Global warming is an ogre of our time; it’s big and frightening, it’s absolutely awful to look at and to cap it all, it smells terrible. Sadly we are discovering that this ogre has an even uglier sister, she goes by the name of Ocean Acidification.

Carbon emissions have been growing steadily since the advent of the industrial revolution some 250 years ago. The burning of fossil fuels and deforestation causes 79 million tonnes of CO2 to be released into our atmosphere daily and it is now understood that 30 per cent of this is absorbed into our oceans.

The science of ocean acidification is still in its infancy, a metaphorical David to this Goliath of a problem.

The absorption of carbon dioxide into the oceans creates carbonic acid which counters the naturally alkaline properties of salt water. This acidification decreases the availability of carbonate ions and minerals in the water - shell forming elements that are used by a large range of marine life.

Corals, molluscs, coralline algae and planktonic calcifiers all draw on these minerals to create their structures. Without them they cannot survive.

A 2009 report prepared for the Convention on Biological Diversity described this rate of increase as “100 times faster than any change in acidity experienced in the marine environment over the last 20 million years, giving little time for evolutionary adaption within biological systems”.

Consider any marine creature with a shell, the conch or its other fellow mollusc the oyster; the crab or lobster, the starfish or shrimp, or our beautiful coral reef systems. What would the implications be of losing these highly visible and beautiful creatures? The minute planktons that are at the bottom of the marine food chain would simply melt away, leaving no sustenance for plankton eaters of all sizes - herrings, salmon or whales; sharks and dolphins would then in turn lose their food sources.

Marine life is already under so much pressure and at the basest level of consideration, we should remember who presides at the top of all food chains on earth. Human food security and economic prosperity rely heavily on the industries founded on the very creatures that we are at risk of losing altogether.

There is a solution, reversal of the acidification will be slow but David may still topple his giant of a problem with a gargantuan effort and a zero carbon global economy. It will take the efforts of individuals to learn and organisations to educate and together we need to lobby politicians to make sure that they understand the problem and make far reaching and frankly sensible changes to policy. 

www.reefresearch.org