How bad will it get for oysters?
Aragonite is the form of calcium carbonate that animals like corals and oysters use to build their skeletons/shells. As carbon dioxide absorbed from the atmosphere increases the acidity of the ocean, the ocean’s capacity for carrying aragonite – aragonite saturation – decreases, making it more difficult for aragonite-dependent animals to grow and survive. If aragonite saturation drops below 100%, aragonite structures (that’s coral skeletons and oyster shells) would dissolve. These new maps from the European Environment Agency – based on figures from a 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – bring the usually invisible problem of ocean acidification into plain view.
Copyright: European Environment Agency
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Cape and Islands the last piece in statewide no discharge zone
The Massachusetts Office of Energy and Environmental affairs has announced that it’s nominating the waters south of Cape Cod and around Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket a ‘no discharge zone’ – meaning that the thousands of commercial and recreational boats that … Read More
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- Ocean acidification and the explosion of hockey sticks
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Ocean acidification and the explosion of hockey sticks
flyzipper / flickr You’ve heard about hockey sticks, right? No, not the actual wood and carbon-fiber things you use to push a puck around on the ice, although those are perfectly nice. What I’m referring to are graphs of the … Read More
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Washington state invokes Clean Water Act for ocean acidification
In the fall of 2010, the EPA issued a memo stating for the record that the Clean Water Act covers ocean acidification, as well as more traditional types of pollution. While widely hailed as an historic call to action, the … Read More
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Jed