Research Paper On Ocean Acidification

One of the biggest problems on our planet at the moment is the 79 million tons of carbon dioxide being released into our atmosphere every day. According to the European Project on Ocean Acidification, one third of all the Co2 that has been released into our atmosphere has been absorbed by the world 's oceans. Without the immense size of our oceans absorbing all this CO2, our atmosphere would suffer from extreme global warming with devastating effects. However, the downside of our oceans absorbing most of the CO2 is that it threatens the health of our oceans and the animals inside it.

It all starts off when the CO2 from the atmosphere is dissolved into the oceans. Once dissolved, the CO2 reacts with the water(H2O) to form a chemical compound

Acidity is based on the concentration of hydrogen ions in a liquid. Therefore, all this CO2 that is being absorbed into the ocean is just increasing the acidity of our oceans.

Since our oceans are becoming more acidic every day and that acidity is based on the concentration of H+ ions, the shells and coral have less food to shell build. Why is this? Well, shells are made of calcium carbonate which is a compound. In order for a shell to grow and say alive it needs to combine calcium ions with carbonate ions. However as the oceans become more acidic the carbonate ions, that are found naturally in the seawater, bind more easily with the h+ ions and prevent shell formation. Therefore any aquatic species that rely on carbonate ions to survive find it increasingly more difficult to build or maintain shells since the carbonate ions are neutralizing the h+(acid) before they have the chance to combine with the calcium ions.

As you can see, all the CO2 emissions that we produce are theoretically decreasing the oceans biodiversity and this can be a threat to some aquatic animals.

Now we can get to the main disadvantage, which is the threat of the aquatic animals