Acid Oceans
Acid Oceans
Scientists identify another potentially devastating consequence of failing to control greenhouse gases.
Thursday, July 6, 2006; A20
YOU'D THINK that the threat to the Earth's climate posed by greenhouse gas emissions would be enough to get policymakers to take seriously the need to reduce human use of fossil fuels. Rising sea levels, reduced polar ice and dramatic regional climate shifts represent serious dangers to the way of life of large swaths of the world's population. Now a new report by a group of federal scientists and university researchers highlights a different threat posed by carbon emissions, one with its own set of potentially devastating ecological consequences: the increasing acidity of the oceans.
Ocean water absorbs a huge amount of the carbon emitted by human energy use -- so much that it has long been seen as a kind of buffer mitigating global climate change, which is triggered by the presence of that carbon in the atmosphere. But it turns out that oceanic absorption of carbon is not an unqualified good. All that carbon seems to be making the waters more acidic, a trend researchers believe will continue as concentrations increase. This chemical change, in turn, inhibits the ability of animals that produce external shells-- particularly corals and certain planktons -- to grow them efficiently. As these animals are some of the basic life forms of ocean ecosystems, substantially reducing their productivity could have enormous impact on life in the seas, from devastating already-stressed coral reefs to interrupting the food chain for large fish and whales.
Scientists identify another potentially devastating consequence of failing to control greenhouse gases.
Thursday, July 6, 2006; A20
YOU'D THINK that the threat to the Earth's climate posed by greenhouse gas emissions would be enough to get policymakers to take seriously the need to reduce human use of fossil fuels. Rising sea levels, reduced polar ice and dramatic regional climate shifts represent serious dangers to the way of life of large swaths of the world's population. Now a new report by a group of federal scientists and university researchers highlights a different threat posed by carbon emissions, one with its own set of potentially devastating ecological consequences: the increasing acidity of the oceans.
Ocean water absorbs a huge amount of the carbon emitted by human energy use -- so much that it has long been seen as a kind of buffer mitigating global climate change, which is triggered by the presence of that carbon in the atmosphere. But it turns out that oceanic absorption of carbon is not an unqualified good. All that carbon seems to be making the waters more acidic, a trend researchers believe will continue as concentrations increase. This chemical change, in turn, inhibits the ability of animals that produce external shells-- particularly corals and certain planktons -- to grow them efficiently. As these animals are some of the basic life forms of ocean ecosystems, substantially reducing their productivity could have enormous impact on life in the seas, from devastating already-stressed coral reefs to interrupting the food chain for large fish and whales.
posted by Aloyzio Achutti at 7:11 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home