Thecosome pteropods are abundant upper-ocean zooplankton that build aragonite shells. Ocean acidification results in the lowering of aragonite saturation levels in the surface layers, and several incubation studies have shown that rates of calcification in these organisms decrease as a result. This study provides a weight-specific net calcification rate function for thecosome pteropods that includes both rates of dissolution and calcification over a range of plausible future aragonite saturation states (Ωar). We measured gross dissolution in the pteropod Limacina helicina antarctica in the Scotia Sea (Southern Ocean) by incubating living specimens across a range of aragonite saturation states for a maximum of 14 days. Specimens started dissolving almost immediately upon exposure to undersaturated conditions (Ωar~0.8), losing 1.4% of shell mass per day. The observed rate of gross dissolution was different from that predicted by rate law kinetics of aragonite dissolution, in being higher at Ωar levels slightly above 1 and lower at Ωar levels of between 1 and 0.8. This indicates that shell mass is affected by even transitional levels of saturation, but there is, nevertheless, some partial means of protection for shells when in undersaturated conditions. A function for gross dissolution against Ωar derived from the present observations was compared to a function for gross calcification derived by a different study, and showed that dissolution became the dominating process even at Ωar levels close to 1, with net shell growth ceasing at an Ωar of 1.03. Gross dissolution increasingly dominated net change in shell mass as saturation levels decreased below 1. As well as influencing their viability, such dissolution of pteropod shells in the surface layers will result in slower sinking velocities and decreased carbon and carbonate fluxes to the deep ocean.
Archive for October, 2014
Dissolution dominating calcification process in polar pteropods close to the point of aragonite undersaturation
Published 13 October 2014 Science ClosedTags: Antarctic, biological response, calcification, chemistry, dissolution, field, laboratory, phytoplankton
Les océans de plus en plus acides sous l’effet des émissions de CO2 (in French)
Published 13 October 2014 Media coverage ClosedLes coraux en blanchissent de peur: l’acidité des océans a augmenté en moyenne de 26% au cours des 200 ans dernières années, indique un rapport publié ce mercredi. Les océans absorbent plus d’un quart des émissions de CO2 émises par les activités humaines et l’augmentation de ces rejets de dioxyde de carbone met la vie marine en péril.
«Des impacts massifs, le plus souvent négatifs»
Une trentaine de chercheurs, mandatés dans le cadre de la Convention sur la diversité biologique (CDB) ont passé en revue des centaines d’études existantes sur ce phénomène pour rédiger une synthèse présentée à Pyeongchang (Corée), à l’occasion de la 12e réunion de la CDB, la convention onusienne encadrant la protection de la biodiversité. Ce rapport souligne la gravité du phénomène – sa vitesse est sans précédent -, ses impacts très variés et le fait qu’il va se poursuivre dans les décennies à venir. «Il est maintenant inévitable que d’ici 50 à 100 ans, les émissions anthropogéniques de dioxyde de carbone vont encore augmenter l’acidité des océans à des niveaux qui auront des impacts massifs, le plus souvent négatifs, sur les organismes marins et les écosystèmes, ainsi que sur les biens et les services qu’ils fournissent», écrivent les scientifiques.
Continue reading ‘Les océans de plus en plus acides sous l’effet des émissions de CO2 (in French)’
Meeting: “Acidification and hypoxia: separate accounts or two sides to a coin?”, AAAS 2015 Annual Meeting, San Jose, CA
Published 13 October 2014 Meetings ClosedSunday, 15 February 2015: 8:00 AM-9:30 AM
Room 210G (San Jose Convention Center)
Francis Chan , Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR
Hypoxia has garnered attention with dramatic die offs and devastated fisheries. Ocean acidification has not yet caused the same headline-grabbing effects, but is often mooted as a grave threat to marine ecosystems worldwide. Chemically, the two phenomena are linked, with local hypoxia enhancing acidification. Biologically, they exacerbate each other’s effects. The connection, potentially, provides opportunities for management at local scales.
Meeting: “Why Is the West Coast special? Acidification, hypoxia, and oceanographic connections”, AAAS 2015 Annual Meeting, San Jose, CA
Published 13 October 2014 Meetings ClosedSunday, 15 February 2015: 8:00 AM-9:30 AM
Room 210G (San Jose Convention Center)
Tessa Hill , University of California, Davis, CA
Ocean acidification is a global phenomenon of changes in ocean chemistry associated with anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere. However, the impacts are exacerbated in certain locations, due to oceanography, geography, and local climate. Along the West Coast of the U.S., there is great interest in developing region-specific knowledge and local scale mitigation strategies to modulate the negative impacts of acidification. In addition, strong linkages between oceanographic productivity, hypoxia, and acidification exist, in some cases imposing multiple stressors on ecosystems. This presentation will discuss regional and local oceanography that contributes to our understanding of West Coast ocean acidification and hypoxia, and to what extent local actions might be successful given the connections between local and larger scale conditions.
Enormous progress in ocean acidification research: new report summarises current state of knowledge
Published 10 October 2014 Press releases ClosedBremerhaven, 8 October 2014. Never before have so many scientists conducted research on what impacts the declining pH value of seawater has on animals and plants in the ocean. The experts have now compiled their results for the second report on ocean acidification of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which will be made public today at the twelfth conference of the Parties to the Convention. Major focus is placed on the consequences that also have an effect on us human beings. By means of this summary, the CBD wants to put the problem of the acidifying oceans on the international political agenda. The authors of the new report include scientists of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI).
“The past five years were certainly of major importance for ocean acidification research,” says Dr. Felix Mark, an AWI biologist and one of the authors of the current CBD report on ocean acidification (to the complete interview with Dr. Felix Mark). Since 2009 – when the first CBD report on ocean acidification appeared – experts from all over the world have published more than 1,000 new studies on the impacts of the declining pH value of seawater on animals and plants in the ocean.
Ocean acidification will worsen and affect marine organisms, ecosystems
Published 10 October 2014 Media coverage ClosedNERC-funded scientists at Heriot-Watt University have led a major new international report showing unequivocally that ocean acidification will have significant consequences for marine life, and in turn human society.
While the lowering pH of the ocean has been an unavoidable chemical response to rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, how it will affect life in the ocean hasn’t been clear.
Impacts of ocean acidification on marine biodiversity
But an international team of thirty experts, led by Dr Sebastian Hennige and Professor Murray Roberts from Heriot-Watt’s Centre for Marine Biodiversity and Biotechnology with support by NERC, Defra and DECC, has concluded in their report, published by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), that ocean acidification is already underway and is an issue of serious environmental and policy concern.
The report, drawing on recent literature and titled ‘An updated synthesis of the impacts of ocean acidification on marine biodiversity’, shows beyond doubt that ocean acidification will worsen, causing widespread changes, mostly deleterious, to marine organisms and ecosystems, and on the goods and services they provide.
While the exact magnitude of the ecological and financial costs is still uncertain, due to complex interactions with other human-driven environmental changes, the risk to coral reefs, highlighted in the report, could cause economic damage nearing a trillion dollars a year.
In the tropics, these habitats help support the livelihoods of around 400 million people, while in European seas, cold-water corals have high conservation value and provide nursery grounds for endangered species, like deep-sea sharks, and commercial fish.
Microscopic marine fossils show that global-scale ocean acidification has occurred before, but human activities now are directly causing additional physical, chemical and biological changes – at speeds unprecedented for at least 66 million years.
The Ocean Acidification Research Programme
The report draws on modelling, laboratory and field studies by the £12m UK Ocean Acidification Research Programme (UKOA), co-funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the Department for Environment, Food and Rural affairs (Defra) and the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).
Through the UKOA programme, NERC and its partners are gaining an understanding of how marine life is responding to the challenges ocean acidification presents, and in turn the research is helping NERC to find solutions to make the ocean, and the economy around it, more resilient.
NERC’s Dr Phil Williamson, the science coordinator of the UKOA research programme, and co-editor of the report said: “A key feature of the CBD synthesis is that it acknowledges the complexity of biological responses to ocean acidification. Changes in ocean chemistry interact with other stressors, and we now know the importance of such factors as experiment length, temperature, and food supply in determining physiological and behavioural responses.”
Dr Sebastian Hennige, lead editor of the report said: “Our work at Heriot-Watt University and in the north-east Atlantic has given us a much better appreciation of the vulnerability of cold-water corals.
“There is a risk that their habitat will literally dissolve away, since living corals grow on structures made by their dead ancestors. These structures will be subject to chemical erosion over very large ocean areas if current trends continue.”
Professor Murray Roberts, co-editor of the report and co-ordinator of the University’s new Lyell Centre for Earth and Marine Science and Technology said: “At the end of the day, the only way to deal with ocean acidification is to reduce CO2 emissions. But for this to happen people first need to be aware that ocean acidification is an important issue, and having it high on the CBD agenda is a huge step forward.”
Heriot Watt University News, 8 October 2014. Article.
Ocean acidification foils chemical signals
Published 10 October 2014 Science ClosedTags: biological response, corals, fish, physiology
THE CRUCIAL IMPORTANCE of chemical cues to reef resettlement was elegantly demonstrated by D. L. Dixson et al. (“Chemically mediated behavior of recruiting corals and fishes: A tipping point that may limit reef recovery,” Research Article, 22 August, p. 892). Similarly, waterborne chemical signals (pheromones) and cues are essential for mediating marine species’ behaviors, including those associated with mating, foraging, recruitment, and alarm (1).
Responses to these chemical signals and cues are in danger of global disruption by the effect of rising atmospheric CO2 levels on aquatic pH. At current rates, ocean pH will drop from the current and historic pH of 8.15 to 8.25 to about 7.8 or below by 2100 (2). Quite apart from effects on calcification, reduced pH has the capability to affect both the signaling (semiochemical) molecules themselves and their interaction with chemosensory receptor proteins. The interaction of semiochemical ligands with chemosensory receptors changes with pH, through the number, type, and alignment of intermolecular forces (e.g., hydrogen bonding, electrostatic potential, and hydrophilic/hydrophobic regions) on bothligand and chemosensory receptor (3, 4). Examples of the pH-affected semiochemicals are pheromones and cues, including peptides, nucleosides, thiols, and organic acids in nereid polychaete worms, Aplysia sea hares, crustaceans, and fish (3).
Continue reading ‘Ocean acidification foils chemical signals’
Reminder: MPhil/PhD studentship: Implications of ocean acidification on the UK’s commercial shellfish fisheries: a comparison of native and non-native species
Published 10 October 2014 Jobs ClosedQualification type: PhD
Location: Plymouth
Funding for: UK Students, EU Students
Funding amount: £13,863 stipend, per annum
Hours: Full Time
Closes: 3rd November 2014
Applications are invited for a three-year PhD studentship. The studentship will start in January 2015.
Coral reefs on the edge? Carbon chemistry on inshore reefs of the Great Barrier Reef
Published 10 October 2014 Science ClosedTags: chemistry, field, South Pacific
While increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration alters global water chemistry (Ocean Acidification; OA), the degree of changes vary on local and regional spatial scales. Inshore fringing coral reefs of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) are subjected to a variety of local pressures, and some sites may already be marginal habitats for corals. The spatial and temporal variation in directly measured parameters: Total Alkalinity (TA) and dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) concentration, and derived parameters: partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2); pH and aragonite saturation state (Ωar) were measured at 14 inshore reefs over a two year period in the GBR region. Total Alkalinity varied between 2069 and 2364 µmol kg−1 and DIC concentrations ranged from 1846 to 2099 µmol kg−1. This resulted in pCO2 concentrations from 340 to 554 µatm, with higher values during the wet seasons and pCO2 on inshore reefs distinctly above atmospheric values. However, due to temperature effects, Ωar was not further reduced in the wet season. Aragonite saturation on inshore reefs was consistently lower and pCO2 higher than on GBR reefs further offshore. Thermodynamic effects contribute to this, and anthropogenic runoff may also contribute by altering productivity (P), respiration (R) and P/R ratios. Compared to surveys 18 and 30 years ago, pCO2 on GBR mid- and outer-shelf reefs has risen at the same rate as atmospheric values (~1.7 µatm yr−1) over 30 years. By contrast, values on inshore reefs have increased at 2.5 to 3 times higher rates. Thus, pCO2 levels on inshore reefs have disproportionately increased compared to atmospheric levels. Our study suggests that inshore GBR reefs are more vulnerable to OA and have less buffering capacity compared to offshore reefs. This may be caused by anthropogenically induced trophic changes in the water column and benthos of inshore reefs subjected to land runoff.
Changement climatique : l’acidification des océans s’accélère (in French)
Published 9 October 2014 Media coverage , Meetings ClosedLe rapport sur les effets de l’acidification des océans sur la biologie marine, présenté lors de la 12e réunion de la CDB en Corée, alerte sur la perte de biodiversité et ses impacts socio-économiques.
“De façon quasiment inévitable, d’ici 50 à 100 ans, les émissions de dioxyde de carbone vont encore augmenter l’acidité des océans à des niveaux qui auront des impacts massifs, le plus souvent négatifs, sur les organismes marins et les écosystèmes, ainsi que sur les biens et les services qu’ils fournissent”. Présenté à l’occasion de la 12e réunion de la Convention sur la diversité biologique (CDB) à Pyeongchang (Corée), le rapport sur les effets de l’acidification des océans sur la biologie marine fait la synthèse de résultats d’une centaine d’études sur ce sujet.
Les scientifiques ont ainsi montré que l’acidification des océans a augmenté d’environ 26% depuis l’époque pré-industrielle. A l’origine de cette diminution du pH ? L’émission d’ions hydrogène lors de la transformation du dioxyde de carbone dissous dans l’eau de mer, en bicarbonate (HCO3-).
Continue reading ‘Changement climatique : l’acidification des océans s’accélère (in French)’
Ocean acidification causes US$1trn of damage a year – study
Published 9 October 2014 Media coverage ClosedSome 400 million people depend on threatened coral reefs for their livelihoods, British scientists warn at UN meeting.
As well as warming the atmosphere, carbon dioxide emissions from power stations and cars dissolve in the ocean, making it more acidic. While it is driven by the same human activities as climate change, ocean acidification tends to have a lower profile, perhaps because the economic impacts are less well understood.
But the phenomenon causes nearly US$1 trillion worth of damage to coral reefs a year, in tandem with other human-caused environmental changes. That is according to a report collated by British scientists from the work of thirty experts worldwide, to be launched at a UN biodiversity conference on Wednesday.
Continue reading ‘Ocean acidification causes US$1trn of damage a year – study’
Global economy to lose billions without action to stop ocean acidification, UN report warns
Published 9 October 2014 Meetings Closed
Photo by Carl Gustav (WB)
8 October 2014 – The global economy could be losing as much as $1 trillion annually by the end of the century if countries do not take urgent steps to stop ocean acidification, says a United Nations report launched today in Pyeongchang, Republic of Korea (ROK).
This figure reflects the economic loss for industries linked to coral reefs alone, which are some of the most vulnerable species to this phenomenon. The overall financial and environmental costs are still uncertain, states the report, An Updated Synthesis of the Impacts of Ocean Acidification on Marine Biodiversity, issued in Pyeongchang by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) at the 12th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the CBD (COP-12).
“When ecosystems stop delivering the way they should, they essentially deliver less services and less benefits. In the case of coral reefs, those systems are essential for people’s livelihoods in many regions of the world and they will be significantly affected,” said Salvatore Arico, who acts as the principal focal point on biodiversity and policy at the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Three Bigelow scientists in ocean acidification research effort in Gran Canaria
Published 9 October 2014 Media coverage ClosedThree scientists from Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences are in Gran Canaria, the second most populated island of the Canary Islands, for a rerun of an experiment that was thwarted by a severe storm there earlier this year.
Senior Research Scientist Steve Archer, post doc Kerstin Suffrian and research techician Kevin Posman, will spend the next ten weeks working with a large German-led team from GEOMAR, Kiel, to test how marine plankton respond to changes in acidity and carbon dioxide concentrations in the Atlantic Ocean.
The experiment, KOSMOS GC, involves deploying nine large floating mesocosms, experimental water enclosures, in the ocean. The mesocosms, which hold the equivalent of 45 cubic meters or 45 tons each, will be adjusted to varying levels of acidity in an attempt to simulate ocean acidification over the next 100 years.
Continue reading ‘Three Bigelow scientists in ocean acidification research effort in Gran Canaria’
Inaugural issue of the e-newsletter of the Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network (GOA-ON)
Published 9 October 2014 Newsletters and reports Closed
This e-newsletter is an effort by the GOA-ON Executive Council to keep the community engaged and informed about all the various related activities that are happening around the world. Authors intend to produce it quarterly.
If you have any upcoming activities or any comments or suggestions of items that you would like to see in this newsletter please email Erica Ombres at the following e-mail address: erica.h.ombres(at)noaa.gov.
Ocean acidification is set to cost us $1 trillion by 2100 as it eats away at our tropical coral reefs.
That’s the warning from a report released today by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, which assesses the economic impacts the problem could have.
The ocean’s pH is now 8.0, down from 8.1 in the mid-18th century. Because the pH scale is logarithmic, this change means that, over the past 250 years, the world’s oceans have seen a 26 per cent increase in acidity – a result of the oceans absorbing about a quarter of our carbon dioxide emissions.
With ocean pH projected to dip to 7.9 by the end of the century, the oceans may soon be 170 per cent more acidic than they were before the industrial revolution – a change that is likely to affect not just our ecosystems, but our economies too.
Continue reading ‘Acid damage to coral reefs could cost $1 trillion’
Impact of elevated CO2 concentrations on the growth and ultrastructure of non-calcifying marine diatom (Chaetoceros gracilis F.Schütt)
Published 8 October 2014 Science ClosedTags: biological response, growth, laboratory, Mediterranean, otherprocess, photosynthesis, physiology, phytoplankton, respiration
The impacts of different CO2 concentrations on the growth, physiology and ultrastructure of noncalcifying microalga Chaetoceros gracilis F.Schütt (Diatom) were studied. We incubated Ch. gracilis under different CO2 concentrations, preindustrial and current ambient atmospheric concentrations (285 and 385 μatm, respectively) or predicted year-2100 CO2 levels (550, 750 and 1050 μatm) in continuous culture conditions. The growth of Ch. gracilis measured as cell number was decreased by increasing the pCO2 concentration from nowadays concentration (385 μatm) to 1050 μatm. The lowest percentage changes of oxidizable organic matter, nitrite, nitrate, phosphate and silicate were recorded at a higher pCO2 (1050 μatm), and this is in consistence with the lowest recorded cell number indicating unsuitable conditions for the growth of Ch. gracilis. The minimum cell numbers obtained at higher levels of CO2 clearly demonstrate that, low improvement occurred when the carbon level was raised. This was confirmed by a highly negative correlation between cell number and carbon dioxide partial pressure (r = −0.742, p ⩽ 0.05). On the other hand, highest growth rate at pCO2 = 385 μatm was also confirmed by the maximum uptake of nutrient salts (NO3 = 68.96 μmol.l−1, PO4 = 29.75 μmol.l−1, Si2O3 = 36.99 μmol.l−1). Total protein, carbohydrate and lipid composition showed significant differences (p ⩽ 0.05) at different carbon dioxide concentrations during the exponential growth phase (day 8). Transmission Electron Microscopy of Ch. gracilis showed enlargement of the cell, chloroplast damage, disorganization and disintegration of thylakoid membranes; cell lysis occurs at a higher CO2 concentration (1050 μatm). It is concluded from this regression equation and from the results that the growth of Ch. gracilis is expected to decrease by increasing pCO2 and increasing ocean acidification.
L’acidification des océans aura d’importantes conséquences pour la biodiversité (in French)
Published 8 October 2014 Media coverage ClosedLe fait est encore relativement méconnu du grand public : le changement climatique n’est pas la seule conséquence des émissions humaines de dioxyde de carbone (CO2). Celles-ci sont aussi responsables de l’acidification des océans, phénomène qui aura des conséquences importantes sur la biodiversité marine d’ici à la fin du siècle. Une trentaine de spécialistes internationaux de biologie marine ont conduit une synthèse des connaissances sur le sujet, rendue publique mercredi 8 octobre à Pyeongchang (Corée du Sud), au cours de la 12e Conférence des parties à la Convention sur la diversité biologique.
Les auteurs rappellent d’abord que le phénomène ne se réduit pas à une prévision pour l’avenir, mais qu’il est d’ores et déjà mesurable. « Par rapport à la période préindustrielle, l’acidité des océans a augmenté d’environ 26 % », écrivent-ils. Le lien entre ce phénomène, qui tend à rendre les eaux de surface de plus en plus corrosives, et les émissions anthropiques de CO2 est sans équivoque. « Au cours des deux derniers siècles, l’océan a absorbé un quart du CO2 émis par les activités humaines », estiment les scientifiques.
Ocean acidification has risen by a quarter since pre-industrial times as a result of rising carbon emissions, casting a shadow over the seas as a future source of food, scientists warned on Wednesday.
In the past two centuries, the sea’s acidity level has risen 26 percent, mirroring the proportion of carbon dioxide it absorbs from the air, they said in a report to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) meeting in South Korea.
Rising acidity will have damaging consequences for shellfish, corals and other calcium-making organisms which play a vital part in the food web, they said.
“It is now nearly inevitable that within 50 to 100 years, continued anthropogenic [man-made] carbon dioxide emissions will further increase ocean acidity to levels that will have widespread impacts… on marine organisms and ecosystems and the goods and services they provide,” they said.
Continue reading ‘Scientists sound alarm over ocean acidification’
Could the acid–base status of Antarctic sea urchins indicate a better-than-expected resilience to near-future ocean acidification?
Published 8 October 2014 Science ClosedTags: Antarctic, biological response, echinoderms, laboratory, performance, physiology
Increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration alters the chemistry of the oceans towards more acidic conditions. Polar oceans are particularly affected due to their low temperature, low carbonate content and mixing patterns, for instance upwellings. Calcifying organisms are expected to be highly impacted by the decrease in the oceans’ pH and carbonate ions concentration. In particular, sea urchins, members of the phylum Echinodermata, are hypothesized to be at risk due to their high-magnesium calcite skeleton. However, tolerance to ocean acidification in metazoans is first linked to acid–base regulation capacities of the extracellular fluids. No information on this is available to date for Antarctic echinoderms and inference from temperate and tropical studies needs support. In this study, we investigated the acid–base status of 9 species of sea urchins (3 cidaroids, 2 regular euechinoids and 4 irregular echinoids). It appears that Antarctic regular euechinoids seem equipped with similar acid–base regulation systems as tropical and temperate regular euechinoids but could rely on more passive ion transfer systems, minimizing energy requirements. Cidaroids have an acid–base status similar to that of tropical cidaroids. Therefore Antarctic cidaroids will most probably not be affected by decreasing seawater pH, the pH drop linked to ocean acidification being negligible in comparison of the naturally low pH of the coelomic fluid. Irregular echinoids might not suffer from reduced seawater pH if acidosis of the coelomic fluid pH does not occur but more data on their acid–base regulation are needed. Combining these results with the resilience of Antarctic sea urchin larvae strongly suggests that these organisms might not be the expected victims of ocean acidification. However, data on the impact of other global stressors such as temperature and of the combination of the different stressors needs to be acquired to assess the sensitivity of these organisms to global change.
An Updated Synthesis of the Impacts of Ocean Acidification on Marine Biodiversity, Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity
Published 8 October 2014 Newsletters and reports Closed
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has been working on the elaboration of a systematic review document on the impacts of ocean acidification on biodiversity and ecosystem functions. An updated synthesis has been prepared with the support of a group of international experts and is now available online. The report was launched today within the framework of the 12th Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Pyeongchang, Republic of Korea.
“This report, CBD Technical Series No. 75, “An updated synthesis of the impacts of ocean acidification on marine biodiversity”, represents an enormous scientific effort by researchers and experts from around the world to synthesize the best available and most up-to-date information on the impacts of changing ocean pH on the health of the world’s oceans.
Among other findings, the report notes that ocean acidification has increased by around 26% since pre-industrial times and that, based on historical evidence, recovery from such changes in ocean pH can take many thousands of years. The report outlines how ocean acidification impacts the physiology, sensory systems and behavior of marine organisms, and undermines ecosystem health. It, furthermore, shows that impacts due to ocean acidification are already underway in some areas and that future projected impacts could have drastic irreversible impacts on marine ecosystems.
Despite the growing body of information on ocean acidification, the report points out key knowledge gaps and, in light of the many complex interactions related to ocean chemistry, stresses the difficulty of assessing how future changes to ocean pH will affect marine ecosystems, food webs and ecosystems, and the goods and services they provide.
