Alex Smith: No doubt you've heard that fossil fuel emissions are turning the world's oceans more acidic. Scientists are scrambling to find out what that means for our future. There's a new report out based on a meeting of 540 experts from 37 countries held in Monterey, California, in September 2012. It was the third symposium on the ocean in a high CO2 world. Radio Ecoshock is pleased to welcome one of America's top ocean scientists, Dr. Richard Feely. He's from NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. Hello, Dr. Feely. Dr. Richard Feely: Hello! Glad to be on your show. Alex Smith: Well, it isn't like a more acidic ocean is going to burn our skin when we go swimming or anything, but it can damage sea creatures that depend on calcium for shells. Why should we care about that? Dr. Richard Feely: Well, the in a seafood industry, many of our calcifying organisms represent about 50% of the total economic value of our seafood, particularly here in the United States, where about $2 billion a year are related to calcifying organisms such as shrimp and lobster, clams, oysters. In fact, the oyster industry is having a significant number of problems right now because of ocean acidification. Alex Smith: As I read through the report, I became alarm for our own future as much as small sea creatures, because the symposium agreed, oceans are soaking up to 24 million tons of CO2 a day. But that buffer may not keep working as well. Can you explain what's happening with that? Dr. Richard Feely: Yes. There's a natural process by which carbon dioxide that's released into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuel, coal, oil and natural gas. Mankind's been releasing about, as you said, 70 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every day and about 22 million is absorbed by the oceans. This is the process of air-sea exchange of gases into the oceans. And that ocean uptake has caused a change in the pH and lowering of the pH. And since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, we have observed a decrease in the pH about 0.1 units, which represents a 30% increase in the acidity of the oceans on the global basis. Alex Smith: Well, our CO2 emissions keep setting new records. If that continues into a worst case scenario, what happens to the oceans by 2100? Dr. Richard Feely: Depending on what CO2 emissions scenarios we are looking at, there is a range of scenarios. But the the actually that time is in right now, we would expect to see a increase in atmospheric CO2 out to about, 800 parts per million. And associated with that would be about a .3 to .4 decrease in the overall pH, which would be an increase in acidity of the oceans of about 100 to 150%. Alex Smith: Some people, as you know, continue to doubt that human carbon emissions really cause climate change. But there is zero doubt in this paper that fossil fuel burning is changing the chemistry of the sea. How can scientists be certain of that? Dr. Richard Feely: Oh, well, we have a global ocean carbon observing system throughout the world oceans. They consist of moorings that are deployed there. So right now there are 32 moorings throughout the world oceans that have carbon sensors on them. In addition to that, we put CO2 sensors on Ships of Opportunity that transfer back and forth between continents, and we collect, surface ocean data from those Ships of Opportunity. And we have discreet cruises that measure the water column chemistry from surface to bottom in what was called the International GO-SHIP Program that studies the chemistry of the oceans, say from, Antarctica to Alaska or from Japan to the US. These are decade long cruises. And that allows us to determine the changes in chemistry throughout the water column. So we have very detailed chemical measures that actually allows us, from measurements alone, to determine the changes in the CO2 concentrations in the ocean. Alex Smith: So the report also has high confidence that if we reduce emissions, ocean acidification will not be as bad. How do we know that? Dr. Richard Feely: Well, we also combine these data sets with models. And the models are based on the CO2 emission scenarios, the IPCC CO2 emissions scenarios. And so they allow us to assess what the uptake of carbon dioxide in the change in pH would be under the different CO2 emission scenarios. The RCP 2.6 version would be the lowest concentration scenario, and the RCP 8.5 being the largest, highest concentration scenarios. And they represent atmospheric concentrations at the 2100 region from anywhere from about, 500 parts per million CO2, all the way up to, about 850 parts per million. So the models allow us to determine what the impacts on the ocean for those various CO2 emissions might be. And then from the observations, we're able to verify those models. Alex Smith: And will the impact that we're having continue for a long time? Dr. Richard Feely: Yes. That's one of the concerns about ocean acidification. The ocean circulation is really quite slow and it takes about 1500 years or so for the entire circuit, from the North Atlantic to the South Atlantic to through the Indian Ocean and back up to the north Pacific. And so consequently, the neutralization of all that CO2 takes a very, very long time. And so as we continue to take up CO2 into the oceans, it will take a longer and longer time for for that CO2 to be neutralized. For example, if we have a business as usual scenario where the atmospheric concentration would reach about 850 parts per million, it would take well over 10,000 years for the CO2 levels to get back to normal when we shut off those, those CO2 emissions. Whereas if we cut off CO2 emissions right now, we could see returning to normal within a few hundred years. Alex Smith: When scientists talk about the rate of acidification, the numbers seem quite small. Why does a .1 change in pH reflect a big change in the chemistry? Dr. Richard Feely: Well, pH is much like the Richter scale. It's actually a logarithmic scale. So a 1 pH unit change is actually a tenfold change in the concentration of the acidity of the oceans. So when we say that it's been a .1 pH change since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, that's a 30% increase in the hydrogen ion concentration. That's more than anything we've seen over the last 50 million years. Alex Smith: And we shouldn't, as the report says, consider ocean acidification in a vacuum. How does a more acid ocean interact with things like warmer seas or even overfishing? Dr. Richard Feely: Many of these processes interact with each other to enhance the acidification effect, for example, coral reefs. When you look at the combined effects of acidification and global warming together, the impacts on corals are much worse because of the combined impact of increasing temperature and increasing the acidification than either one of those two effects by themselves. And so, from an ecosystem perspective, we would be concerned about how these combined impacts would occur. In a climate change world where these CO2 levels are increasing and the surface temperatures are increasing, the combined impacts on many of our marine ecosystems are more severe. Show ID Announcement: Radio Ecoshock. Alex Smith: This is Radio Ecoshock. I'm Alex Smith from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine lab. Our guest is scientist Dr. Richard Feely. We're talking about making the oceans more acidic by burning fossil fuels. Richard, dead zones are popping up. Some people on the internet are afraid the ocean is dying. What do you think about that? Alex Smith: No, that's not what we're saying at all. What we're saying is that some species of organisms are highly sensitive to ocean acidification. Other species actually do better in the high CO2 world. But those species that are of importance to mankind or food resources, many of those species, particularly those species that have a calcium carbonate shell or skeleton, they are very sensitive to ocean acidification. So we're very concerned about that. When we look at the different species of organisms that are important food sources for mankind, a large portion of those species are affected by ocean acidification. On the other hand, seagrasses and other species of marine plants like cyanobacteria or jellyfish, they do well in the high CO2 world. So what we'd expect to see is significant species shifts in the high CO2 world, and the ramifications of those shifts through the ecosystem are yet to be understood. Alex Smith: Well, you bring that up. The scientists have high confidence in the cause and solution to ocean acidification. But predicting the economic and social costs came with low confidence. Why is that? Dr. Richard Feely: Well, what we know for certain is that the chemistry of ocean acidification, we know that quite well because the observations are very, very clear and they are consistent with the models. So there's high confidence about the chemistry of ocean acidification. There's also high confidence about the impacts that we would have on some of our fishery species, particularly clams and oysters, where the experimental evidence is very, very clear. And in with respect to oysters, for example, we know that there is an economic impact right now from the experiences we've had on the west coast of North America, and California, Washington, Oregon, which are already seeing the impacts of ocean acidification on their industries. The extension of that kind of effort and that kind of understanding to the global oceans is not as clear yet. And so we have a medium confidence on those kinds of economic impacts to this state. Alex Smith: You know, I've interviewed scientists who believe human geoengineering is needed to save the Arctic ice, perhaps by spraying sulfur aerosols. How would that affect the problem of ocean acidification? Dr. Richard Feely: Most of those geoengineering approaches address the cooling of the atmosphere. They don't address the amount of carbon dioxide that would be taken up by the oceans. So by neglecting the root cause of climate change, CO2 and its uptake in the oceans, most of those geoengineering approaches will not have any helpful impact on ocean acidification. And in some cases, for example, with iron fertilization and other approaches like that, it may actually enhance the acidification of the oceans. So there's a lot of research that has yet to be done to address what the overall impact would be. Alex Smith: Is there a safe level of ocean acidification? And second question, is there a tipping point where ecosystems will not recover? Dr. Richard Feely: Well, what we have learned so far is that each species of organism has a mechanism to either respond to acidification in a very negative way, in which we have tipping points for those organisms. For example, for oyster larvae, there's a fairly clear tipping point for the Pacific oyster. But other organisms have an ability to adapt to these changes. So the tipping points would be quite different. So we're faced with the situation of looking at this from one organism to the next, to understand the responses and the adaptability of those organisms to acidification. And the research on that adaptation is just getting started over the last 2 or 3 years. So we're left a lot to learn about that process. Alex Smith: To me, changing the chemistry of the ocean seems like a huge step. Are scientists rallying around the need to find out more about this, and are national governments paying attention? Dr. Richard Feely: Yes, very much so. Within the United States, for example, there was a federal Ocean Acidification Research and Monitoring Act of 2009 that focused eight federal agencies to work together on ocean acidification. So there's a national program on ocean acidification. And at the same time, we have been working internationally through the efforts of the International Ocean Acidification Coordination Center in Monaco to coordinate the activities of, at least right now, 29 nations, working to develop an ocean acidification observing system at the international level and developing research plans and priorities in order to coordinate all our efforts at the international level. Alex Smith: Is there anything else you would like our listeners to know? Dr. Richard Feely: When I give my presentations on ocean acidification, I always remind them that we as human beings have a very significant decision to make, and that's how we continue to use fossil fuels for energy. And the implications of that for the health and welfare of our natural ecosystems. You know, the decisions that we make over the next 30 to 50 years represents a change in the chemistry of the oceans that will be with us for hundreds of thousands to millions of years. So these are very, very important decisions that we need to make. And they have very serious implications for our marine ecosystems. Alex Smith: Our guest has been Dr. Richard Feely from NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. He's one of the authors of an international report called "Ocean Acidification: Summary for Policymakers - Third Symposium on the Ocean in a High-CO2 World." Find links to that in my show blog at ecoshock.info. Richard Feely, thank you for sharing your time and expertise with us. Dr. Richard Feely: Thank you for having me on your show. Alex Smith: I'm Alex Smith for Radio Ecoshock.