– Not my first post on this subject. See: ➡
– Like many of the pots coming to a slow bubble, this one just keeps slowly heating up while we blithely go on our way. Imagine how surprised many of us are going to be when one or more of these ‘pots’ boils over. But, so long as it all keeps happening slowly, most will ignore it all in favor of American Idol or Oprah.
– I was just talking about the possibility of sudden state-changes in one or the other of the world’s natural systems with a friend over the wekend. We (humanity) have never experienced a major one but the geological records clearly prove that they’ve happened in the past. And it seems quite likely that if we keep pushing the parameters of the world’s various systems, we’re going to trigger one sooner or later. Oh, happy day.
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The question is not whether acidification is happening, but how bad it will get
SAN DIEGO—For more than 30 years, scientists have understood the link between rising carbon dioxide emissions and climate change. But it wasn’t until the middle of the last decade that they realized CO2 emissions could alter the chemistry of the world’s oceans to devastating effect.
Now they’re making up for lost time, researchers said this weekend at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Richard Feely, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said his agency is preparing to release its first ocean acidification research plan.
“It’s going to be delivered to headquarters next month,” he said. “Our plan includes coastal observations, technology development, remote sensing using satellites, an observational network with moorings to measure CO2, [and] physiological research on how various organisms respond to changes.”
And the National Academy of Sciences is also expected to weigh in. An NAS committee will release a congressionally mandated study by the end of next month that will address everything from scientific questions about how ocean acidification will affect marine life and ocean-dependent industries to recommendations for a national acidification research program.
Victoria Fabry, a visiting research scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and a member of the NAS panel, said researchers can already detect and measure CO2-driven changes in ocean chemistry.
Feely, for example, led a 2007 NOAA expedition that found corrosive waters off North America’s Pacific coast at levels not expected until 2050.
More… ➡