Acid waters, dissolving shellfish (ocean pH more acidic due to CO2)

[Barrett808]

Acid waters, dissolving shellfish
MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT

Until now, concern about rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been focused on global warming. But scientists have discovered a second reason to worry: About half of the greenhouse gases added to the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels -- an amount weighing about the same as 140 billion Volkswagen Beetles -- has ultimately ended up in the world's oceans.

While this has the beneficial effect of slowing down the rate at which the planet's atmosphere is heating up, ocean researchers have found that the huge influx of carbon dioxide since 1800 is making oceans more acidic than they have been for millions of years. If not reversed, this trend could destabilize -- or even threaten --much of the world's marine life, particularly animals that can't adapt to living in a more corrosive environment.

So far, the ocean's pH (the commonly used scale of whether something is acidic or alkaline) has become about 30 per cent more acidic over the past 200 years because humans have added so much carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Scientists say this change has never occurred in the recent history of the planet -- either in such a massive way, or so quickly.

"The pH changes that are occurring in the ocean today are truly extraordinary," says Joan Kleypas, a scientist at the U.S. National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., and the lead author of a report issued this month that rang alarm bells about the trend. "Unfortunately, this is not an environmental problem that we've had to deal with in the past, and so we really don't have a very good grasp of what this means for ocean biology."

(more)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060729.POLLUTION29/TPStory/Environment

[bloom]

1. "A Primeval Tide of Toxins" - "the rise of slime"

A related article:


A Primeval Tide of Toxins

Runoff from modern life is feeding an explosion of primitive organisms. This 'rise of slime,' as one scientist calls it, is killing larger species and sickening people.

By Kenneth R. Weiss, Times Staff Writer

July 30, 2006

<snip>
Scientist Judith O'Neil put a tiny sample under a microscope and peered at the long black filaments. Consulting a botanical reference, she identified the weed as a strain of cyanobacteria, an ancestor of modern-day bacteria and algae that flourished 2.7 billion years ago.

O'Neil, a biological oceanographer, was familiar with these ancient life forms, but had never seen this particular kind before. What was it doing in Moreton Bay? Why was it so toxic? Why was it growing so fast?

The venomous weed, known to scientists as Lyngbya majuscula, has appeared in at least a dozen other places around the globe. It is one of many symptoms of a virulent pox on the world's oceans.

In many places — the atolls of the Pacific, the shrimp beds of the Eastern Seaboard, the fiords of Norway — some of the most advanced forms of ocean life are struggling to survive while the most primitive are thriving and spreading. Fish, corals and marine mammals are dying while algae, bacteria and jellyfish are growing unchecked. Where this pattern is most pronounced, scientists evoke a scenario of evolution running in reverse, returning to the primeval seas of hundreds of millions of years ago.

Jeremy B.C. Jackson, a marine ecologist and paleontologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, says we are witnessing "the rise of slime."
<more>

http://ktla.trb.com/news/la-me-ocean30jul30,0,799834.story?coll=ktla-news-1

[genieroze]

17. "A Primeval Tide of Toxins" - "the rise of slime"

Sounds like this misadministration.

[bloom]

18. I agree nt

[glitch]

2. Good bye Oceans, good bye Amazon, good bye Human Race

and every other specie save a very few.
If we let the oceans and the Amazon go it won't take 50 years.

Back to blue-green algae...planetary do-over.

[krkaufman]

21. On the plus side, we'll hopefully just wipe out ourselves

But won't be able to wipe out all life on the planet.

[Barrett808]

23. Not all life, but we'll take most of the biosphere with us

All the complex ocean creatures, anything more complex than blue-green algae. Some land creatures may survive: cockroaches and rats, maybe.

But all the megafauna are doomed. Including us.

[symbolman]

3. It's now time to declare WAR on OURSELVES..

there must be a DEEP environmental SPIRITUAL Awakening IMMEDIATELY if we are to turn the tide, if it's still possible..

Hopefully we don't end up as a bunch of tribes all joining together to thump drums and BEG the Universe to PLEASE turn it all around..

Our lives will never be the same, and it will happen quicker than the Nazis came into power - Isreal, Iraq, MidEast may actually be the LEAST of our problems at this juncture in History..

Number one rule: All Incadecent Light Bulbs MUST be outlawed at ONCE. Las Vegas MUST use only LEDS for all signs, no autos will be used for less than 15 mile jaunts, all americans between 20 and 65 will be issued Three Wheel articulated geared bicycles with stowage for shopping, Streets are now to be closed and used only for Common purposes,as COMMONS once were in the villages.

Taxis will be human powered. Biodiesel rails/Buses will take people for longer trips, the Bus does not leave until it is full.

It is now time to bring back the Horse.

Time to write the book on how to TRY to fix this NOW. Start thinking, this will take us ALL...

[soothsayer]

4. Isn't this something we could remedy? You know, put some alka

seltzer tablets in there or something (ok, kidding, but surely we could attempt at fix)

[Barrett808]

9. We need to stop spewing human and chemical waste by the billions of tons

And we need to close the oceans to fishing.

Since neither of these things is likely to happen in time, we're pretty much doomed.

[mcscajun]

12. Attempting to "fix" Nature is pretty much how humans got Into This Mess.

We've imported species, wiped out animal populations, created hybrids, transplanted varieties into non-native environments, dredged waterbeds, diverted rivers; you name it, we've done it in an attempt to "improve upon Nature". (Those are just the Intentional actions; there have also been a great many "accidents", including people releasing non-native species into the wild when they were found to make "bad pets", and the escapes of various species from labs and "aquaculture farms".)

Certainly, many benefits have accrued to humankind as a result; one is a vast increase in population, another, longer life-spans. Ironically, those same benefits are also two of our problems.

[BrightKnight]

22. ratio of very strong base to water

A little very strong base can change the PH of a lot of water. The ratio of very strong base to water might be high enough to make this theoretically possible.

I don't remember most of the chemistry that I took many years ago. I definitely do not remember how to do the calculation.

[lonestarnot]

5. I had to irrigate in the rain last night and my scalp was burning from the

rain water in AZ.

[NMDemDist2]

7. yikes! that's just bizarre! hope you are ok

:hug:

[lonestarnot]

8. Yes I thought so. Not anything that wouldn't wash off. Just found it odd

myself. And thanks for the hug :hug:

[Barrett808]

10. Sounds rather like acid rain

Do you have thick smog or nearby industry/power plants?

[lonestarnot]

11. Live in the city, lots of pollution of all types. Next time will use an

umbrella. I need all the hair I can keep!

[Straight Shooter]

6. Slime in the ocean is directly attributable to the slime on terra firma.

The biped slime. :(

[Zodiak]

14. It all started in the ice machine

Anyone get this reference?

(forgive me...I have a tangential sense of humor)

I find it interesting and ironic that humans, the pinnacle of evolution, represent an extinction event on this planet that can only be paralled with the KP event. If one does looks into it seriously, one will find that we have been at it ever since we have been a species. We are just far more efficient at it, now.

It will stop, one way or another. I would prefer it to stop by wisdom, and not by welcoming our new insect overlords as we finally emerge from caves again.

[megatherium]

13. The Soylent Corporation Oceanographic Survey of 2011-2012 detailed this.nt

[BootinUp]

16. lol.

great movie.

[Barrett808]

19. Certainly the most prescient of the 1970s dystopias.

Compare to, say, Logan's Run.

[reprobate]

15. The corporation is the WORST invention of Mankind in it's history!

ALL of the current environmental problems we face I believe to be the direct fault of Western Corporate Capitalism.

They have all come about due to the constant and overreaching greed of corporate management and the millions of stockholders who demand higher and higher dividends, or they sell their stock and lower the value of the CEOs portfolio.

Add to that their refusal to act as good citizens because it MIGHT eat into their profits and you have the situation we face today.

I am a pessimist. I think that we have either already passed the tipping point or are so close to it that the money interests will delay us past the point of effective change.

I do not fear for the planet. The Earth will go on, with or without us. The problem is that we have effected conditions to the point that we are reversing evolution. The phytoplankton in the oceans supply us with more than half the oxygen we breath, and they are dieing. The extraordinary growth of cyanobacteria is a sure sign that the oceans are devolving into the conditions that existed a billion years ago. Conditions that were not conducive to the existence of humanity.

For myself, it's not important. At sixty five I'll live out my lifespan in relative comfort. It's my not yet teenage granddaughters that regretfully will not get the chance to live the life that we did. And for the sake of their offspring, I hope that they remain childless. I fear any humans of that generation will have short and unpleasant lives.

Humanity. RIP.

[Karenina]

20. Homo Sapiens suck slime.

Sorry or not, you're right and it's true. The sooner Mo Earth rids herself of us the sooner she moves on to what she can create after the destruction we've wrought. Bring it on, Mo. For your own sake.