04 July 2006

Growing Acidity of Oceans May Kill Corals

The best science available points to the conclusion that carbon dioxide emissions are having an increasingly severe impact on the ocean's chemistry. A pH change of only a tenth of a percent can have drastic and far reaching consequences considering the oceans' constancy of chemistry.

Check out this article from the Washington Post:
Growing Acidity of Oceans May Kill Corals
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 5, 2006; Page A01


The escalating level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is making the world's oceans more acidic, government and independent scientists say. They warn that, by the end of the century, the trend could decimate coral reefs and creatures that underpin the sea's food web.

Although scientists and some politicians have just begun to focus on the question of ocean acidification, they describe it as one of the most pressing environmental threats facing Earth.

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