Marine Scientists report: Ocean Acidification Accelerating; Severe Damages Imminent

Sadly the admonition to take urgent action to reduce carbon emissions is not going to be enough to help the oceans. The hundreds of billions of tonnes of CO2 already belched into the air where it has a residence time of more than a century is impacting now upon the oceans. Even if we don't emit even another single molecule of CO2 that carbon bomb now airborne will continue to acidify and deny vital mineral micro-nutrients to the oceans for another century and more. It is tragically past time when emission reduction, as helpful as it might be with regard to the glacially paced climate change, might save the oceans. The only means to preserve, protect, and restore the oceans is to replenish the denied vital mineral micronutrients, esp. iron, and in doing so accomplish eco-restoration of ocean plant life, the phyto-plankton.

Since the early eighties when we sent satellites aloft to give us eyes and data gathering ability for the global oceans we've seen and measured a cataclysmic decline in ocean plant life that dwarfs the loss of terrestrial plants including the rainforests. The Southern Ocean has lost more than 10% of its plant life, the N. Atlantic 17%, the N. Pacific 26%, and the sub-tropical tropical oceans 50%. Those verdant plankton blooms that are no more were annually converting 4-5 billion tonnes of CO2 into ocean life instead of today where it creates acidic ocean death. The most recent reports on this crisis of that carbon bomb are that the Southern Ocean is now seen to be saturated with CO2 and according to the Australian Acad. of Science will be over the deadly tipping point not at the end of this century as some miscalculated but by 2030... that is a mere 21 years from now. The American Acad of Science reports that the N. Pacific is acidifying at a rate more than 20 times faster than predicted based on a fantasitically detailed study over the past eight years with 25000 data sets. The results of their study also showed the hardiest of ocean life barncles and mussels are being wiped out by the acidification.

So while it may 'feel good' to admonish us all to take urgent action to reduce carbon emissions unscrewing another energy wasting light bulb or buying a hybrid car won't un screw the largest ecosystem on this blue planet, our oceans, this simply will be too little too late no matter how much we reduce emissions. We must act to restore the ocean ecosystem and we must be successful in a mere 21 years. The result of our failure will be that as we struggle in the future with the effect of climate change and sea level rising we'll not be able to muse over new beachfront and a living sea but rather will be retreating as far as we can away from new shorelines around a fetid dead sea of only bacteria and slime.