CSM - World's Oceans Turning Acidic (All together now!!) Faster Than Expected

[hatrack]

Parts of the world’s oceans appear to be acidifying far faster than scientists have expected. The culprit: rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere pumped into the air from cars, power plants, and industries.

The Southern Ocean represents one of the most high-profile examples. There, scientists estimate that the ocean could reach a biologically important tipping point in wintertime by 2030, at least 20 years earlier than scientists projected only three years ago. Among the vulnerable: a tiny form of sea snail that serves as food for a wide range of fish. Similar trends are appearing in more temperate waters, say researchers.

The studies suggest the CO2-emission targets being considered for a new global warming treaty are likely to be inadequate to prevent significant, long-lasting changes in some ocean basins. Scientists over the past decade have detected a clear shift toward acidity since preindustrial times. But that “is not really telling you the story” as it unfolds on smaller but ecologically important scales, says David Archer, a researcher at the University of Chicago who studies the global carbon cycle.

The new research draws on long-term data on changes in ocean chemistry and the effect of those changes on marine life. The data are giving scientists their first clear look at the importance of natural swings in sea-water acidification in estimating overall acidification trends and tipping points. But even these new studies may be conservative. Recent global CO2 emissions have been outstripping so-called business-as-usual emissions scenarios, which assume that no country adopts climate-specific limits on emissions.

EDIT

http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2008/12/18/world%E2%80%99s-oceans-turning-acidic-faster-than-expected/

[XemaSab]

1. .

[Nihil]

2. Salient phrase: "at least 20 years earlier than scientists projected only three years ago"

> Recent global CO2 emissions have been outstripping so-called business-as-usual
> emissions scenarios

"Hey, that's still no reason to go talking about taxing fuel, stopping coal mining
or any of that conservation nonsense!"

[DCKit]

3. Yep.

Dog forbid we utilize gasoline taxes to build an infrastructure to get U.S. off the gasoline and into a sustainable future.