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By Kevin Zelnio
The fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded “the response of organisms to ocean acidification is poorly known and could cause further changes in the marine carbon cycle with consequences that are difficult to estimate”.
In the intervening three years since its publication, ocean acidification has risen to become a major research area in marine science. While the oceans buffer the planet against rising CO2 concentrations, it does so a cost to its own chemistry.
In case you have yet to noticed the ocean is REALLY big, 1.3 billion cubic kilometers (312 million cubic miles) big in fact. The oceans hover near a pH around 8.1. Since the ocean is HUGE, it takes A LOT to move the pH up or down. At a pH of 8.1, the carbonate system is composed of 90% bicarbonate, 9% carbonate, and only 1% as dissolved CO2.While we put our Gluppity-Glupp and Schloppity-Schlopp into the atmosphere, the ocean does its best to buffer the planet by balancing its chemistry with the air.
As a consequence the acid balance is tilted lower because while the concentration of each component of the carbonate system increases, the increase in hydrogen ions comes at a cost to carbonate ions, which is what marine calcifiers need to create shells Calcifying organisms exist in all regions of the ocean from the deep seafloor to the pelagic open waters, from near-shore to far offshore, and at a wide range of depths.
Carbonate dissolves faster at shallower depths where most of the carbonate-secreting animals live, such as corals and bivalve mollusks. Carbonates also dissolve a greater rate in frigid polar waters, which are home to large populations of the planktonic calcifiers like pteropod mollusks and formaniferans. Calcium carbonate exists as two forms when utilized by organisms – calcite and aragonite.
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