'Ticking time bomb': Ocean acidity crosses vital threshold, study finds

[nitpicked]

Last edited Mon Jun 9, 2025, 05:37 PM - Edit history (1)

https://thehill.com/policy/equilibrium-sustainability/5340239-ocean-acidity-study-climate-change-carbon/

The deep oceans have crossed a crucial boundary that threatens their ability to provide the surface with food and oxygen, a new study finds.

Nearly two-thirds of the ocean below 200 meters, or 656 feet, as well as nearly half of that above, have breached “safe” levels of acidity, according to findings published on Monday in Global Change Biology.
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“Most ocean life doesn’t just live at the surface — the waters below are home to many more different types of plants and animals,” lead author Helen Findlay of PML. “Since these deeper waters are changing so much, the impacts of ocean acidification could be far worse than we thought.”

As of five years ago, Findlay’s study noted, the oceans may have crossed a critical threshold in which oceanic levels of calcium carbonate — the main ingredient in limestones, and also the shells of those animals — fell to more than 20 percent below pre-industrial levels.
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[PSPS]

1. If the plankton go, so will most of our oxygen