Ocean Acidification And Its Effect On The Oceans - 1727 Words

The mid to late twentieth century and the twenty first century have been devastating to the world’s oceans in terms of pollution, overfishing, ice caps melting, destruction of habitat, and increasing amounts carbon dioxide being dissolved into the water. These are only a few of the seemingly endless problems humans have introduced to the oceans. Things like the ice caps melting affect how basic aspects of the oceans function. Pollution and destruction of habitat affect nearly every species of marine organism. Fish die from toxic waste, turtles and sharks get caught in nets, and birds eat plastic. Overfishing depletes the population of certain species and throws entire food chains off balance. A combination of things affects fish and†¦show more content†¦With emissions from cars and deforestation at an all time high, so is the amount of carbon dioxide being dissolved into the world’s oceans. There are seemingly endless things people could be doing to help stop this, but don’t. This is because ocean acidification is one of the least advocated problems. Ocean acidification is one of the largest factors affecting today’s oceans and affects every ocean organism. The first organisms that ocean acidification affects are calcifying creatures. These include creatures like oysters, calcareous plankton, clams, sea urchins, and coral. The ocean normally has enough carbonate ions dissolved for calcifying creatures to use to create their shells. Ocean acidification negatively affects the ability for these organisms to build their shells. As carbon dioxide dissolves into the ocean it reacts with the water to form carbonic acid (What is Ocean, 2015). Also, as more carbon dioxide dissolves into the ocean, it reacts with seawater to make H+ ions. These H+ ions compete with calcifying creatures for the carbonate ions. The H+ ions often win making it much more difficult for these shelled creatures to make their shells (Cripps et al., 2014). C reatures like conch shells, oysters, and clams are the most negatively affected. But not all creatures are immediately affected. Some organisms such as crabs and lobsters and crabs actually grow heavier shells to combat the effects of changing pH. This adaptation