Nature Climate Change - Southern Ocean Acidification On Track For Food Chain "Avalanche" By 2030

[hatrack]

The Southern Ocean is acidifying at such a rate because of rising carbon dioxide emissions that large regions may be inhospitable for key organisms in the food chain to survive as soon as 2030, new US research has found. Tiny pteropods, snail-like creatures that play an important role in the food web, will lose their ability to form shells as oceans absorb more of the CO2 from the atmosphere, a process already observed over short periods in areas close to the Antarctic coast.

EDIT

Below a certain pH level, shells of such creatures become more brittle, with implications for fisheries that feed off them since pteropods appear unable to evolve fast enough to cope with the rapidly changing conditions.

"For pteropods it may be very difficult because they can't run around without a shell," Professor Timmermann said. "It's not they dissolve immediately but there's a much higher energy requirement for them to form the shells." Given the sheer scale of the marine creatures involved, "take away this biomass, [and] you have avalanche effects for the rest of the food web", he said.

As carbon dioxide levels rise, the impacts seen in the Southern Ocean – and its counterpart regions in the northern hemisphere – can be expected to spread closer to the equator.

EDIT

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/abrupt-changes-in-food-chains-predicted-as-southern-ocean-acidifies-fast-study-20151030-gknd2g.html

[sue4e3]

1. They have programs on the east coast,

that grind up clam shells and dump them back in to the coastal waters, one purpose is to help balance the PH I've often wondered if they could implement like programs in other places. I think it's going to get dicey and if we like living we're going to have to try some things.

[pengu]

3. You can't do this at the scale of the ocean

[sue4e3]

4. I get that every time any one brings up counter measuring any affects of climate

change. I have to wonder as a race do we just like the idea of dieing and killing everything. When I look around humans are like ants we clump together and build bridges , damns hell a man carved Mount Rushmore on a mountain for shits and giggles. China built a wall over 5000ft. long and aprox.20 feet high, but dumping some sodium bicarbonate in an ocean every so often( yes I'm aware it adds up to a sh-- ton), you know just so we don't all die, That is just not possible.

[pengu]

5. There isn't enough of it.

It's about 320 million cubic miles. I understand it's hard to wrap your head around that, but it isn't remotely feasible. It isn't even close.

[sue4e3]

7. I can wrap my head around that

using your numbers that' s 356 Quintilian gallons give or take a zero,( I'm not a mathematician). That would mean you would need 20,368,000,0000,0000,000 pounds of baking soda to see a significant difference by laymen logic. Half it for less significant results and it's still a humongous number.I know that one store alone in one chain carries 20 pounds of it weekly in the us alone.That would be another huge number. I understand at glance that number would still fall painfully short I can't find how much baking soda is on the planet . Apparently google doesn't have that number or I'm user defective. Here's the thing I was only talking about putting back what we take out. Every shell fish we take out of the ocean is a little less calcium carbonate then there was. I don't know what effect it will have but it's not going backwards. Then add to it that locally by adding calcium carbonate helps balance the PH in that area. Helping whatever shell fish are in that area not necessarily the whole ocean. I say it's a start. Now as far as sodium bicarbonate, I don't know the details on the difference in affect between calcium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate on ocean water and animals. I know what most people know that if you want to balance PH in pools and aquariums you use baking soda. I am sure there is a detail in there somewhere that will bite me in the ass. But my general thought is still the same we're just going to watch it happen and do nothing because the numbers are too big, WTF???

[GliderGuider]

6. pengu is right, I'm afraid.

All the proposals I've heard for the remediation of global air- or water-based problems suffer from three difficulties.

-They tend to be several orders of magnitude smaller than the scale of the problem;
- The proposed solutions introduce new problems of their own that tend to be as bad or worse than the original problem.
- They are politically unfeasible, The problems are international i scope, but every proposed solution would disadvantage some nations at the expense of others. this makes international agreements very contentious.

That's the nature of complex systems.

On edit: This is one of the most emotionally difficult aspects of our situation. We have created problems for which there may in fact be no fixes, and where even slowing down the onset of the problem is going to cause other problems for people.

[sue4e3]

8. I say cause other people problems

problems are better than dead. When has the US ever worried about contention. All the US has to do is treat these problems as if they were a pursuit for oil. I know I've floated off into some dangerous LA LA land.

[sue4e3]

2. I'm aware that the affects of these programs are temporary

but more time is better