This is of definite concern to anyone who collects or studies
shell-bearing molluscs!! A recent study outlined below, found that the
world's oceans are becoming more acidic at a rate about 10 times faster
than most climate models are predicting. This is NOT good news....

http://www.world-science.net/othernews/081126_acid

Oceans acidifying much faster than was thought: study

Nov. 26, 2008
Courtesy University of Chicago
and World Science staff

The oceans are becoming more acidic, and much faster than pre­vi­ously
thought, sci­en­tists say. The pro­cess, a pos­sible threat to some
ocean life, seems to be linked with ris­ing lev­els of at­mos­pher­ic
gas­es that are blamed for glob­al warm­ing, ac­cord­ing to the
re­search­ers.

O­cean­side rocks cov­ered with mus­sels are one hab­i­tat that may be
threat­ened by in­creas­ing ocean acid­i­ty, re­search­ers say.
(Cred­it: J.T. Woot­ton, U. Chi­cago).
Univers­ity of Chi­ca­go scientists de­tailed the new find­ings in a
pa­per pub­lished on­line by the re­search jour­nal Pro­ceed­ings of the
Na­tional Acad­e­my of Sci­ences Nov. 24. The study is based on 24,519
mea­sure­ments of ocean ac­id­ity span­ning eight years.

Dur­ing that time, “the ac­id­ity in­creased more than 10 times faster”
than cli­mate change mod­els and oth­er stud­ies had pre­dicted, said
the uni­ver­s­ity’s J. Tim­o­thy Woot­ton, lead au­thor of the stu­dy.
“This in­crease will have a se­vere im­pact on ma­rine food webs.”

Woot­ton and col­leagues said the pro­cess seems to be oc­cur­ing in
step with in­creas­ing lev­els of car­bon di­ox­ide in the at­mos­phere.
Car­bon di­ox­ide is a key “green­house gas,” a com­pound that
re­search­ers say acts as a large-scale blan­ket in the at­mos­phere,
trap­ping heat on Earth and thus driv­ing glob­al warm­ing.

When the car­bon di­ox­ide dis­solves in wa­ter it forms car­bonic
ac­id. Ab­nor­mally ac­idic wa­ter harms cer­tain sea an­i­mals, the
au­thors said. “Many sea crea­tures have shells or skele­tons made of
cal­ci­um car­bonate, which the ac­id can dis­solve,” said the
uni­ver­s­ity’s Cath­er­ine Pfis­ter, a co-au­thor of the stu­dy.

They added that the acidity could re­duce the ocean’s abil­ity to soak
up more car­bon di­ox­ide, a pro­cess which some have hoped would
miti­gate cli­mate change.

-Ross mayhew.
http://www.schnr-specimen-shells.com/

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