Good afternoon
I’m going to start with a couple of questions, if you could raise your hand if you agree
Who has been to the beach?
Who has swam in the ocean?
Has anybody thought recently mmm the ocean if feeling a bit more acidic today?
Ocean acidification may not be noticeable to you when you dive in the water but to marine organisms it is having a huge affect.
So lets clarify what ocean acidification is.
• Ocean acidification is caused through the transfer of carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and the ocean.
• Research shows that over the past 250 years the amount of carbon dioxide in the earths atmosphere has increased approximately 40%. ocean has absorbed one third of this carbon dioxide which has been caused due to human usages of fossil fuels and deforestation.
•
…show more content…
Carbonic acid is a weak acid and so split into bicarbonate ions and hydrogen ions. Bicarbonate ions also further split up into carbonate ions and hydrogen ions.
• The acidity of the water is dependent on hydrogen ions, so as the number of hydrogen ions increases the Ph decreases making the water more acidic.
• Evidence shows that the oceans ph has dropped by 0.1 ph units since pre industrial times.
• It which may not sound like much but this is actually a 30% increase in the concentration of hydrogen ions. The ocean is predicted to have decreased by another 0.3-0.5 units by 2100 from it current ph of 8.1
• Firstly, carbonate ions are used by marine animals such as crabs, lobsters and starfish to form shells and skeletons.
• However, as the concentration of hydrogen ions increases and bond with the available carbonate ions to form bicarbonate
• This means There are less available carbonate ions for animals to create shells and skeletons.
• Scott Doney and his colleagues at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution studied 11 species of which they found that only 2 increased their carbonate building in more acidic