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Earth Science

Sea Acidity Has Reached Critical Levels, Threatening Entire Ecosystem 132

Posted by msmash from the grave-concerns dept.
The world's oceans are in worse health than realised, scientists have said today, as they warn that a key measurement shows we are "running out of time" to protect marine ecosystems. From a report: Ocean acidification, often called the "evil twin" of the climate crisis, is caused when carbon dioxide is rapidly absorbed by the ocean, where it reacts with water molecules leading to a fall in the pH level of the seawater. It damages coral reefs and other ocean habitats and, in extreme cases, can dissolve the shells of marine creatures.

Until now, ocean acidification had not been deemed to have crossed its "planetary boundary." The planetary boundaries are the natural limits of key global systems -- such as climate, water and wildlife diversity -- beyond which their ability to maintain a healthy planet is in danger of failing. Six of the nine had been crossed already, scientists said last year. However, a new study by the UK's Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML), the Washington-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Oregon State University's Co-operative Institute for Marine Resources Studies found that ocean acidification's "boundary" was also reached about five years ago.

Sea Acidity Has Reached Critical Levels, Threatening Entire Ecosystem More | Reply

Sea Acidity Has Reached Critical Levels, Threatening Entire Ecosystem

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  • Fire the scientists (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 09, 2025 @12:24PM (#65437713)

    Just fire the scientists and then we won't have to worry about this. Not like they ever tried to warn us about things like leaded gasoline...

  • The hits just keep on coming. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by laxr5rs ( 2658895 ) on Monday June 09, 2025 @12:30PM (#65437737)
    Glad we have a president who's so on it... wait... no we don't. He's on something... holy shit.

    • Re:The hits just keep on coming. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Monday June 09, 2025 @12:43PM (#65437771)
      I'm just glad those 14 trans girls in MidWest America can no longer play field hockey in high school. I was really worried for a moment there and I think it's clear that I have always cared deeply about girls high school field hockey...

      Wait that didn't come out right.

      Seriously I think we should stop teaching economics at the high school level and just do an entire semester on moral panics and how they are used to manipulate people.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Trump went from "climate change is a hoax" to "it's real, but caused by illegals farting".

  • What's the worst that can happen if life in the oceans dies out? /s

  • Such a surprise (Score:3)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Monday June 09, 2025 @12:36PM (#65437755)

    This is just another stage on the way to things getting really, really bad. Entirely predictable.

    • Hey...as long as the earth doesn't go tits up before I'm done with her....I'm good.

      • Who cares about air, water, and food as long as we have our mobile distraction screens fed with junk from billions poured into AI and hypothetical colony missions to the moon and Mars?

        I was a hair's breadth from death over a year ago, thus any time since then is just standing in the queue for the final moment. Might as well join the ignorant masses and just have fun watching the fires surrounding us burn. It's a pretty light show.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Found the psychopath.

  • I would like to know how acidification was resolved in earlier times of high CO2 presence. What are the feedback loops?

  • Info about it happening (Score:4, Insightful)

    by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Monday June 09, 2025 @12:55PM (#65437815)
    Is ancient news. Nobody is gonna take action because of new info. Nobody. The third of the population that cares and could do something about it was on the move 20 years ago. But a third of the population is too poor or apathetic to care, and a third of the population actively opposes doing anything about it. The first third got overruled and that’s not gonna change. We will do something about it as a species when the consequences actually land in our laps. Or, when they hit us in the teeth like a brick, is probably a better analogy. Its gonna be painful.

    • We will do something about it as a species when the consequences actually land in our laps. Or, when they hit us in the teeth like a brick, is probably a better analogy. It's gonna be painful.

      You missed the best part! When it get painful, the one's that did nothing will cry out, "Why didn't someone warn us this would happen?" and "We need help!"
      The perpetual victimhood of humanity is a constant embarrassment.

  • It's called placebo. Every woman has one.

  • A take (Score:5, Interesting)

    by G ( 2545 ) on Monday June 09, 2025 @01:52PM (#65437971)

    So, glad this place is for geeks and nerds 'cause I'm about to double down. Not only am I a programmer/tech leader (ret.) but I've also been a reefkeeper for even longer - and I started out on trash-80 mod I and PDPs. In laymans terms I have aquariums and I keep corals, fish, inverts, etc.

    Now, I neither push the climate panic or climate denier line. I, personally, think it's something to pay attention to - I don't think (hope?) any of us would argue that chemistry actually exists. However, I do think the climate scientists made a HUGE strategic error yelling that the sky is falling from every rooftop they have access to and now Mr & Mrs J. Doe are bored and numb.

    I've said for the past 20 years or so that modeling the climate on the level and timeframes they've been claiming is absolutely impossible from a resource and compute standpoint - see all the revised predictions. For the same time, though, I've been saying I *AM* concerned about the interaction of CO2 with the planets oceans - and that's something I do know something about.

    Ocean chemistry is pretty well known, fascinating, and pretty accessible, frankly (after all, I get it). I have seen, first hand, in my own home(s), on multiple occasions the effect that a surplus of CO2 on ocean life. Most modern houses are far too well sealed to allow for gas exchange with the atmosphere at large. So with people, kids, dogs, cats, etc consuming the oxygen and filling the place up with CO2 you have to be careful caring for reefs in a house. There are many times I've had to bake baking soda (sodium bi-carbonate) into sodium carbonate to deal with some emergency or another (add to water to capture carbon and it precipitates out). Or, and I don't remember what the material is, off the top, but there's a material that you can run air through on the way to a protein skimmer or other piece of equipment that injects air into the water to remove CO2 (think it's the same stuff that CO2 scrubbers use).

    Anyway, the effects that I have personally seen are that corals do struggle to build skeletal material, and can, in fact, lose material as can other inverts (think snails, shellfish, etc). The ideal for marine water is a little north of 8 (8.1-8.2 if I remember correctly - I'm not running a reef right now). And, of course, if the PH is low enough, long enough, mortality goes up across the board.

    Anyway, not screaming that the sky is falling, but this is a VERY easy piece of science to check up on yourself - can even run a cheap experiment at home (my daughter did for an elementary science fair project). My only point is that it IS something to pay attention to, definitely. And it's relatively easy to understand, and even see it yourself in action.

    (sorry for the text wall, it's been years since I've posted anything, so : b)

    • Though anecdotal, thank you for this. I'll go further to say that my own anecdotal observations, both in captivity and in the wild, are similar to your own. I'd say that the ideal PH range is 8.05 - 8.15 and we're definitely pushing the lower end of that range right now.

      https://www.epa.gov/climate-in... [epa.gov]

      But, I'll add another observation the cause of which I cannot explain with certainty. While I see bleaching, die offs, and failures to grow on many reefs attributed to temperature and acidity, I also see some

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by G ( 2545 )

        You're welcome, and I should have pointed out that it was anecdotal, so thank you.

        hehe, don't get me started! Fascinating observation and question. Something I've thought about many times.

        Let me start off with a couple points (all my questionable knowledge - research further if interested):

        1. Corals, well, *MOST* corals (especially in the shallower ranges) are symbiotic creatures. They host a type of algae called zooxanthellae. The zooxanthellae use respiration (nutrients) and light to create simple su

    • However, I do think the climate scientists made a HUGE strategic error yelling that the sky is falling from every rooftop they have access to and now Mr & Mrs J. Doe are bored and numb.

      The problem isn't with the science or the scientists, it's the fossil fuel industry doing everything it can to discredit science & distract people.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by G ( 2545 )

        Please, just don't. I have zero beef with you or your point of view. I won't even argue with YOUR POINT. However, please show me the same respect and not use my post as a forum for your unrelated points - I said absolutely nothing about the fossil fuel industry - and yes I have thoughts, but didn't need them to make my point.

        What I said is to be taken at face value. The strategy the anthropomorphic climate change proponents employed was a losing strategy, sadly. Full-stop.

        The fossil fuel industry may h

        • We have a situation where scientists predict disastrous outcomes for the planet and they warn the public. They are honest and acting in good faith.

          Because these warnings threaten the business model of some very large multinationals, these companies invest billions into lobbying and spreading lies, knowing full well what they are doing. It works because the companies successfully appeal to the ignorant and greedy.

          And your conclusion is that the culpable party is the scientists, for their rhetorical failures?

    • I do think the climate scientists made a HUGE strategic error yelling that the sky is falling from every rooftop they have access to and now Mr & Mrs J. Doe are bored and numb.

      They didn't yell that the sky is falling. You're believing the lies of the denialists.

      What they actually did was warn people, clearly and precisely, what was happening, what was going to happen if we didn't take action, and what we could do to prevent it. They backed it all up with lots of evidence. People either ignored them or tried to discredit them. Conditions started to get worse, and the future bad things they warned about started actually happening. They warned people again: this is happening, i

    • I do think the climate scientists made a HUGE strategic error yelling that the sky is falling from every rooftop [...] I've said for the past 20 years or so that modeling the climate on the level and timeframes they've been claiming is absolutely impossible from a resource and compute standpoint - see all the revised predictions.

      There are a variety of models, some of have turned out to be quite accurate, and the error climate scientists made was not leaning heavily enough into the predictions because we are exceeding the scenarios they promoted as most likely in order to avoid being called alarmist — which did not work at all. They coddled us for fear of what actually happened happening, and it did not do any good of any kind. Now we still have to deal with denialists who want things to be different and think pretending that

    • Roasting baking soda in the home would seem to be pointless since the released CO2 would end up in your home. Using an alkali such as potassium hydroxide as your additive would avoid that issue or the need to use the oven.

      CO2 rich air bubbled through lime water produces calcium carbonate.

  • Whales dying in Mexico (Score:5, Informative)

    by n0w0rries ( 832057 ) on Monday June 09, 2025 @02:22PM (#65438057)

    I live in Mexico on a boat. There are lots of reports of grey and humpback whales dying this season, lots. They're starving.

    I like to joke that climate change isn't real, especially when you go to the store and see all the food wrapped in plastic, the wars, the people with private jets and 2 mega-yachts (one for them, one for their toys), but I'll tell ya, we're going to see seafood become a luxury in my life time, and my life is at least half over.

  • then we are out of time. Still, we should try.

  • Another reason to support nuclear (Score:4, Insightful)

    by atomicalgebra ( 4566883 ) on Monday June 09, 2025 @05:28PM (#65438549)
    If we burned uranium instead of coal for that last 50 years the ocean acidification problem would not exist. Fuck you antinuclear scumbags.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      There are four arguments against investment in nuclear power: Olkiluoto 3, Flamanville 3, Hinkley Point C, and Vogtle. These are the four major latest-generation plants completed or near completion in Finland, the United States, the United Kingdom and France respectively.
      Cost overruns at these recent plants average over 300%, with more increases to come. The cost of Vogtle, for example, soared from US$14 billion to $34 billion (A$22-53 billion), Flamanville from €3.3 billion to €19 billion (A$5-31

      • What does nuclear power cost versus global warming? Do you have an answer for that?

        What does nuclear power cost versus intermittent renewable energy sources? I'll see claims that renewable energy is lower cost than nuclear but they are all based on the assumption there will be cheap fossil fuel backup should a cold dunkelflaute roll in.

        You can claim "nobody wants nukes" all you like but I can read the news and see that is not true. Had nuclear power not been stalled out for the last 50 years we would not

        • What does nuclear cost versus renewables is the more relevant question. Most Western governments have favourable policies towards nuclear. Where the reliance on building is on private entities then the issue is either the economics of nuclear and/or subsidy. We need to be honest about the fact that nuclear seems to require subsidy. In that case, we need to look at what subsidy for a variety of generation technologies and potentially other techniques such as demand management get us to the best position. Giv
        • Remove nuclear from the conversation? It's been discussed massively in the last twenty years.
      • Germany has spenty 500 billion on solar+wind and failed to deep decarbonize. If they spent that much on new nuclear they would have succeeded. For the record interest in the primary driver of costs and is a solvable problem.

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