Carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels is changing the oceans’
chemistry. This is ocean acidification. The head of the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration calls ocean acidification
global warming’s equally evil twin. The oceans are absorbing up
to a million tons of carbon dioxide every hour. The good news:
less carbon dioxide in the air means the atmosphere will warm up
more slowly. You guessed there’s bad news? Right again! The bad
news is that as the oceans absorb large quantities of carbon
dioxide, they become more acidic. When a molecule of carbon
dioxide (CO2) enters the ocean, it immediately forms carbonic
acid by binding to, and locking up, carbonate molecules. Corals,
clams, various plankton, crusting coralline algae, and other
creatures that make skeletons and shells of calcium carbonate
need those same carbonate molecules that carbon dioxide steals.
Carbonate scarcity slows their growth, making them more fragile,
and sometimes fatally deformed. Carbonate concentrations in the
upper few