Ocean Acidity Study Shows Shells Dissolve With Living Animals Still Inside

[hatrack]

EDIT

The Pacific is getting warmer and more acidic, while the amount of oxygen and the building blocks for coral and some kinds of plankton are decreasing, according to initial results from scientists with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, the University of Washington and elsewhere. "There are big changes," said Christopher Sabine, chief scientist for one leg of the research trip, which ultimately traveled from Antarctica to Alaska.

Many of the most interesting results are tied to the ocean becoming increasingly acidic because of its absorption of carbon dioxide.
"You don't have to believe in climate change to believe that this is happening," said Joanie Kleypas, an oceanographer with the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, a non-profit organization based in Boulder, Colo. "It's pretty much simple thermodynamics."

And it's alarming. "Acidification is more frightening than a lot of the climate change issues," Kleypas said. That's in part because the process is hard to alter. "It's a slow-moving ship, and we're all trying to row with toothpicks," she said.

EDIT

Researchers from California State University-San Marcos and the University of South Florida towed nets behind the vessel to catch plankton, which they then subjected to acidic conditions on par with what might be experienced in the future. "They're seeing that the shells of these organisms start to dissolve even while the organism is still living," said Sabine, an oceanographer with NOAA's Seattle lab. Some of the creatures tested are little snails that are "a major food source for salmon and whales and these larger things and they make a shell that is very susceptible to a decrease in pH," he said.

EDIT

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/265052_acid31.html

[mainegreen]

1. there go the Foraminifera. nt

[jpak]

10. And the pteropods (pelagic mollusks)

Which swarm in unbelievable numbers in the Arctic (and to a lesser extent, the Antarctic)...

http://www.imagequest3d.com/pages/current/pictureoftheweek/cavolinia/cavolinia.htm

http://oceanica.cofc.edu/samplematerial/FossilIdentification/Link3home.htm

[brokensymmetry]

2. You always post interesting items.

Kicked & recommended, of course.

Thank you.

[hatrack]

5. Probably the biggest story of all our lifetimes

The ocean - as in "the whole fucking ocean" - has moved 0.025 units into acidity in about ten years, more or less.

I'd say the IPCC and Hadley and Royal Society somewhat underestimated their worst-case scenarios, wouldn't you?

Cheers.

[donsu]

3. but the world's men in suits have business to tend to

nt

[amitten]

4. Just kill me now.

Christ that shit is depressing. And I can't do a damn thing about it.

[Odin2005]

6. Fuck, here comes Permian Extinction 2.0

A lot of the damage caused to marine ecosystems during the perian extinctions (95% of marine animal species went extinct) was a result of vulcanism in Siberia and oxidation of methane released from deep sea deposits into CO2 lowering the ocean pH faster than sea life could adapt. That extinction killed off all the groups of stony corals and there there no stony coral reefs again until our modern scleriactinian corals evolved and diversified.

[phantom power]

7. No shit, they actually went extinct, and re-evolved independently?

[megatherium]

8. fortunately, with genetic engineering,

we'll be able to replace the modern non-adaptive coral species with new species that are able to thrive in the warmer, more acidic oceans of today. :sarcasm:

[phantom power]

9. Actually, I hope we can pull tricks like that off. It might save us.

[megatherium]

11. I was of course being facetious. But you might be right.

I remember an old X-Files episode, where Agents Fox and Mulder track some hideous humanoid-lamprey creature in the sewers in New Jersey. (Something to do with a ship from Ukraine, after Chernobyl.) At the end of the episode, as Mulder is composing his report on the computer, he muses that while humans are destroying many species, they're creating new ones...

[Dogmudgeon]

12. Change human blood pH a little, and the result is death

With abnormal pH levels, the blood can't carry gases -- oxygen and carbon dioxide -- efficiently enough. People with severely abnormal blood pH levels can die quickly. Those who maintain consciousness long enough have the sensation of choking or drowning; the lucky among the victims feel light-headed and drunk and giddy during the ordeal.

And pH is coupled to gas transfer, too. People with long-term respiratory problems usually have abnormal blood pH levels. Excess and paucity of oxygen and/or CO2 can change pH as effectively as pH can change the levels of oxygen and CO2.

Speculating on what ocean animals subjectively experience is an exercise for the imagination. But, it shouldn't take much imagination to speculate that the behavior of sea creatures should observably change with oceanic pH.

I don't get out to sea. In fact, I've never been. So, does anyone know if the behavior of whales, sharks, dolphins, et al., have changed lately? Episodes of unusual behavior? Erratic swimming, changes in group behavior, unusually violent or frightened reactions, etc.?

Certainly someone must be watching.

--p!