A report from the Carnegie Institute at Stanford University in California found that carbon dioxide emissions are likely to acidify seawater to the extent that major reefs including the Great Barrier Reef in Australia could have widespread damage.  More than 90% of the world’s reefs could be in jeopardy.  

The world’s oceans are becoming acidic more rapidly than climate change models predicted.  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted last year that, due to rising acidity and temperatures most coral reefs would disappear by the end of the century. 

Recent studies indicate that the pH levels are declining at an alarming rate.  Water samples collected around an island in the Eastern Pacific over the past eight years showed seawater had acidified more than 10 times faster than had been predicted by the IPCC.

Timothy Wootton, Professor of Ecology and Evolution at Chicago University, led a team of researchers who analysed the acidity, salinity and temperature of water with 24 519 measurements taken over a period of 8 years around Tatoosh Island off the North Western coast of Washington State.   Results showed that variation on ocean pH through time was most strongly associated with increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide.

About a third of man made carbon dioxide emissions dissolves into the oceans.  As carbon dioxide dissolves in seawater it forms carbonic acid which lowers the ocean’s alkalinity and pH level, making it more acidic.

Rising marine acid levels will challenge many organisms as those creatures with shells or skeletons made of calcium carbonate, dissolved by acid, will be threatened.  Scientists are concerned that there will be a dramatic impact on marine ecosystems.