Ocean Acidification and Climate Change
It is well known that increased global carbon dioxide (C02) emissions are damaging the Earth’s climate, but there is another lesser known impact of industrial carbon emissions that threatens our oceans too - ocean acidification. Oceans function as a "carbon sink", absorbing about one third of human-generated C02 emissions. This has helped slow down global warming, but unfortunately, this has come at a high cost to the ocean. As the ocean absorbs the excess carbon, it makes the seawater more acidic.
In a more acidic environment many species of plankton, shellfish and corals begin to lose calcium out of their shells and skeletons, similar to what happens to human bones in osteoporosis.
We may already be seeing the impacts. For the sixth year in a row, oyster larvae in Willapa Bay, Oregon failed to reach maturity, impacting jobs and revenue in the multi-billion-dollar shellfish-aquaculture industry there. While other contributing factors may also be at play, ocean acidification is predecited to have far-reaching consequences for many species in the marine food chain.
Climate Change
Climate change is also expected to affect our oceans – by making them warmer. The periodic warming of the ocean surface from El Nino demonstrates the effects of a warmer ocean by disrupting marine ecosystems in B.C. and across the Pacific. Warmer ocean temperatures severely stress West Coast wild salmon Species previously found only in warmer latitudes, such as the Pacific sardine and Humboldt squid, expand their range northward causing a shift in the marine food web.
Warmer temperatures also negatively affect the reproduction and movement of plankton and krill - tiny creatures at the bottom of the food chain - affecting fish stocks and marine mammals, which in turn lowers the ocean's overall productivity. As time passes El Nino conditions are predicted to become the norm. The long term result is difficult to predict.
