Carbon emissions driving Pacific Ocean acidity to new high The
current trend of increasing ocean acidification, which threatens
fisheries around the world, is driven mainly by man-made changes
and is higher even than that seen at the end of the last ice
age, some 11,000 year ago, a study has said. Much of the carbon
released by human activity ends up in the oceans, increasing
their acidity and reducing the growth of corals and molluscs,
which in turn may affect fisheries and aquaculture. Fisheries in
the Pacific and the Caribbean may suffer the most — in these
regions, man-made acidification has already caused a 30-fold
increase in the natural variation in ocean acidity, according to
a study published in Nature Climate Change last month. Regional
acidification far exceeds pre-industrial levels, and coral
calcification (growth) rates may have fallen by 15 percent in
the western tropical Pacific and the Caribbean, the study shows.
"Coral reefs provide economic and environmental services to
nearly 500 million pe