Negative Effects Of Ocean Acidification

About thirty or forty percent of the carbon dioxide created by human activities is absorbed in bodies of water, including the ocean. What does this mean? Well the burning of fossils fuels emit excess carbon dioxide into the atmosphere which dissolves into the oceans and makes the ocean acidic. The ocean becoming more acidic obviously does not compare to the acidity of sulfuric acid and does not directly harm humans and most animals. The ocean is currently at a pH level of 8.1 which is more on the basic side and orange juice is actually more acidic with a pH level from 3.3 to 4.9. Although the ocean does not seem that acidic the little acidity it does have is having a strong effect on ocean animals and ecosystems. Some negative impacts of ocean

I did not expect for the plants to actually absorb the acidity from the water and become acidic itself. My research was confirmed that the plant would break down and die because about two weeks with the plant sample in vinegar the leaves lost their opacity and color.

The lab results involving the vinegar as ocean water substitute was pretty accurate to all the research that I found about calcium carbonate animals and ocean plants. Ultimately both broke down in their own ways and the acidity wore down the samples very quickly. Therefore the lab proves the negative impacts of ocean acidification which involved the breaking down of animals and ecosystems. I do not know if Ocean acidification will throw off the balance of food chains or how it will affect animals in the long run regarding their health, since our lab did not focus on that specifically.

Proving the effects of ocean acidification can be done in many ways, but when they are proven the effects can be harmful to many species in the ocean. It would be nice to see a broader experiment based on ocean acidification that shows the consequences of it to all aspects in the ocean. Since ocean acidification is often compared to climate change, people should try and put as much effort as they do into other global issues toward the problem of ocean

Using less energy could be as simple and using public transportation or other methods that do not use gas for transportation. Another example would be to recycle and use environmental friendly products because this would be less fossil fuels burned in factories to create products. This could help with ocean acidification since acidification is the result of air pollution that releases excess carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Some large scale practices that can be used to reduce the negative impacts of ocean acidification are to find new sources of energy and a way to make those sources more used in daily households. Solar energy in one alternate source of energy but the materials used to build solar panels are expensive, so although some people use solar energy most do not because of the price. There also are hydrogen fuelled cars but again those are somewhat of a luxury item and are not in the price range of average