Lowering ocean temperatures helps save coral reefs

According to a study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, researchers at the University of Bristol state that limiting the amount of global warming could buy some more time for tropical coral reefs.

With the help of computer models, the researchers investigated how shallow water tropical coral reef habitats may respond to a change in climate in the future.

The study, led by Dr. Elena Couce and colleagues, noticed that limiting greenhouse warming to three watts per square meter is required so as to avoid a large-scale reduction of coral reef habitats in the future.

The shallow tropical coral reefs are known to be among the most productive and diverse ecosystems on the planet. However, their numbers are dropping due to the increasing frequency of bleaching events, associated with increasing temperature and fossil fuel emissions.

Polar meltdown top challenge for Arctic Council

Environmental issues key as 8-country council meets in Sweden

Last Thursday, the eight-country Arctic Council was reminded of the issues they face by an event faraway in Hawaii. For the first time in probably three million years, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere averaged above 400 parts per million for an entire day.

That’s based on readings at the key monitoring station at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, and the best available scientific evidence. Carbon dioxide readings above 400 ppm were first seen in the Arctic last year, but did not stay above that level for an entire 24-hour period.

Carbon emissions raise Arctic acidity levels

Washington — The Arctic Ocean covers roughly 9 percent of the Earth’s surface and its chemistry is changing, growing more acidic in ways that will affect marine ecosystems.

The world’s oceans dwarf the continents. The planet may be called Earth, but water dominates the globe, covering 70 percent. The oceans are also swallowing down big gulps of the excess carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere through the use of carbon-based fuels.

“In my mind there is no doubt about the acidification of the oceans, and they are changing very, very fast,” said oceanographer Jón Ólafsson from the University of Iceland, who has been studying the world’s northernmost waters for 30 years. “It’s really amazing how clear the signal is, how fast the uptake [of carbon dioxide] is.”

Policy: Nations ponder how to handle busier, more polluted Arctic

As scientists warn that climate change is driving the Arctic into a dangerous and unprecedented state, Arctic leaders head to Sweden this week to hash out how to govern and protect the rapidly warming region.

At the ministerial meeting of the Arctic Council on Wednesday in Kiruna, Sweden, leaders will be grappling with everything from whether to accept applications from countries like China to how to improve Arctic infrastructure.

The Arctic member states plan to sign an oil spill response agreement — the second-ever legally binding pact negotiated under the auspices of the council, and an acknowledgement of growing business interests in newly open Arctic waters.

Arctic Council members also plan to release the first circumpolar inventory on biodiversity in the Arctic and a comprehensive analysis of Arctic Ocean acidification — which analysts say is a growing problem and focus of research.

Arctic Council unlikely to deal directly with climate change

Ministers in Kiruna to hear how to curb Arctic climate change May 15

The warming impact of soot and methane on the Arctic climate and the increasing acidification of the Arctic Ocean: these are among the key issues that the Arctic Council’s various working groups will formally present May 15 to the Arctic Council ministerial gathering in Kiruna, Sweden.

But it’s unlikely that the Arctic Council will support any move to deal directly with the causes of climate change in the Arctic — such as the reduction of global or regional greenhouse gas emissions, the main drivers behind warming and other damaging impacts of climate change in the Arctic.

Restoring oyster reefs can buffer ocean acidification

A new study adds another item to this list of benefits of restoring oyster reefs to Chesapeake Bay and other coastal ecosystems—the ability of oyster reefs to buffer the increasing acidity of ocean waters.

The study, Ecosystem effects of shell aggregations and cycling in coastal waters: An example of Chesapeake Bay oyster reefs, was co-authored by Professor Roger Mann of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) and appears in Ecology.

Ocean indigestion? Take oyster antacids

A global-scale case of indigestion eats away at the organisms of the Earth’s oceans, but delicious Chesapeake Bay oysters may be just the marine medicine people need to fight the devastating effects of ocean acidification.

Calcium carbonate in oyster shells matches the active ingredient in antacids that people crunch down when suffering indigestion or heartburn. Research published in Ecology examined how oyster populations, and the discarded shells humans return to the bay, serve a similar purpose in the Chesapeake Bay.

A window on ocean acidification and phytoplankton, the base of the food web (audio)

A row of space-age domes off the Washington coast may provide a peek at the future. Not the future of space travel but the effects of increasingly acidic oceans on phytoplankton, the base of the food web. Scientists and students at the University of Washington Friday Harbor Labs on San Juan Island are engaged in the nation’s first controlled-ocean research tool in coastal waters where co2 levels are almost double those in the atmosphere.

Study shows oyster reefs buffer acidification of Chesapeake Bay

GLOUCESTER — A new study co-authored by Prof. Roger Mann of William and Mary‘s Virginia Institute of Marine Science adds a new item to the list of oyster reef benefits — the ability to buffer increasing acidity of ocean waters.

The study, “Ecosystem effects of shell aggregations and cycling in coastal waters: An example of Chesapeake Bay oyster reefs,” appears in Ecology, the flagship journal of the Ecological Society of America. It is co-authored by George Waldbusser of Oregon State University and Eric Powell of the Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory at Rutgers University.

Le record de concentration en CO2 dans l’air va être atteint (in French)

Les chercheurs inquiets de l’acidification des océans due aux gaz à effet de serre.

C’est un seuil symbolique: la concentration de dioxyde de carbone dans l’atmosphère qui a continuellement augmenté ces soixante dernières années devrait dépasser ce mois-ci le seuil des 400 ppm (partie par millions, unité de mesure du CO2). Ce relevé est attendu sur la station scientifique du Mauna Loa qui se situe à 3400 mètres d’altitude au milieu du Pacifique (Hawaï) où des mesures sont faites depuis 1958. À cette époque, elles affichaient 316 ppm.