Guest guest Posted January 31, 2007 Report Share Posted January 31, 2007 "There is an outstanding piece called the Darkening Sea in the New Yorker on what ocean acidification - caused by the absorption of CO2 by seawater - is projected to do to marine life. It has only been three years since the term was introduced, and our understanding of acidification will do to marine life is still largely theoretical. Essentially, the problem is that as the ocean absorbs CO2, it becomes more acidic, making it more and more difficult (and eventually, impossible) for organisms to form shells. This effects everything from coral reefs and clams to many of the species of plankton that form the base of the food chain. What is at stake is shocking: millions of species are at risk, and entire ecosystems may disappear. Food webs would be dramatically altered, favoring jellyfish and soft bodied organisms over anything producing a shell or skeleton at any phase of its life cycle. We may be looking at the greatest planetary extinction on record (within what is ALREADY known as the "sixth extinction," a reference to the fact that the industrial period is responsible for a level of extinction only seen five times in the history of the earth). A scientist at U. of California feels it may be analogous to the KT extinction 65 million years ago, when the earth was hit by an asteroid six miles across. Along with the dinosaurs, half of all coral species disappeared, and over a third of marine genera went extinct." http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/061120fa_fact3?page=1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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