Ocean Acidification Papers

Ocean Acidification

Water is the dominating force of life; it has etched, carved and determined the fate of humanity itself since the beginning of time. All living organisms are reliant on water; forced to migrate or adapt at a turn of events as simple as a drought. Despite pipes, wells and most other man made engineering, even humans still spend their days chasing clouds. So for once on this planet there are no arguments, no debates, as to the fact that we need water to survive. We even depend on the undrinkable oceans coating the earth; that act as a shelter for tens of thousands of ecosystems, food chains, and organisms. Some of which have achieved such a precarious balance, that the loss of any creature in a food web may lead to the downfall of the planet itself. “We are already well into a new geological era… where human interference is the dominant factor in nearly every planetary ecosystem, to the detriment of perhaps all of them” (Lynas, 49). So why exactly are humans shifting such an important balance for the sake of excess? We’re tipping the scale; and might not be able to tell when the water starts to burn. Ocean acidification is a process that disrupts some of the most important biological functions and processes that all living organisms are dependent on.

What is Ocean Acidification?

Ocean Acidification is the act of CO2 dissolving into seawater, decreasing its alkalinity and increasing it's hydrogen ion concentration; making organisms sensitive to shifts in the water. Anything from temperature change to toxic waste inflicts some sort of change upon the ocean and the creatures it engulfs. As most people are aware, humans are altering the earth’s climate through producing greenhouse gas that is blanketing our atmosph...

... middle of paper ...

...of coral. Zooxanthellae provides corals with their pigmentation as well as glucose and amino acids. Loss of zooxanthellae leads to "bleaching", a loss of coloration and stamina within the coral that lends the organism prone to disease.

Conclusion

Somehow our oceans maintain the balance between being some of the most powerful forces on the earth, and the most easily disturbed masses on the planet. There are so many things that could go wrong within the countless cycles, and the delicate processes that stabalize nature and sustain the biosphere; and people are continually interfering with these cycles. Ocean acidification is one of the most obvious results of human interference upon nature. “Pollution is nothing but the resources we are not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we've been ignorant of their value.” ("R. Buckminster Fuller, in Memoriam").