The other CO2 problem: Tiny planktonic molluscs called pteropods are likely to be impacted by increasing acidity in the Southern Ocean. These organisms are an important component of the food chain, but may be find it difficult to form shells by 2030.
Credit: SPL
Plankton are important because they are the basis of the entire ocean food web. If their numbers decline, the effects could ripple up the food chain, to even the large marine mammals.
Particularly vulnerable are the small winged snails called pteropods, which make up a quarter of zooplankton biomass in parts of the Southern Ocean such as the Ross Sea, off Antarctica.
"Big trouble"
Previous estimates of the tipping point in the Southern Ocean ranged up to 550 ppm of atmospheric CO2. Australia's Garnaut Report on Climate Change considers the 550 ppm target for capping our emissions a more feasible goal than the ambitious 450 ppm.
However, the study showed that the new 450 ppm limit may be reached by 2030, providing incentive to more rapidly reduce our carbon dioxide emissions.
The study "highlights the importance of understanding the dynamics of carbonate equilibrium in seawater in our greenhouse world," commented Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, director of the University of Queensland's Centre of Marine Studies in Brisbane, Australia.
"More importantly, however, it confirms the extremely worrying conclusion that marine calcification is in big trouble if atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide exceed 450 ppm carbon dioxide," added Hoegh-Guldberg.
"Rigorous observations such as these should spur our political leaders to make much more decisive steps to curb the rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere," he said.
Ocean demise is preventable
This report is fatally flawed in under estimating the lethality of the dose of CO2 already emitted during the past century. CO2 has a lifetime of more than 100 years before it is ultimately dissolved into the surface ocean where it bonds to H2O making H2CO3 (carbonic acid). The amount in the air and sea already will produce the acidification apocalypse regardless of whether we all screw yet another energy efficient light bulb into place. What is needed to compete with the acid forming process Mother Nature has provided and that is the power of ocean photosynthesis in the ocean planktos. Tragically the ocean plants are at a low ebb suffering first and foremost from the onslaught of fossil CO2. The N. Atlantic has lost 17% of its plant life since we gained the satellite technology in the early eighties to measure it, the N. Pacific has lost 26%, and in the Journal Science last year the sub-tropical tropical Pacific was reported to be down by 50%.
With a determined effort of ocean eco-restoration by replenishing diminished mineral micronutrients which used to come from dust in the wind we might just bring ocean plant life back to the levels of 30 years ago when those greener seas annually fixed 4-5 billion tonnes of CO2 into plant life instead of acid death. Here at Planktos-Science.com we are working to restore ocean health by using natural minerals, the most affordable and immediate possible cure for ocean demise. In the bargain the ocean food chain and fisheries will be restored and climate changing and ocean acidifying CO2 will be neutralized.
Don't think for a moment that conservation of preservation will save the oceans and life as we know it on this planet. We must act intelligently and decisively to safe Planet Ocean. By the measure of this report we have barely two decades to succeed.
For more information visit planktos-science.com