When the ocean absorbs CO2, the pH of the ocean water rises. What's the effect of this process?
Answers
Acidification Chemistry
A More Acidic Ocean
Why Acidity Matters
Impacts on Ocean Life
Coral Reefs
Oysters, Mussels, Urchins and Starfish
Zooplankton
Plants and Algae
Fish
Studying Acidification
In the Past
In the Lab
Natural Variation
Field Experiments
Looking to the Future
Cut Carbon Emissions
Geoengineering
What You Can Do
Additional Resources
Ocean acidification is sometimes called “climate change’s equally evil twin,” and for good reason: it's a significant and harmful consequence of excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that we don't see or feel because its effects are happening underwater. At least one-quarter of the carbon dioxide (CO2) released by burning coal, oil and gas doesn't stay in the air, but instead dissolves into the ocean. Since the beginning of the industrial era, the ocean has absorbed some 525 billion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere, presently around 22 million tons per day.
At first, scientists thought that this might be a good thing because it leaves less carbon dioxide in the air to warm the planet. But in the past decade, they’ve realized that this slowed warming has come at the cost of changing the ocean’s chemistry. When carbon dioxide dissolves in seawater, the water becomes more acidic and the ocean’s pH (a measure of how acidic or basic the ocean is) drops. Even though the ocean is immense, enough carbon dioxide can have a major impact. In the past 200 years alone, ocean water has become 30 percent more acidic—faster than any known change in ocean chemistry in the last 50 million years.