Ocean acidification taking toll of Antarctica marine snails, shows BAS research

Thursday, November 29th 2012 - 18:28 UTC

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The shells of marine snails – known as pteropods – living in the seas around Antarctica are being dissolved by ocean acidification according to a new study published this week in the journal Nature Geoscience. These tiny animals are a valuable food source for fish and birds and play an important role in the oceanic carbon cycle. Read full article

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briton
comment added ?
Nov 29th, 2012 - 08:35 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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yd1982
But in the distant geological past (millions of years ago), like in the era of dinosaurs and even afterwards, CO2 levels in the atmosphere were much higher than now, and I'm sure correspondingly, the ocean pH was significantly lower than now. And we're talking about LONG before mankind even started to release greenhouse gases and what not! So surely, marine snails have adapted in the past to much more drastic climate changes than what we've seen in the past 50-100 years. Besides which, the oceans today aren't even quite acidic, though maybe somewhat less alkaline than 10-20 years ago. Climate change today, even despite greenhouse gases released by humankind as of late, is still mostly about natural cycles - first and foremost from the sun (and cosmic rays), and also ocean cycles, earth rotation patterns, volcanic/seismic activity, etc.!!!
Nov 30th, 2012 - 02:18 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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British_Kirchnerist
Capitalism is polluting Antarctica
Nov 30th, 2012 - 09:28 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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Falkland Islands
with all the Argentine scientists in Antarctica, I would have thought you would see hundreds of pieces of data about various goings on in that area. or are they really scientists? ;)
Dec 07th, 2012 - 12:53 am - Link - Report abuse 0
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