Masthead graphic based on a painting by Gudrun Thriemer.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

"Human Carbon Emissions Make Oceans Corrosive - Study," Planet Ark, May 23, 2008.

WASHINGTON - Carbon dioxide spewed by human activities has made ocean water so acidic that it is eating away at the shells and skeletons of starfish, coral, clams and other sea creatures, scientists said on Thursday.

Marine researchers knew that ocean acidification, as it's called, was occurring in deep water far from land. What they called "truly astonishing" was the appearance of this damaging phenomenon on the Pacific North American continental shelf, stretching from Mexico to Canada.

"This means that ocean acidification may be seriously impacting our marine life on our continental shelf right now, today," said Richard Feely of the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, part of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Read the rest of the Reuters article =>

The Science study is here =>

Richard A. Feely, et al., "Evidence for Upwelling of Corrosive "Acidified" Water onto the Continental Shelf," Science, published online May 22, 2008.

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