Another peril is acidification, which could devastate ocean life with planet-wide consequences. The buildup of CO2 in the atmosphere produces acid rain which, as we have long known, affects the pH of lakes. As the 750 gigatonnes of carbon in the atmosphere grows it could reduce ocean pH from 8 to 7.4 or lower. There are signs this is now happening.
Acid seas would have a devastating effect not only on corals and shellfish, which would be unable to build their calcareous skeletons, but also on plankton, the earth’s most numerous and important lifeforms.
In Plankton: a critical creation, Professor Gustaaf Hallegraeff of the University of Tasmania depicts plankton as the planet’s main microbial engine. Plankton produce much of the oxygen we breath; they capture and lock up half the world’s CO2; they influence global climate by producing clouds and scattering sunlight; they are the base of the planetary food web. Many plankton have chalky skeletons which could not form in an acid sea.
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Australia, as suzerain of the world’s largest and most diverse Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) has a direct stake in understanding these processes, how to manage them and prevent their collapse. Indeed half our territory is water. The scale of the current scientific effort devoted to understanding so vast a realm is but a drop in the ocean of what it ought to be. Indeed it borders on an act of national irresponsibility and indifference.
If we hope that our oceans will sustain us in the future, we must sustain them in the present. But we need the science to do so.
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