Ocean Acidification

Picture taken by Anonymous

"Instruments within tent chambers help gauge the health of coral reefs."

A group of researchers headed by Nichole Price at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography located in UC San Diego are researching the acidification of today's oceans. Specifically researching the affects of acidification of the health of coral reefs. Acidification is the process by which the pH of seawater is increased due to carbon dioxide intake increasing. A raise in carbon dioxide intake could result in massively negative affects that could "reverberate across coral reef ecosystems and extend to the human societies that depend on [the coral reefs]."

Picture taken by Anonymous

Another picture of "instruments within tent chambers help gauge the health of coral reefs."

The study was conducted in two different primary areas: uninhabited and inhabited reefs. Tents, as seen above, contained instruments that would take pH readings every 5 minutes for 24 hours. The researcher team used "feedbacks to ocean chemistry at the Line Islands through field deployments of school desk-sized, pyramid-shaped tents over diverse coral reef 'footprint' areas" to determine responses to pH changes. The researchers found that pH changes happened daily. Acidification of these waters could result in a severe change in the range of pH swings exhibited on the ocean floor.  

Price believes that "the localized human influence and related stressors such as fishing and pollution can change the living function of the reef to compound the impacts due to global change."

Original Article: http://scrippsnews.ucsd.edu/Releases/?releaseID=1310