http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2008/06/09/a-glimpse-into-a-future-with-acidic-oceans/ 80beats is DISCOVER's news aggregator, weaving together the choicest tidbits from the best articles covering the day\'s most compelling topics. Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:29:27 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2008/06/09/a-glimpse-into-a-future-with-acidic-oceans/comment-page-1/#comment-119 Russ Wed, 02 Jul 2008 03:51:56 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2008/06/09/a-glimpse-into-a-future-with-acidic-oceans/#comment-119 While the authors point out the fact that the hundreds of billions of tonnes of anthropogenic, fossil, CO2 is now in our atmosphere. They don't mention that it takes 200 years to dissolve into the oceans producing deadly acidification. The acidification we are seeing today will continue unless we do something to compete with the acid producing reaction - H2O+CO2 = H2CO3 (carbonic acid). The only means to redress the doomsday acidification is by ocean ecorestoration employing photosynthesis to fix and eliminate much of the excess CO2. Since the oceans have in parallel to the acidification lost enormous amounts of plant life, 17% in the N. Atlantic, 26% in the N. Pacific, and 50% in sub-tropical tropical seas, phytoplankton can and must be restored. They alone can absolve rather than dissolve our sins of emission. The late great John Martin was on the trail 20 years ago and we follow his charted course at Planktos-Science. While the authors point out the fact that the hundreds of billions of tonnes of anthropogenic, fossil, CO2 is now in our atmosphere. They don’t mention that it takes 200 years to dissolve into the oceans producing deadly acidification. The acidification we are seeing today will continue unless we do something to compete with the acid producing reaction – H2O+CO2 = H2CO3 (carbonic acid). The only means to redress the doomsday acidification is by ocean ecorestoration employing photosynthesis to fix and eliminate much of the excess CO2. Since the oceans have in parallel to the acidification lost enormous amounts of plant life, 17% in the N. Atlantic, 26% in the N. Pacific, and 50% in sub-tropical tropical seas, phytoplankton can and must be restored. They alone can absolve rather than dissolve our sins of emission. The late great John Martin was on the trail 20 years ago and we follow his charted course at Planktos-Science.

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