Using the results from the NCAR CSM1.4-coupled global carbon cycle–climate model under the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emission scenarios SRES A2 and B1, we estimated the effects of both global warming and ocean acidification on the future habitats of corals in the seas around Japan during this century. As shown by Yara et al.
In order to help predict the effects of anthropogenic stressors on shallow water carbonate environments, it is important to focus research on regions containing natural oceanographic gradients, particularly with respect to interactions between oceanography and ecologically sensitive carbonate producers. The Galápagos Archipelago, an island chain in the eastern equatorial Pacific, spans a natural nutrient, pH, and temperature gradient due to the interaction of several major ocean currents.
Ocean acidification (OA) is likely to have an effect on the fertilizing potential of desert dust in high-nutrient, low-chlorophyll oceanic regions, either by modifying iron (Fe) speciation and bioavailability or by altering phytoplankton Fe requirements and acquisition. To address this issue, short incubations (4 days) of northeast subarctic Pacific waters enriched with either FeSO4 or dust and set at pH 8.0 (in situ) and 7.8 were conducted in August 2010.
There is increasing concern about the effects of ocean acidification on marine biogeochemical and ecological processes and the organisms that drive them, including marine bacteria. Here, we examine the effects of elevated CO2 on the bacterioplankton community during a mesocosm experiment using an artificial phytoplankton community in subtropical, eutrophic coastal waters of Xiamen, southern China.
Rising anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere is accompanied by an increase in oceanic CO2 and a concomitant decline in seawater pH (ref. 1). This phenomenon, known as ocean acidification (OA), has been experimentally shown to impact the biology and ecology of numerous animals and plants, most notably those that precipitate calcium carbonate skeletons, such as reef-building corals. Volcanically acidified water at Maug, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) is equivalent to near-future predictions for what coral reef ecosystems will experience worldwide due to OA.
The pteropod Limacina helicina frequently experiences seasonal exposure to corrosive conditions ($Ømega$ar \textless 1) along the US West Coast and is recognized as one of the species most susceptible to ocean acidification (OA). Yet, little is known about their capacity to acclimatize to such conditions. We collected pteropods in the California Current Ecosystem (CCE) that differed in the severity of exposure to $Ømega$ar conditions in the natural environment.