Ocean Acidification Resources Library
Articles providing a broad overview of what is known about ocean acidification.
Why do oceans matter for climate change?
Oceans are the planet's greatest carbon sink, absorbing up to 30 per cent of the human-caused greenhouse gas emissions fuelling the climate crisis. Photo of...
An ocean crisis in the making (video & text)
As the ocean absorbs ever more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the pH level in many of its seawaters is falling. In other words, their...
How carbon emissions acidify our ocean and how IAEA helps in understanding its effects
(Graphic: A. Vargas Terrones /IAEA) Ocean acidification is a consequence of increasing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, a greenhouse gas driving climate change. The ocean absorbs...
The climate crisis in the polar regions doesn’t stay in the polar regions
Lilliehook Glacier in Svalbard Bay, in the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. COURTESY HSH PRINCE ALBERT II OF MONACO In 2005, I stood in...
Here’s how the ocean is being harnessed as a climate solution
Ocean waves break onto a beach not far from Breidamerkurjokull glacier on Aug. 18, 2021 near Hof, Iceland. Iceland is undergoing a strong impact from...
The 5 biggest threats to West Africa’s oceans – and what to do about them
Plastic bottles and other waste are some of the contaminants destroying the oceans. Issouf Sanogo/AFP via Getty Images The natural resources that form ocean ecosystems can...
Woods Hole: What is Ocean Acidification?
Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, when humans began burning coal in large quantities, the world's ocean water has gradually become more acidic. Like...
NOAA – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
In the 200-plus years since the industrial revolution began, the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere has increased due to human actions. During...
IUCN: ocean acidification
The oceans have absorbed between 24% and 33% of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions during the past five decades. While this uptake provides a valuable...
Measuring ocean acidification: new technology for a new era of ocean chemistry
Human additions of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere are creating a cascade of chemical consequences that will eventually extend to the bottom of all the...
An enhanced ocean acidification observing network: from people to technology to data synthesis and information exchange
A successful integrated ocean acidification (OA) observing network must include (1) scientists and technicians from a range of disciplines from physics to chemistry to biology...
Royal Society Publishing: Ocean acidification in a geoengineering context
Fundamental changes to marine chemistry are occurring because of increasing carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. Ocean acidity (H+ concentration) and bicarbonate ion concentrations are...
Introduccin a la acidificacion oceanica: lo que es, lo que sabemos y lo que puede suceder (Spanish)
Durante los Ultimos 200 años aproximadamente, la quema generalizada de combustibles fúsiles, la deforestación y la producción de cemento han liberado más de 500 mil...
Impacts of ocean acidification on marine organisms: quantifying sensitivities and interaction with warming
...As research on the topic expands at an exponential rate, a comprehensive understanding of the variability in organisms' responses and corresponding levels of certainty is...
Anthropogenic changes to seawater buffer capacity combined with natural reef metabolism induce extreme future coral reef CO2 conditions
Ocean acidification, via an anthropogenic increase in seawater carbon dioxide (CO2), is potentially a major threat to coral reefs and other marine ecosystems. However, our...
Contrasting futures for ocean and society from different anthropogenic CO2 emissions scenarios
Anthropogenic CO2 emissions directly affect atmospheric chemistry but also have a strong influence on the oceans. Gattuso et al., review how the physics, chemistry, and...
Coral reefs under rapid climate change and ocean acidification
Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is expected to exceed 500 parts per million and global temperatures to rise by at least 2 degrees C by 2050...
The geological record of ocean acidification
Ocean acidification may have severe consequences for marine ecosystems; however, assessing its future impact is difficult because laboratory experiments and field observations are limited by...
Detecting regional anthropogenic trends in ocean acidification against natural variability
...Ocean observations are severely limited with respect to providing reliable estimates of the signal-to-noise ratio of human-induced trends in carbonate chemistry against natural factors. Using...
Economic costs of ocean acidification: a look into the impacts on global shellfish production
...By performing a partial-equilibrium analysis, we estimate global and regional economic costs of production loss of mollusks due to ocean acidification. Our results show that...
