomty» Utiivemty Pauk, ma colleagues sure,
ing signs th|t|pÄ oceanic acidification but almost all of it would eventually
"is
an experimi|| j^)wou{di not choosy to have
do,"gone into the ocean. PETM's carbon ο

§
saysFabry* ||§|SE^^ gïtsh wi| on ä par with what burning ©the IN,

ϊ;^^.^^^^^^-^φ^Ά in the world's fos-

m

Mt ÊM f^§^§§^i^^odmQ9 notes Kump

ifirfctiy spÄM^ 'at a pH
and of
his colp^|^g|ï|;^·; ; ./ .
IfiilMWHPr'"" ~ '" The di^^^^^^^FOoná is speed.·
; Today» "yliiiiiÄ^iiiÄ::rate: ..of release
visi 10 times fester [thai |||rte PETMJy if
<;$^ij&ster,w says paleooiij^rapher Japes
I^^Hf the Univ^sit^l^^lifornia, S|i*ta
^^^^^ereas nature ^||:i^few^thoustöd
I
^^^:|pö«t out thoul|^ ^rf pgatoni of ω

g|iböö, he notes, humans could be doing it

^^e»tórie$. WÊÊÏ-Ψ. "^■ Χ

WÊÊS^^^y^^^ ||^ii;iifïerence. : It ,-:«i;v. ■

|lH^|ít,aboiit ^Jpa§to ipi

^^|| dioxide added to surface waters into
;||;·;
^^^^plll-ilwhere sediments can eventu-

HH^Í55peartobepartKui.rlv
^^^■H^^Kpytsed by rising carbon dioxide.

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 SPECIALSECTION

ally neutralize the added acid. The PETM Colder waters with a suffering in this lower pH
release appears to have been slow enough greater capacity for carbon environment. Paleoceanogra-
that no biological catastrophe struck in the dioxide will be affected first. pher Andrew Moy and his col-
upper ocean, only an extinction among tiny Feely's modeling projects leagues at the Antarctic Cli-
shell-forming organisms living on the deep that by midcentury, all Arctic mate and Ecosystems Coop-
sea floor. But today's emissions are so rapid waters will corrode the most erative Research Centre in
that they are piling up in surface waters. vulnerable crystal form of cal- Hobart, Australia, found that
cium carbonate, called arag- the shells of one type of foram
And the acid flows onite. By the end of the cen- growing in today's Southern
The latest evidence of raging acidification tury, all of the Southern Ocean Ocean are 30% lighter than
of surface waters comes in the first direct, and parts of the North Pacific those of the same species from
basinwide observation of plunging pH.will be corrosive to sea snails the past few thousand years.
Marine chemist Robert Byrne of the Univer- called pteropods and other In a paper published online
sity of South Florida in St. Petersburg and aragonitic organisms. 8 March 2009 in Nature Geo-
colleagues reported 20 January in Geophysi- The other effect of fall- science, they point to acidifi-
cal Research Letters that the pH of surface ing pH is already at work. As cation as the cause because
waters along a line running 3200 kilometers hydrogen ion concentrations they find a correlation between
north from near the island of Hawaii fell go up, more and more of the higher atmospheric carbon
between 1991 and 2006 (see figure, p. 1500).ocean's carbonate ions - the dioxide and lower shell weight
The pH decline attributable to human activi-building block of all carbon- in a 50,000-year-long South-
ties over the 15 years was 0.026 pH unit, ate
a shells and skeletons - ern Ocean sediment record.
drop Byrne calls "startling" in its rapidity.combine with hydrogen ions Curtailed shell growth
Overall, researchers estimate there has beento form bicarbonate, driv- may be fatal for some organ-
a 0.1-pH-unit decline for the global oceaning down the concentration isms. Water naturally low in
since industrialization began a couple ofof the essential carbonate. pH wells up along the coast of
centuries ago. In logarithmic pH units, the Organisms have a harder Oregon and sometimes floods
change may seem tiny, but in absolute terms,time extracting the carbonate into Netarts Bay, from which
Going, going, ... In seawater
that translates into a 30% increase in sur- they need from the surround- the Whiskey
of the pH that may prevail by Creek Shellfish
face-ocean acidity. ing water. the century's end, theHatchery
shell of in Tillamook draws
Now ocean pH is lower than it's been In a compilation of con- itsa water.
a pteropod dissolves in mat- Alan Barton, now of
for 20 million years, and it's going to gettrolled acidification studies, Bear Creek Shellfish Hatch-
ter of weeks (top to bottom).
lower, says marine chemist Richard Feely marine chemist Scott Doney ery in North Carolina; Sue
of the National Oceanic and Atmosphericof the Woods Hole Océanographie Institution Cudd of Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery
Administration's (NOAA's) Marine in Massachusetts and his colleagues found in Tillamook, Oregon; and chemical ocean-
Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, that all 11 species of tropical coral studied ographer Burke Hales of Oregon State Uni-
Washington. He and his colleagues have under falling pH slowed their aragonite pro- versity, Corvallis, found a strong correlation
modeled future pH based on what he calls the duction. Among noncoral calcifiers, most between corrosively high concentrations of
irrefutable chemistry of acidification. Thealso slowed their carbonate building, though carbon dioxide in hatchery water and mass
model assumes a business-as-usual growth a few, such as certain coralline red algae and mortality of oyster larvae forming their first
in carbon dioxide emissions. As they report echinoderms, increased it. partially aragonitic shells. "We're getting
in the same Oceanography issue, the model- So far, field observations tend to sup- a window into the future of what the open
ing predicts a drop from a pre-industrial pH port the deleterious effects of falling pH. ocean will be like in 100 years," says Hales.
In the 2 January 2009 issue of Science
of 8.2 to about 7.8 by the end of this century. In April, the National Research Council
That would increase the surface ocean's acid- (p. 116), marine scientists Glenn De'ath, (NRC) pointed out in a report that getting a
b ity by about 150% on average. Janice Lough, and Katharina Fabricius of clearer view through that window will take
the Australian Institute of Marine Science in more time and money, which governments are
I Living with add Townsville reported on their broad survey of starting to spend. For the European Project on
I The future of marine life in an acidifying coral across the Great Barrier Reef of Aus- Ocean Acidification, a 27-institute research
ο ocean is far less clear than the chemistry tralia. Reading the rate of growth recorded consortium is expanding the monitoring of
I of acidification but nonetheless looks bleak
in coral skeletons, the group found that cal- ongoing acidification and examining biologi-
ξ for many organisms. Falling pH has two cification across the Great Barrier Reef had cal effects. The 2009 Federal Ocean Acidi-
| effects on species that build shells or skele-declined 14.2% since 1990. And they found fication Research and Monitoring Act got
| tons of calcium carbonate. These organismsno sign that such a asevere and sudden interagency coordination going in the United
decline" had occurred in the past 400 years.
| include tropical corals, echinoderms, mol- States, and $5.5 million in NOAA's fiscal
Although the group could not pin down what
| lusks, microscopic foraminifera floating in year 2010 budget has boosted research in that
| surface waters, and certain algae. When caused the slower growth, they pointed to a agency. But the NRC report also concluded
rise in ocean temperatures combined with
% the hydrogen ion concentration of seawater that "development of a National Ocean Acidi-
| gets high enough, the calcium carbonate indeclining p$i fication Program will be a complex undertak-
δ these organisms begins to dissolve. Planktonic foraminifera also seem to be ing" They got that right -RICHARD A. KERR

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