Despite the fear that ocean acidification may have serious consequences for human well-being in the future, very little economic research on ocean acidification has been carried out to date. In this scoping report the economic aspects of ocean acidification are presented; applying an ecosystem services approach. After a brief presentation of the ocean acidification issue, we provide an overview of marine ecosystem services that are expected to be affected by ocean acidification. The relevant economic theory and methods for estimating the economic costs of ocean acidification are laid out and discussed. To illustrate the possible magnitude of these economic costs, a case study is carried out presenting selected ecosystem services in Norwegian waters, and how they, based on the current natural science research, are expected to be impacted by ocean acidification. Then the economic effect of these impacts is estimated. The results show that ocean acidification may have negative as well as positive effects upon provisioning services of fisheries and aquaculture with annual net effects being in the order of several million NOK. However, for the regulating service of carbon storage the estimated negative impacts are several orders of magnitude higher than for fisheries and aquaculture. Finally, knowledge gaps with regards to estimating the economic loss due to ocean acidification are identified. Armstrong C. W., Holen S., Navrud S. & Seifert I., 2012. The economics of ocean acidification – a scoping study, 57 p. www.Framsenteret.no. Report. 
One of the major stories in the December 2011 issue of New Boundaries, University’s of Southampton, biannual research magazine, explores the fascinating science and the groundbreaking observations of the effects of rising CO2 levels on ocean life in European waters.
On June 2011, the UK research vessel RRS Discovery left Liverpool docks with nearly 30 researchers and technicians – from Southampton, Plymouth, Norwich, Edinburgh, Essex and elsewhere – on board to study how increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere are affecting marine life.
Eric Achterberg, Professor of Marine Biogeochemistry at the University of Southampton, who led the RRS Discovery cruise 366 says:
“Since the onset of the industrial revolution, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by more than a third. The oceans have mopped up around 30 per cent of the human-induced CO2, and this has made seawater more acidic. We already know that some microscopic marine plants thrive under these conditions, while organisms with calcium carbonate shells struggle to form and maintain them, but we don’t yet have a comprehensive picture of what the effects are.”
Rising CO2 levels are already affecting our oceans.
“The warming of the surface layer of the ocean is decreasing its density, resulting in a more tratified, or layered, water column.This is reducing the supply of nutrient-rich deep waters to the productive sunlit surface ocean,” says Professor Achterberg. This decrease in nutrients will mean that in the future, the oceans will be unable to support the abundance and diversity of marine life they can today, as well as having a knock-on effect on our food supply.
“The decline in primary productivity of the ocean plants and microorganisms that form the base of the food chains in ocean ecosystems will also ultimately impact on fisheries, which are a vital protein source for large parts of the world’s population,” Eric adds.
More than 3.5 billion people depend on the oceans for their primary source of food. In 20 years, this number could double to 7 billion. 
The burning of fossil fuels is releasing vast quantities of extra carbon dioxide (CO2) to the Earth’s atmosphere. While a proportion of this stays in the atmosphere, raising atmospheric CO2 levels, around half is removed over time, either to become sequestered in trees and plants or to become absorbed in the ocean. When it dissolves in the ocean, CO2 changes the chemistry of the water, making it more acidic. As a result the oceans are around 30% more acidic today than they were before the industrial revolution – a process known as ocean acidification.
In this weeks issue of Science a paper by a team of scientists from various research institutions worldwide, including Dr Samantha Gibbs and Dr Gavin Foster from the Ocean and Earth Science, National Oceanography Centre, University of Southampton, puts this unprecedented change in its geological context. 
Major Study of Ocean Acidification Helps Scientists Evaluate Effects of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide on Marine Life...
–– Might a penguin's next meal be affected by the exhaust from your tailpipe? The answer may be yes, when you add your exhaust fumes to the total amount of carbon dioxide lofted into the atmosphere by humans since the industrial revolution. One-third of that carbon dioxide is absorbed by the world's oceans, making them more acidic and affecting marine life.
A UC Santa Barbara marine scientist and a team of 18 other researchers have reported results of the broadest worldwide study of ocean acidification to date. Acidification is known to be a direct result of the increasing amount of greenhouse gas emissions. The scientists used sensors developed at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego to measure the acidity of 15 ocean locations, including seawater in the Antarctic, and in temperate and tropical waters.
As oceans become more acidic, with a lower pH, marine organisms are stressed and entire ecosystems are affected, according to the scientists. Gretchen E. Hofmann, an eco-physiologist and professor in UCSB's Department of Ecology, Evolution & Marine Biology, is lead author of the recent article in PLoS ONE that describes the research. 
SAN FRANCISCO — Certain species of corals have been discovered living in the surprisingly acidic waters of the Caribbean's submarine springs, areas thought inhospitable to corals, a new survey has found.
However, these so-called single corals are not the reef-builders responsible for the large Caribbean reefs that form critical habitat for various species, while also performing other important roles in nature.
"While single corals may have the chance to survive … it would be very different from the coral reefs we know today and that we depend on today," said Adina Paytan, a study researcher with the University of California, Santa Cruz, who presented her research here Wednesday at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. 
A major recommendation to policymakers in the Declaration is to develop links between economists and scientists, so as to better evaluate the socioeconomic extent of impacts and costs for action versus inaction, with regard to carbon emissions. Although the science of ocean acidification is still young, its predictions for the global marine environment are so alarming that they warrant action in the imminent future.
Because of the importance of economic valuation in motivating policy change with regard to climate change issues, there is a clear need to enhance the dialogue between science and economics in this rapidly emerging area of social concern. However such a thorough economic valuation of the costs of climate change on the marine environment, specifically with regard to ocean acidification, has not been undertaken. Global environmental changes, including ocean acidification, have been identified as a major threat to scleractinian corals. General predictions are that ocean acidification will be detrimental to reef growth and that 40 to more than 80 per cent of present-day reefs will decline during the next 50 years. Cold-water corals (CWCs) are thought to be strongly affected by changes in ocean acidification owing to their distribution in deep and/or cold waters, which naturally exhibit a CaCO3 saturation state lower than in shallow/warm waters. Calcification was measured in three species of Mediterranean cold-water scleractinian corals (Lophelia pertusa, Madrepora oculata and Desmophyllum dianthus) on-board research vessels and soon after collection. Incubations were performed in ambient sea water. The species M. oculata was additionally incubated in sea water reduced or enriched in CO2. At ambient conditions, calcification rates ranged between −0.01 and 0.23% d−1. Calcification rates of M. oculata under variable partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) were the same for ambient and elevated pCO2 (404 and 867 µatm) with 0.06 ± 0.06% d−1, while calcification was 0.12 ± 0.06% d−1 when pCO2 was reduced to its pre-industrial level (285 µatm). This suggests that present-day CWC calcification in the Mediterranean Sea has already drastically declined (by 50%) as a consequence of anthropogenic-induced ocean acidification.
Maier C., Watremez P., Taviani M., Weinbauer M. G., & Gattuso J.-P., in press. Calcification rates and the effect of ocean acidification on Mediterranean cold-water corals. Proceedings of the Royal Society B doi:10.1098/rspb.2011.1763. 
Large scale "geoengineering" solutions to climate change will not reverse rising acidity in the oceans which damages marine life, conservationists have warned.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) issued a call at the UN climate talks in Durban for countries to urgently address the issue of ocean acidification, caused by greater levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The oceans absorb around a quarter of the carbon dioxide humans put into the atmosphere each year, the IUCN said, but the gas dissolving into the seas causes the water to become more acidic. The IUCN said the acidity of the world's oceans had increased by 30% since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and could continue at an unprecedented rate in the coming decades.
But while ocean acidification has the same cause as climate change - increasing amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere - not all the solutions for global warming will help the situation faced by the seas, the International Ocean Acidification Reference User Group warned. 
Global marine fisheries research shows how climate change is likely to impact the economics of world fisheries by affecting primary productivity, distribution and the potential yield of exploited species.
Global marine fisheries are underperforming economically because of overfishing, pollution and habitat degradation. Added to these threats is the looming challenge of climate change. Observations, experiments and simulation models show that climate change would result in changes in primary productivity, shifts in distribution and changes in the potential yield of exploited marine species, resulting in impacts on the economics of fisheries worldwide. Despite the gaps in understanding climate change effects on fisheries, there is sufficient scientific information that highlights the need to implement climate change mitigation and adaptation policies to minimize impacts on fisheries. (article) subscription
EGU, AOGS and JpGU joint Position Statement on Ocean Acidification
EGU, AOGS and JpGU joint Position Statement on Ocean Acidification
Doug’s Discovery – about ocean acidification and the declining pH in Casco Bay. Interview with Joe Payne. 
A Canadian-led team of scientists may have solved the biggest whodunit in Earth history in a study showing that the all-time greatest mass extinction on the planet — which wiped out about 90 per cent of all species 250 million years ago — appears...
Researchers have long believed that massive volcanic eruptions in present-day Siberia — or possibly a huge meteorite strike — triggered the so-called Permian-Triassic extinction. But the precise mechanism of death for so many species remains a subject of debate, with some scientists convinced it was a resulting lack of oxygen in the Earth's oceans or a greenhouse-gas nightmare that nearly ended all plant and animal life.
But the Canadian study, headed by St. Francis Xavier University climate scientist Alvaro Montenegro, points to ocean acidification as a possible "main culprit" in the harrowing, prehistoric die-off.
A researcher at the Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology, an organized research unit in the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa’s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology has come up with a new explanation for the effects of ocean acidification on coral reefs.
Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been rising due to the burning of fossil fuels. Increased absorption of this carbon by the ocean is lowering the seawater pH (the scale which measures how acidic or basic a substance is) and aragonite saturation state in a process known as ocean acidification. Aragonite is the mineral form of calcium carbonate that is laid down by corals to build their hard skeleton. Researchers wanted to know how the declining saturation state of this important mineral would impact living coral populations.
Much of the previous research has been centered on the relationship between coral growth and aragonite levels in the surface waters of the sea. Numerous studies have shown a direct correlation between increased acidification, aragonite saturation, and declining coral growth, but the process is not well understood. Various experiments designed to evaluate the relative importance of this process have led to opposing conclusions. A recent reanalysis conducted by Dr. Paul Jokiel from the Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB), suggests that the primary effect of ocean acidification on coral growth is to interfere with the transfer of hydrogen ions between the water column and the coral tissue. Jokiel re-evaluated the relevant data in order to synthesize some of the conflicting results from previous ocean acidification studies. As a result, Jokiel came up with the “proton flux hypothesis” which offers an explanation for the reduction in calcification of corals caused by ocean acidification. |
The rising level of atmospheric CO2 has led to several studies focussing on changes in terrestrial and water ecosystems that might occur as a consequence. Ocean acidification, which is caused mainly by the increasing amount of CO2 dissolved in sea water, is at the forefront of marine research topics. However, most of the studies focus on calcifying organisms (e.g. corals, crustaceans) and only a few looked at fish and changes in fish behaviour so far. A recently published paper in Functional Ecology, a British Ecological Society journal, is aiming to fill in a knowledge gap by examining the links between ocean acidification and changes to coral reef fish behaviour based on visual effects. Behavioural studies have demonstrated already that elevated CO2 levels can cause chemosensory and auditory impairment. Fish use various information to avoid predators. Coral reef fish use auditory and chemosensory cues to decide where to settle. Once settled, chemical and visual information become more important. The study by Ferrari et al. tested the changes in visual risk assessment by exposing juvenile damselfish to the sight of a predator, a spiny chromis. The chromis was put into a watertight bag to avoid the damselfish receiving chemosensory signals. 
The world's oceans might be acidifying 10 times faster than at any time during the last 300m years according to new research. And if geological history is anything to go by, this is bad news for marine species.
Oceans can soak up excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. One side effect is that the sea water, which is naturally slightly alkaline, becomes less alkaline and more acidic - a process called ocean acidification.
Scientists are concerned about even quite small shifts in ocean acidity, as it can affect how marine creatures grow their shells, which can be crucial to their survival.
For this new study, published in the journal Science, researchers looked for evidence of ocean acidification in the past, going back through hundreds of existing studies of oceans throughout geological history.
They found that over the last 300m years ocean acidification has never happened faster than it is happening now.
On 5-6 of January 2012 the annual meeting of the Sea-Surface Ocean Acidification consortium of UKOA took place in the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton. Scientists from ten institutions attended the two days of the meeting where they discussed the progress so far, shared data and information and considered what the preliminary results from the first cruise tell us about the impacts of OA in shelf seas.
Toby Tyrrell, the coordinator of the consortium, opened the meeting, describing the overall scientific direction and objectives. Next, Eric Achterberg delivered a brief overview of the RSS Discovery (D366) scientific cruise that took place 6 June – 9 July 2011, for which he was principal scientist.
D366 was the first of a series of three research cruises that the consortium will carry out. In the 30 days of the expedition, researchers from ten institutions investigated the impacts of changing seawater chemistry on marine organisms, ecosystems, and how the sea interacts with the atmosphere to influence climate. They carried out 5 bioassay experiments (each ~80 bottles), 60 CTD stations comprising ~1500 sampling bottles, 320 underway sampling points and more than 1000 samplings points for flow cytometry. 
Suggestions that we can dump alkaline chemicals into the oceans to prevent acidification seems dead in the water – it would cost trillions of dollars...
As humans spew more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, it is taken up by the oceans, turning them increasingly acidic and threatening ecosystems around the globe.
Some have suggested a simple solution: large-scale artificial alkalisation using chemicals like quicklime. Richard Zeebe and François Paquay of the University of Hawaii in Honolulu decided to see if this was realistic. 
Over a century after the Discovery Expedition (1901-04), our understanding of the environments and ecosystems in the Southern Ocean is still limited. Research efforts have focused on warming and ice melt as the environment changes. Now a new challange has emerged – ocean acidification – a concept that could not even have been comprehended 110 years ago as the ph was only defined in 1909.
Schmidt D. N., & Ridgwell A. 2011. Ocean acidification in the freezer. Antarctic Science 23(5):417-417. Article (subscription required). Two hundred fifty million years ago, the world suffered the greatest recorded extinction of all time. More than 90% of marine animals and a majority of terrestrial species disappeared, yet the cause of the Permian-Triassic boundary (PTB) dieoff remains unknown. Various theories abound, with most focusing on rampant Siberian volcanism and its potential consequences: global warming, carbon dioxide poisoning, ocean acidification, or the severe drawdown of oceanic dissolved oxygen levels, also known as anoxia. To narrow the range of possible causes, Montenegro et al. ran climate simulations for PTB using the University of Victoria Earth System Climate Model, a carbon cycle-climate coupled general circulation model.
Schultz C., 2011. Was ocean acidification responsible for history’s greatest extinction? Eos Transactions American Gepphysical Union 92(48):452. (subscription required). 
An international team of scientists who monitor the rapid changes in the Earth’s northern polar region say that the Arctic is entering a new state – one with warmer air and water temperatures, less summer sea ice and snow cover, and a changed ocean chemistry. This shift is also causing changes in the region’s life, both on land and in the sea, including less habitat for polar bears and walruses, but increased access to feeding areas for whales.
Changes to the Arctic are chronicled annually in the Arctic Report Card, which was released today. The report is prepared by an international team of scientists from 14 different countries. Ice photos from NOAA Ships.
Among the 2011 highlights are:
Atmosphere: In 2011, the average annual near-surface air temperatures over much of the Arctic Ocean were approximately 2.5° F (1.5° C) greater than the 1981-2010 baseline period.
Ocean acidification can no longer remain on the periphery of the international debates on climate change and the environment and should be addressed by the United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Climate Change and other global environmental conventions, urges International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the International Ocean Acidification Reference User Group (RUG) at the climate change summit in Durban.
In the run up to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, which will take place in Rio de Janeiro in June next year (Rio+20), world experts from RUG call for decision makers to urgently address the critical issue of ocean acidification. 
Predicting the impact of warming and acidifying on oceans on the early development life history stages of invertebrates although difficult, is essential in order to anticipate the severity and consequences of future climate change. This review summarises the current literature and meta-analyses on the early life-history stages of invertebrates including fertilisation, larval development and the implications for dispersal and settlement of populations. Although fertilisation appears robust to near future predictions of ocean acidification, larval development is much more vulnerable and across invertebrate groups, evidence indicates that the impacts may be severe. This is especially for those many marine organisms which start to calcify in their larval and/or juvenile stages. Species-specificity and variability in responses and current gaps in the literature are highlighted, including the need for studies to investigate the total effects of climate change including the synergistic impact of temperature, and the need for long-term multigenerational experiments to determine whether vulnerable invertebrate species have the capacity to adapt to elevations in atmospheric CO2 over the next century. (article) 
fter six years of design and testing, MBARI scientists have a sophisticated new tool for studying the effects of ocean acidification on deep-sea animals. This complex system, the Free-Ocean Carbon Enrichment (FOCE) experiment, is the only experiment in the world that allows researchers to study ocean-acidification impacts on deep-sea animals in their native habitat, using free-flowing seawater.
The idea behind FOCE is relatively simple—to create a semi-enclosed test area on the seafloor where the seawater's pH (an indicator of acidity) can be precisely controlled for weeks or months at a time. Small seafloor animals are placed in the test chamber, where their behavior and physiological responses can be monitored. The idea is to observe the behavior of seafloor animals without subjecting them to the stresses of being removed from the deep sea and living in a laboratory on shore.
MBARI marine chemist Peter Brewer came up with the idea for FOCE in about 2003. Brewer had read about experiments on land, in which terrestrial plants were exposed to elevated levels of carbon dioxide for long periods of time. Such Free-Air Carbon dioxide Enrichment (FACE) experiments use a series of carbon-dioxide emitters arranged in a large ring, up to 30 meters (100 feet) across. Carbon dioxide is released from emitters from the windward side of the ring. The result is that plants within the ring are exposed to consistently elevated concentrations of carbon dioxide, regardless of the wind speed or direction.
by Michael Conathan Members of Congress have retreated to their respective corners over summer break while they wait for another brutal round of fighting over our country’s financial future.
Members of Congress have retreated to their respective corners over summer break while they wait for another brutal round of fighting over our country’s financial future. Meanwhile, Americans are streaming to the oceans and beaches in droves. As regular readers will have noted, this column missed its last edition while I joined my fellow beachgoers to take advantage of cool ocean breezes and escape the torrents of hot air cascading down from Capitol Hill.
What stood out to me during my “research” on Cape Cod and at Saquish Beach off the south shore of Massachusetts was that on its surface, the ocean looks pretty good. I taught my son to build drip castles in the surf—the sand and water were clean. We went swimming at night and when we dove in, the surface exploded in underwater fireworks of bioluminescence. My neighbor pulled his boat up on the sand early one morning after a 90-minute fishing trip and hopped out with a 34-inch striped bass and stories of the three other keepers he had caught and released because he only needed the one for supper. 
by Doug Mackie In July and August 2011 we posted a long series to introduce the chemistry of ocean acidification. We have lightly edited and compiled the posts into a booklet. |
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