Arctic Ocean acid 'will dissolve shells of sea creatures within 10 years'

(London) Daily Telegraph ^ | October 4, 2009 | Matthew Moore

[Zakeet]

The Arctic Ocean is becoming acidic so quickly that it will reach corrosive levels within 10 years, a leading scientist has warned.

Waters around the North Pole are absorbing carbon dioxide at such a rate that they will soon start dissolving the shells of living sea creatures.

The potentially disastrous consequences for the food chain have been highlighted by Professor Jean-Pierre Gattuso of the National Centre for Scientific Research in France.

His team of oceanographers have produced startling predictions about the acidity of the Arctic Ocean after research carried out on the Svalbard archipelago, a group of islands half way between Norway and the North Pole, revealed that the problem is more advanced than scientists thought.

Their forecasts suggest that by 2018, 10 per cent of the ocean will be corrosively acidic, rising to 50 per cent in 2050. By 2100 the entire Arctic Ocean will be inhospitable to shellfish, they predict.

"This is extremely worrying," Prof Gattuso told the Oceans of Tomorrow conference in Barcelona.

"We knew that the seas were getting more acidic and this would disrupt the ability of shellfish – like mussels – to grow their shells. But now we realise the situation is much worse."

[Snip]

"There is only one way to stop the devastation the oceans are now facing and that is to limit carbon-dioxide emissions as a matter of urgency."

[Zakeet]

I told you stupid #*%#(%$ Freepers this would happen if you opposed my Cap and Tax planet saving proposal.

[brytlea]

Quick everyone, hold your breath!

[hsalaw]

Anyone who falls for startling predictions from the French is a moron. They should stick to the only thing they've done right in the past 100 years: blast Obozo for being an spineless elitist idiot.

[dhs12345]

How about “cry wolf.”

[Russ]

I just don’t know how I can get up and face the world tomorrow. OH THE HUMANITY!!!

[randog]

You know, the temperature in randogville is 10 degrees higher now than it was a couple of hours ago. If this trend continues then we’ll all be dead in 24 hours. Somebody do something!!

[FlingWingFlyer]

What a load!

[sitkaspruce]

Oh no we are all going to die including the polar bears who will die of acid burns. Quick we need to cap all the active volcano’s with corks to make sure they don’t spew anymore carbon dioxide when the erupt.
With all the plastic and screw tops being used for wine bottles now we have a huge cork surplus building up taking up valuable space in Spain that could be used for solar panels.

[Da Coyote]

The warmer-bunners were pushing a method to absorb CO2...now they don’t want it?

Are they as stupid of the Obamaloon?

Oh, forgot, they ELECTED the Obamaloon.

[TStro]

Shades of acid rain! The lakes in the northeast and eastern Canada are now all so acidic nothing can live in them, they are worse than the inside of your car battery!. At least that was the prediction. By 1998! LOL. What a maroon. Blithering idiots.

[eyedigress]

[raptor29]

Hey “professor” Gattuso:

STFU.

That is all.

[apillar]

Fine by me, i don’t really care for the taste of shellfish anyway....(waiting for Environuts heads to explode)

[bitterohiogunclinger]

Gee, I guess oceans aren't smart enough to employ an eco system that self stabilizes without help from Algore?
I can't imagine how all those tons and tons of carbon dioxide managed to wait all these millions of years to become toxic.

[dsrtsage]

Somebody really really needs to start a website displaying the prediction, who made it and the results. It should probably start with predictions from the 60’s. All new or newer predictions would have a countdown to catastrope, and display the results when the countdown reaches zero. For example, we have less than 4 years before the arctic is ice free according to Gore. His prediction would have a counter right now at something like 4 years 1 month, 3 days, 8 hours, 15 minutes....and then it when it reaches zero, well...”Hey look 6 million square miles of ice”

[HiTech RedNeck]

Hasn’t carbon dioxide been even more concentrated in the air and water in the past? Where did all the clams and oysters go while that was happening?

[ripley]

It hasn’t been a very long time for them to have found another emergency condition that requires the destruction of the American economy.

(Absolutely amazing.)

IMHO

Question: Can someone explain how carbon dioxide becomes acidic when it’s “absorbed” by the water in the oceans?

Just asking.

[THX 1138]

So in essence they've given up trying to tell us that the world is going to fry because of global warming, because all of the evidence suggests the opposite, that we are cooling.

I'm not a scientist or a chemist, so what exactly is the correlation between increased CO2 and acidity in the Artic Ocean?

[samtheman]

Somebody really really needs to start a website displaying the prediction, who made it and the results. It should probably start with predictions from the 60’s.

That's exactly what I was thinking.

[LibFreeOrDie]

Does this “scientist” realize that the components of the earth’s atmosphere have never been constant, and have changed drastically during the earth’s history?