Higher CO2 Harming All Marine Life From Corals and Clams to Fish (Researchers) [View all]

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Source: Bloomberg

Higher CO2 Harms All Marine Life From Corals and Clams to Fish

By Alex Morales
August 25, 2013 1:00 PM EDT

Rising levels of carbon dioxide are harming all forms of marine life because the oceans are acidifying as they absorb the gas, German researchers found.

Mollusks, corals and a class of creatures called echinoderms that includes starfish and sea urchins are the worst affected by the uptake of CO2 by the seas, according to a study today in the journal Nature Climate Change by researchers at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven. The gas forms carbonic acid when it dissolves in the oceans, lowering their pH level.

Creatures that show negative effects from acidification include commercial species such as oysters and cod. Given the pace at which carbon-dioxide emissions are growing, human emissions threaten to trigger extinctions at a faster pace than die-outs millions of years ago, according to the researchers.

“There is a danger that we’re pushing things too fast and too hard toward an evolutionary crisis,” Hans-Otto Poertner, one of the authors, said in a phone interview. “In the past, these crises have taken much longer to develop.”

The research will be fed into the United Nations’ most detailed study into the science of climate change, which is being published in three parts and an overall summary by the end of 2014, and is designed to inform international climate treaty negotiations. Today’s study will be input for the second part of that report, by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, due to be published at the end of March. The first part is scheduled for publication on Sept. 27.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-25/higher-co2-harms-all-marine-life-from-corals-and-clams-to-fish.html