Causes Of Ocean Acidification

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Ocean acidification in layman's terms means that the ocean is chemically changing due to humankind's industrial, residential, and agricultural activities. At first, some scientist thought that the ocean absorbing carbon dioxide would help reduces the greenhouse gases we have, but now situation has changed because approximately one million tons of carbon dioxide is absorbed each hour. This means humans produce way too much carbon dioxide that not only harms our atmosphere, but also the ocean. The United States in particular is the highest emitting carbon dioxide country than everyone else. Although in a global perspective, China is first then United States. The reason I insist we produce more is that each individual in United States produces sixteen point two tons of carbon dioxide. …show more content…
Once that happens, the carbon dioxide reacts with the water (H2O) creating bicarbonate ions resulting in less carbonate ions. This carbonate ion is needed to help marine organism to form their shells or skeletons. In addition to this reaction, there are leftover hydrogen ions causing seawater’s acidity to increase.
The problem derives from the ocean becoming increasingly acidic when it is supposed to be slightly basic. In 1751 to 1994, the ocean basicity went from 8.25 pH to 8.14 pH. It might not look like much of a difference, but the pH scale is logarithmic. In other words, the difference of one pH unit is equal to a ten-fold change in acidity. I like to acknowledge that not every part of the ocean will have the same pH level. That being said we can still see the change of pH over the years resulting in the same conclusion. The path we are going makes our future look grim not only for us, but marine organism
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