The dangerously acidic oceans of carbon emissions, warn the report

The greenhouse gas emissions from the fossil fuel fires have pushed the acidity of the world’s oceans beyond a safe threshold, scientists warn, threatening their ability to support crustaceans and corals and help us in the fight against climate change.

A new report indicates that the acidification of the ocean is the last “planetary border” to be crossed, a reference to a set of warning signs linked to the planetary systems which ensure the earth for human civilization.

Other planetary borders that have already been crossed – including dangerous levels of chemical pollution, the warming atmosphere and changes in the nutrient cycle – have already pointed out threats to people.

“Be out of these limits and you first enter into a danger area, with a higher risk of provoking changes that would undermine this ability to support human life and human development,” said Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who is the source of the planetary health control report published on Wednesday.

“And once you are at the upper end of the uncertainty beach … You enter the red zone, the high -risk area where most of the sciences should be very likely to depress the pimples that will cause irreversible changes, essentially committing us to move away from habitable conditions on earth.”

The addition of oceans to the planetary limits list is a major concern due to the billions of people who depend on it. The acidification of the continuous ocean could not only destroy the fisheries on which people count for food, but reduce the capacity of the ocean to absorb carbon dioxide and moderate global warming.

Material costs increase

While humans burn fossil fuels and pump carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it is estimated that the ocean absorbs over a quarter of this CO2.

“Just like when we add carbon dioxide to coke or soda, it makes the carbonated drink more acidic,” said Christopher Harley, professor who studies climate change and the ocean at the University of British Columbia.

But when CO2 is absorbed, the chemical process effectively reduces the availability of a mineral that certain marine lives – from coral crustaceans – must develop their body.

“It makes the construction of shells more difficult – and you have to add shell if you want to grow,” said Harley, comparing him to build a house.

“Suddenly, building materials become more expensive. You will build smaller or not so much houses.”

Food for our food

The specific “building material” that the ratio of planetary limits measure is Aragonite – a form of calcium carbonate.

The report indicates that the saturation of Aragonite in the ocean is lower, in front of a safe point. Experts have seen the negative effects – from rabougria larval development to lower shells – in a range of species, including plankton, mussels, crabs and oysters.

“If you are an oyster producer, you care about it, because you want your oysters to grow up quickly to market the size,” Harley told CBC News in Vancouver.

Cosima Porteus, deputy professor at the University of Toronto Scarborough, studied The impact of ocean acidification on lanuch crabsA species estimated at more than $ 250 million in exports for British Columbia.

“Crabs, in particular, have a very poor vision, so they count on other senses such as (the smell) for their daily life,” said Porteus. Research revealed that at high acidification levels, lanprise crabs have a reduced capacity to find food, which could affect future growth.

“We could potentially see smaller animals, they would probably have less energy to set up for reproduction, so that they can produce less eggs and offspring,” Toronto CBC News told CBC News.

Canadian waters affected

Experts emphasize that there is regional variability in the way the ocean is intensely acidifying, and Canadian waters – at higher latitude – are more at risk.

“The global ocean does not change equally or at a uniform pace,” said Matt Miller, researcher at the Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of Victoria. “The polar regions, the Arctic, for example, know the most radical changes.”

Iria Gimenez, scientific researcher at the Hakai Institute in British Columbia, says that colder water absorbs more carbon dioxide and that melting glaciers contribute to this problem, putting us to a “higher basic line”.

“I think that the acidification of the ocean may have been perceived a bit like this slow burn, that it does not have the immediate impacts of something as intense and extreme as, as the heat of heat in 2021 had for sea marine ecosystems,” she said.

Gimenez is carrying out research off the coasts of the island of Quadra, at the northern end of the British Columbia Strait of Georgia, which allows it to see up close how the acidification of the ocean had an impact on local species.

“If you speak to the punishment industry and communities which are very intimately linked to mussels and oysters … They will be able to tell you that they are worried” because they see these species subject to stress, she said.

Global problem

All CBC News experts have spoken to agree that these variable local effects are still part of a global problem.

“In the end, the main solution to this problem is a spectacular reduction in carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere,” said Gimenez.

As the ocean absorbs carbon – and 90% of the excess heat generated by the greenhouse gas effect – its ability to Continue to absorb carbon will be affected, putting a massive bulwark against climate change in danger.

“Imagine whether an additional 30% of CO2 … were still in the atmosphere. And imagine if all this heat was still in the atmosphere. Our lives on earth would be much worse at the moment,” said Miller.

He underlines that the oceans have already experienced acidification – as 65 million years ago, when volcanic activity spat carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

“But even then, the change rate was about 10 times slower than what we see today. … whether these animals can adapt or not at this faster rate – we are not sure.”