Global
warming is a sticky subject and many climate scientists that think
global warming is real are also convinced that it was caused by human
activities like burning fossil fuels, which led to an increase in
atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Researchers
have constructed new
computer scenarios that show how the rapidity and timing of
carbon dioxide emission cuts will affect ocean acidification in the
future. According to Dr. Toby Tyrrell from the University
of Southampton's School of Ocean and Earth Science, a third
of these carbon dioxide emissions are absorbed by the Earth's oceans,
which is helpful in the case of global warming, but it is still
negatively affecting the planet. The oceans are becoming acidic,
which could eventually affect the biogeochemistry and ecosystems of
the oceans.
Climate
models have been made to understand how decreased carbon
emissions will affect the Earth's climate, but now, Tyrrell, Dan
Bernie (Met Office Hadley Centre), Jason Lowe (University of Reading)
and Oliver Legge (SOES) have created a new model that simulates the
different effects of mitigation scenarios on ocean acidification.
Climate, ocean chemistry, and ocean-atmosphere interactions are taken
into account to create these simulations. Such research could be
helpful to policy makers because it helps form a timeline of what
could result in what period of time with certain mitigation
scenarios.
According
to this research, a decrease in pH means an increase in acidity. In
1750, the global mean ocean surface pH was at 8.2, and now it is at
8.1. If carbon dioxide emissions are not cut, the researchers'
simulations predict that the pH
could decrease to as low as 7.7 by 2100. On the other hand,
if carbon dioxide emissions are controlled, the simulations predict
that the pH won't fall below 8.0 by 2100. Research indicates that
there will be an emissions peak in 2016, then it will decrease by
five percent each year after.
"As
far as we know, such a rate of change would be without precedent for
millions of years, and a concern must be whether and how quickly
organisms could adapt to such a rate of change after such a long
period of relative stability in ocean pH," said Tyrrell.
The
study, "Influence
of mitigation policy on ocean acidification" was
published in Geophysical
Research Letters in
August 2010.
