According to an August 25 press release from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), biologists working at the institute assessed that the mutable effects of acidification on world ocean ecosystems could be realized by the end of the century.  Their findings, in which the researchers collected and analyzed all available data on the response of marine animals to ocean acidification, appear in a recent issue of Nature Climate Change, in an article entitled, “Sensitivities of extant animal taxa to ocean acidification.”

 

The world’s oceans act as a giant sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide, absorbing over 25 percent of the manmade emissions of this greenhouse gas, and tempering global warmth.