How much of a threat is ocean acidification to marine life beneath the ocean’s surface? This is what a recent study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated the rate of ocean acidification in North Pacific waters. This study has the potential to help researchers, climate scientists, legislators, and the public better understand the effects of climate change on ocean acidification and marine life.
For the study, the researchers analyzed ocean acidification data obtained from Station ALOHA in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (NPSG) over 35 years with the goal of estimating the rates and origins of ocean acidification in the North Pacific near Hawai’i. In the end, the researchers found increased levels of ocean acidification due to marine heat waves from extreme climate events like multi-year El Niño. The researchers specifically identified increased carbon levels in deep waters from dying organisms and more rapid onset of ocean acidification in fresh and cold waters.
“Deeper waters are already naturally quite acidic in the North Pacific, so quickly increasing acidity could negatively impact plankton species and other organisms that live below the surface,” said Dr. Lucie Knor, who is a postdoctoral researcher in the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) and lead author of the study. “In the long run, these changes in ocean chemistry also make it harder for the ocean to keep taking up more CO₂ from the atmosphere.”
This study comes as climate change continues to ravage the planet with more severe and an increasing number of extreme weather events, including summer temperatures and hurricanes. Therefore, studies like this can inform researchers about the increasing threat of ocean acidification on marine life in the face of the increasing threat from climate change.
What new connections between ocean acidification and marine life will researchers make in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Sources: Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans, EurekAlert!
Featured Image: View from Station ALOHA. (Credit: Dr. Lucie Knor)