New study marks first attempt to identify similarities and differences of ocean acidification on both US coast, while noting vulnerable hot spots
University of DelawareShare Print E-Mail
One of the earth’s biggest allies in the fight against global warming is the world’s oceans. Since the industrial revolution, the burning of fossil fuels has caused carbon dioxide, the dominant greenhouse gas, to be released into the atmosphere. Approximately 25% of that carbon dioxide is taken each year from the atmosphere by the world’s oceans — without which, the earth’s atmosphere would have a higher greenhouse gas concentration and temperature.
While pulling the anthropogenic, or man-made, carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is good for the earth’s system, it leads to problems for the world’s oceans as dissolved carbon dioxide becomes carbonic acid and leads to ocean acidification, changing the chemistry of the world’s oceans and impacting some of the life forms within it. In particular, the organisms that use calcium to build their carbonate skeletons — such as corals or mollusks — will have a harder time under acidified conditions.
To help determine the causes of ocean acidification on both coasts of North America, University of Delaware professor Wei-Jun Cai teamed with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists, as well as professors and professionals from numerous research institutes, to conduct an in-depth study that looks at carbon dioxide uptake and ocean acidification in the coastal oceans of North America.
While ocean acidification in North America has been studied in smaller, specific areas before, this is the first time that researchers have compared data from the east coast, west coast and Gulf of Mexico locations.
Through this work, researchers were able to identify the similarities and differences of ocean acidification on both coasts, as well as point out hot spots that will be particularly vulnerable to ocean acidification in the future. The results of that research were recently published in Nature Communications.
North American coasts
Cai said that in order to adequately research ocean acidification, the work cannot be done by just a few people from one region or even one country. This study involved researchers in the United States, Mexico and Canada.
“In North America, as well as globally, we’re trying to get as many countries involved as possible,” said Cai, the Mary A.S. Lighthipe Professor in the School of Marine Science and Policy in UD’s College of Earth, Ocean and Environment.
For this particular project, the goal was to synthesize their findings to show how ocean acidification works in general for coastal oceans in North America and how those interact with the more localized physical and biological processes.
“Ocean acidification is everywhere, but this paper basically shows that, depending on the location, it can manifest very differently,” said Cai.
Sampling the same latitudinal locations on the east and west coasts, as well as the Gulf of Mexico, over the course of several research cruises, allowed the researchers to see different patterns for the east coast and the west coast of North America.
The near equilibrium of ocean waters with the atmospheric carbon dioxide controls the large pattern of ocean acidification on the east coast and Gulf of Mexico while on the west coast, the ocean acidification is enhanced by an additional process known as upwelling.
In the ocean waters of the east coast, the northbound Gulf Stream Current system brings warm, high-salinity waters from the tropics while the southbound Labrador Current brings cold, low-salinity waters from the Arctic and subarctic regions.
Northern waters on the east coast are particularly sensitive to atmospheric carbon dioxide uptake, as the colder ocean temperature allows the ocean to take more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Rising carbon dioxide levels upset the balance of carbonate ions in seawater, making it difficult for some organisms, which have shells composed of the mineral calcium carbonate, to form their shells. Many of the organisms that are affected are critical for ecosystem health.
“The northeast and western coastal communities are very aware of this potential harm that ocean acidification could bring to their region because the marine organisms become more vulnerable sooner in the northern waters,” said Cai.
In the east coast’s warmer southern waters, the researchers observed lower levels of dissolved inorganic carbon and a higher mineral saturation state, meaning that acidity is lower here when compared to the northern waters.
On the west coast, a section of the ocean is influenced by the California Current System (CCS), which extends from the United States and Canadian border to Baja California. The CCS is characterized by strong, cold currents, and wind-driven upwelling events.
Upwelling brings colder, nutrient-rich subsurface waters to the ocean’s surface to replace surface water that has been pushed away by winds. “The water from the subsurface has low pH and high carbon dioxide, which causes stress to the biological system,” said co-author Richard Feely of NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL). “So the combination of the uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and the upwelling of CO2-rich low-pH water from below leads to enhanced acidification in this region.” This study was the first time that the two coasts were compared side by side to explain their larger features.
“We tried to give the community, particularly the shellfish community or the stakeholders that care about the large-scale ocean acidification, the sense that both the northern waters and at these upwelling centers are most vulnerable to atmospheric CO2 increases,” said Cai.
Areas of concern include the CCS and northern-latitude coastal regions, such as the Gulf of Maine in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Alaska in the Pacific, as they are particularly sensitive and vulnerable to anthropogenic carbon dioxide forcing.
The research cruises took place between 2007 and 2018 — with future ones scheduled for summer of 2020, 2021 and 2022 — and the researchers would be out on the water for 35 to 40 days at a time.
Cai said that this data collection would not have been possible without the large numbers of international collaborators. He is hopeful that by putting all of this data together, it can be used for future ocean acidification research. Cai also would like to expand this analysis to global scale.
“The different regional collaboration and synthesis efforts to put data together is really important,” said Cai. “We need more of this kind of synthesis work to teach us how these different processes create regions of high and low vulnerability of marine life to ocean acidification.”
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Utter, utter BS.
“While pulling the anthropogenic, or man-made, carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is good for the earth’s system, it leads to problems for the world’s oceans as dissolved carbon dioxide becomes carbonic acid and leads to ocean acidification, changing the chemistry of the world’s oceans and impacting some of the life forms within it. In particular, the organisms that use calcium to build their carbonate skeletons — such as corals or mollusks — will have a harder time under acidified conditions.”
Why don’t they conclude CO2 is wot done it and go home on a health pension? Talk about studying something with preconceived conclusions.
I got as far as “….. CO2, the dominant greenhouse gas…..” and gave up.
Quote from the above post: ‘it leads to problems for the world’s oceans as dissolved carbon dioxide becomes carbonic acid and leads to ocean acidification.’
When will this nonsense ever end? The oceans are buffered (buffered solutions resist pH change), and are a complex varying mixture of organic and inorganic material. Why do these so-called ‘climate scientists’ not perform a simple experiment in which levels of CO2 are varied above a tank full of seawater agitated under defined conditions of temperature and pressure? For example, does the pH change if the CO2 concentration above the water is altered by 1ppm? 10ppm? 100ppm? Such an experiment should also be duplicated in other laboratories around the world to supply conclusive proof as to the levels of CO2 required to change oceanic pH.
There is of course the misleading use of the term ‘acidification’, whereby any slight reduction in pH is referred to as ‘acidification’ – so a change from a pH of 14.00 to 13.99 would be considered as ‘acidification’.
Such are the ways of the climate change industry – keep the scare going, and keep the grant money rolling in for pointless so-called research.
I despair.
Not one mention of pH value!?
To some people the oceans are alkaline with little chance of ever getting acid.
But, I suppose a headline stating that the oceans could become slightly less alkaline, would be a little lame.
CO2 is not just a dissolved gas, it forms calcium and magnesium bicarbonate. This species likely buffers the pH. It is quite stable in cold water but breaks down in warm water (with the help of microorganisms) releasing CO2 and sequestering calcium carbonate. Limestone forms in warm shallow seas essentially sequestering CO2.
There are a few things about the causation of ocean acidification by fossil fuel emissions that “JUST DON’T ADD UP”.
Four links below.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/12/14/ocean-acidification-2019/
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/02/27/a-co2-nightmare-hydrothermal-vents/
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/10/01/agw-oceans/
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/01/22/fossil-fuel-emissions-dissolving-the-sea-floor/
I often point out that before the oceans become ‘acidic’…first they must become ‘fresh’.
I love that look the Warmists get as they absorb this fact.
Ocean Acidification? Does not pass the litmus test.
This guy is working on his PhD and didn’t take Chemical Oceanography? BS, it’s a requirement. He seems to have forgotten a few things from Marine Biology 101 too.
Hell it’s been 20 years since I took those classes and can point out the massive errors in the assumptions.
I’m not even going to bother with , “to synthesize their findings”….um…….what?
Thank goodness no one ever gave Cai a tape measure to play with, just think of the harm he could have done to science with that.
The word “acidification ” appears 17 times in this diatribe.
And we all know if you repeat a lie often enough…..
“Rising carbon dioxide levels upset the balance of carbonate ions in seawater, making it difficult for some organisms, which have shells composed of the mineral calcium carbonate, to form their shells.”
Erm.. no.
I’ve noticed my table salt is more acid too…of course, it is exposed to CO2!
One of the Earth’s biggest allies in the fight against global warming…
These so-called wars can never be won…
Losing the War Against Obesity: The Need for a Developmental Perspective – https://stm.sciencemag.org/content/3/93/93cm19.full
The war on drugs has been lost – https://www.ft.com/content/c9719098-964d-11e8-95f8-8640db9060a7
Ad nauseam.
adequately research ocean acidification
Somebody teach these people about the pH scale.
This is just sad. CO2 in the oceans is significantly – likely mostly – a function of the ecosystem much like CO2 in the atmosphere.
The Earth is greening – no doubt the oceans are too.
Tunnel visioned, transparent advocacy at best.
“In the east coast’s warmer southern waters, the researchers observed lower levels of dissolved inorganic carbon and a higher mineral saturation state, meaning that [b]acidity is lower[/b] here when compared to the northern waters.”
Just what does this mean? What a joke for a scientific paper. Does it mean pH is lower or higher? How can acidity be lower when it remains alkaline?
I thought it might be topical to study which humans exhale the most CO2 over time by race sex age physical attributes dietary habits occupation and voting intentions to add to our understanding of how to tackle climate change. No sea or air creatures would be harmed in undertaking this important research. All those in favour of favourable support for their own important climate change research grants?
Enough with the acid business — https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jembe.2014.07.011
“We examined seasonal differences in invertebrate community structure between two distinct pH zones: control (pH 8.1) and acidified (pH 7.8) and show that many groups of invertebrate taxa were robust to acidification effects.” and “The survival pH level for this nemertean ranged from 5.00 to 9.20” https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jembe.2005.07.003
From the above fluff piece out of the University of Delaware:
“While pulling the anthropogenic, or man-made, carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is good for the earth’s system, it leads to problems for the world’s oceans as dissolved carbon dioxide becomes carbonic acid and leads to ocean acidification, changing the chemistry of the world’s oceans and impacting some of the life forms within it.”
Gee, I wonder how the world’s oceans are able to distinguish man-made CO2 from naturally-occurring CO2? And the percentage of man-made CO2 in the world’s atmosphere is never mentioned . . . why is that?
And there is this, from the same blurb:
“Ocean acidification is everywhere, but this paper basically shows that, depending on the location, it can manifest very differently”.
Well, all truly competent ocean scientists will admit that the world’s oceans are relatively-strongly buffered solutions. In simple terms, when CO2 from the atmosphere reacts with seawater, it immediately forms carbonic acid (H2CO3), which in itself is unstable. This further dissociates to form bicarbonate and carbonate ions. The bicarbonate and carbonate ions create the buffering capacity inherent in seawater; that is, seawater can resist drastic pH changes even after the addition of weak bases and acids.
There really is no wonder as to why seawater buffering, and the related Revelle Factor, were never mentioned in the University of Delaware article . . . it’s commonly called “carrying a hidden agenda”.
“carbon dioxide, the dominant greenhouse gas”
If they are going to start off with an utter lie, what’s the use of reading further?
The price of oysters has not risen. This will always be the most important datum concerning so-called Ocean “Acidification.”
Until the prices of oysters do rise, the oysters are doing fine, the lobsters and clams and all the crustaceans are doing fine.
The article states, ” In particular, the organisms that use calcium to build their carbonate skeletons — such as corals or mollusks — will have a harder time under acidified conditions.” Where is the quantification associated with such a broad claim? I thought that only geologists engaged in hand waving while waxing eloquent on such topics as Precambrian bio-geopoetry. However, these individuals frequently engage in pejorative claims without any numerical context. That is, what changes in pH result in what percentage increase in energy consumption for the growth of shells/skeletons, and what are the quantitative consequences for that energy requirement?
Thanks to Greg posting a link for the actual article, I have skimmed that and find it similarly does not have quantitative justifications for such claims.
Despite an attempt to blame humans for the conditions along the California coast, it is obvious that their agenda-driven rationalization is illogical. The upwelling water is so cold and saturated with CO2 that it outgasses on the surface and actually adds CO2 to the local atmosphere, rather than absorb anthropogenic CO2. Rather than combining, the CO2 goes from the high concentration (water) to the lower concentration (atmosphere). It is pathetic that they have lost their objectivity and have to place everything in the context that everything Man does is bad and it affects everything.
The absurdity gets magnified when the ocean waters have an estimated 38,000 GT in it, while the atmosphere has around 760 GT in it, so when a small amount of CO2 enters the ocean waters, the effect is so small that it is irrelevant….., Ocean waters already have 99% of free CO2 of the system in it.
https://worldoceanreview.com/en/wor-1/ocean-chemistry/co2-reservoir/