The NOAA has released a study on the acidification of the oceans and the impacts it will have on Alaska’s coast. The predictions are very grim…
What is ocean acidification?
When carbon dioxide dissolves in this ocean, carbonic acid is formed. This leads to higher acidity, mainly near the surface, which has been proven to inhibit shell growth in marine animals and is suspected as a cause of reproductive disorders in some fish…
On the pH scale, which runs from 0 to 14, solutions with low numbers are considered acidic and those with higher numbers are basic. Seven is neutral. Over the past 300 million years, ocean pH has been slightly basic, averaging about 8.2. Today, it is around 8.1, a drop of 0.1 pH units, representing a 25-percent increase in acidity over the past two centuries.
If the pH in these water continues to drop it will have a devastating effect on the very structure of shellfish, crabs and other marine life…
Ocean acidification decreases the availability of carbonate, a material that thousands of species of sea creatures use to form calcium carbonate shells. Without it, we’ll see an epidemic of “global osteoporosis“: shells that are extremely thin and brittle, or that totally dissolve.
Indeed, this threat extends to the majority of the commercial fishing industry: clams, oysters, lobsters and, yes, crabs all depend on their calcium carbonate shells for survival. Larger marine life, such as seals, otters and walruses who eat shellfish, are also in danger.
The result of all this could be many of the shell fish species and salmon fisheries may not survive and scientists are unsure how much longer this fragile area will support these species…
“The scary thing is that we don’t know the answer to that question yet,” says NOAA oceanographer Jeremy Mathis. “The potential is certainly there for it to be a rapid event, literally overnight. Whether that’s a slow degradation of the fisheries over decades, or whether a species is there one year and isn’t the next, we still don’t know that. That’s what I’m most concerned about.”
The predicted economic outcomes for Alaska’s seafood industry are devastating, to say the least. Another issue is that many Alaskans depend on subsistence fisheries…
The research presented in the new study examines the potential effects on a state where the fishing industry supports over 100,000 jobs and generates more than $5 billion in annual revenue and helps maintain the U.S. balance of trade in the global economy. Additionally, approximately 120,000 people or roughly 17 percent of Alaskans rely on subsistence fisheries for most, if not all of their dietary protein. Fishery-related tourism also brings in $300 million annually.
“Ocean acidification is not just an ecological problem — it’s an economic problem,” said Steve Colt, Ph.D., co-author of the study and an economist at the University of Alaska Anchorage. “The people of coastal Alaska, who have always looked to the sea for sustenance and prosperity, will be most affected. But all Alaskans need to understand how and where ocean acidification threatens our marine resources so that we can work together to address the challenges and maintain healthy and productive coastal communities.”
I would be outraged if it weren’t for the fact that Arctic fisheries have already been pretty much wasted by the usual cast of carcinogenic contaminants and more recently by Fuckushima radiation.