Since the industrial revolution began, the acidity of the ocean has increased by 30%. What are the long-term implications of this rapid change known as ocean acidification? The “Second Symposium on the Ocean in a High CO2 World”, to be held 6-9 October at the Oceanography Museum in Monaco, will explore this increasingly urgent question.
A result of the ocean’s uptake of steadily increasing amounts of man-made carbon dioxide (CO2), acidification is a reality; but its effects on marine ecosystems are uncertain. The symposium’s purpose is to provide an interdisciplinary forum to assess what is known about the phenomenon and to define future research priorities.
This symposium follows a first conference organized by UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) and the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) in May 2004, recognized as a turning point in scientific awareness of the phenomenon and which triggered major new research reviews in Europe and the United States. It was during the first symposium that researchers agreed to use the term “ocean acidification”.
The Second Symposium will bring together invited speakers from Australia, Bermuda, Canada, France, Germany, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States to provide reviews on future scenarios of ocean acidification, ocean acidification in the geological past, mechanisms of calcification, impacts of acidification on calcifying organisms, impacts on nutrient cycling, physiological effects from microbes to fishes, fisheries and food-web impacts, processes of adaptation and microevolution, and potential acidification impacts from sub-seabed CO2 disposal activities.
Under the patronage of Prince Albert II of Monaco, the Second Symposium is being convened by UNESCO-IOC, the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP).
By UNESCO, mediaforfreedom.com, 10 September 2008. Article.
