Monday, February 15, 2010

Ocean pollution in form of ocean acidification

Because of the excessive carbon emissions our oceans are becoming more and more acidic, in fact the scientists from the University of Bristol have calculated that since the industrial revolution started acidity in our seas and oceans has increased by staggering 30 percent.

The acidity of the oceans is changing too fast. The scientists have come to conclusion that such a fast change is likely to have occurred 65 million years ago, when some natural event caused ocean acidification and the extinction of dinosaurs. The excessive acidity of our oceans could in years to come present the real problem to not only many marine organisms but also to our future generations.

The ocean acidification will mostly affect the tiny marine organisms that despite being at the bottom of the food chain play extremely important role in the proper functioning of global marine ecosystems. Ocean acidification is harmful from many different ways, it can dissolve the carbonate shells of some marine organisms and cause muscle wastage and dwarfism in others.

Ocean acidification is constantly accelerating, and many scientists believe that many marine species are already finding it very tough to adapt to these ever-increasing levels of acidification. Among the mostly affected species are coral reefs that play vital role in many marine ecosystems. If the acidification continues at such fast pace we could see major disrupt in marine ecosystems even before the end of this century.

Corals are among the marine species mostly affected with ocean acidification.

Unless we reduce the carbon emissions from our cars and our factories acidification will continue to grow, and the damage done to our oceans will be tremendous. We must not forget that mass extinction in oceans is likely to threaten ecosystems on global level in the future.

1 comment:

  1. we should all makee an orqanization to help keep clean our beaches and clean sources of fresh water <3 ..!

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