World's Oceans Fail Key Health Check As Acidity Crosses Critical Threshold For Marine Life (theguardian.com)
(Wednesday September 24, 2025 @11:30PM (BeauHD)
from the warning-signs dept.)
- Reference: 0179522346
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/09/24/2156242/worlds-oceans-fail-key-health-check-as-acidity-crosses-critical-threshold-for-marine-life
- Source link: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/sep/24/worlds-oceans-fail-key-health-check-as-acidity-crosses-critical-threshold-for-marine-life
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian:
> The world's oceans have [1]failed a key planetary health check for the first time , primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels, a report has shown. In its latest [2]annual assessment , the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research said ocean acidity had crossed a critical threshold for marine life. This makes it the seventh of nine planetary boundaries to be transgressed, prompting scientists to call for a renewed global effort to curb fossil fuels, deforestation and other human-driven pressures that are tilting the Earth out of a habitable equilibrium. The report, which follows earlier warnings about ocean acidity, comes at a time of recordbreaking ocean heat and mass coral bleaching.
>
> Oceans cover 71% of the Earth's surface and play an essential role as a climate stabilizer. The new report calls them an "unsung guardian of planetary health", but says their vital functions are threatened. The 2025 Planetary Health Check noted that since the start of the industrial era, oceans' surface pH has fallen by about 0.1 units, a 30-40% increase in acidity, pushing marine ecosystems beyond safe limits. Cold-water corals, tropical coral reefs and Arctic marine life are especially at risk. This is primarily due to the human-caused climate crisis. When carbon dioxide from oil, coal and gas burning enters the sea, it forms carbonic acid. This reduces the availability of calcium carbonate, which many marine organisms depend upon to grow coral, shells or skeletons.
>
> Near the bottom of the food chain, this directly affects species like oysters, molluscs and clams. Indirectly, it harms salmon, whales and other sea life that eat smaller organisms. Ultimately, this is a risk for human food security and coastal economies. Scientists are concerned that it could also weaken the ocean's role as the planet's most important heat absorber and its capacity to draw down 25-30% of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Marine life plays an important role in this process, acting as a "biotic bump" to sequester carbon in the depths. In the report, all of the other six breached boundaries -- climate change, biosphere integrity, land system change, freshwater use, biogeochemical flows, and novel entities -- showed a worsening trend. But the authors said the addition of the only solely ocean-centerd category was a alarming development because of its scale and importance.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/sep/24/worlds-oceans-fail-key-health-check-as-acidity-crosses-critical-threshold-for-marine-life
[2] https://www.planetaryhealthcheck.org/
> The world's oceans have [1]failed a key planetary health check for the first time , primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels, a report has shown. In its latest [2]annual assessment , the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research said ocean acidity had crossed a critical threshold for marine life. This makes it the seventh of nine planetary boundaries to be transgressed, prompting scientists to call for a renewed global effort to curb fossil fuels, deforestation and other human-driven pressures that are tilting the Earth out of a habitable equilibrium. The report, which follows earlier warnings about ocean acidity, comes at a time of recordbreaking ocean heat and mass coral bleaching.
>
> Oceans cover 71% of the Earth's surface and play an essential role as a climate stabilizer. The new report calls them an "unsung guardian of planetary health", but says their vital functions are threatened. The 2025 Planetary Health Check noted that since the start of the industrial era, oceans' surface pH has fallen by about 0.1 units, a 30-40% increase in acidity, pushing marine ecosystems beyond safe limits. Cold-water corals, tropical coral reefs and Arctic marine life are especially at risk. This is primarily due to the human-caused climate crisis. When carbon dioxide from oil, coal and gas burning enters the sea, it forms carbonic acid. This reduces the availability of calcium carbonate, which many marine organisms depend upon to grow coral, shells or skeletons.
>
> Near the bottom of the food chain, this directly affects species like oysters, molluscs and clams. Indirectly, it harms salmon, whales and other sea life that eat smaller organisms. Ultimately, this is a risk for human food security and coastal economies. Scientists are concerned that it could also weaken the ocean's role as the planet's most important heat absorber and its capacity to draw down 25-30% of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Marine life plays an important role in this process, acting as a "biotic bump" to sequester carbon in the depths. In the report, all of the other six breached boundaries -- climate change, biosphere integrity, land system change, freshwater use, biogeochemical flows, and novel entities -- showed a worsening trend. But the authors said the addition of the only solely ocean-centerd category was a alarming development because of its scale and importance.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/sep/24/worlds-oceans-fail-key-health-check-as-acidity-crosses-critical-threshold-for-marine-life
[2] https://www.planetaryhealthcheck.org/
Rest Easy Folk (Score:2)
by AlanObject ( 3603453 )
Fortunately, the U.S. elected a visionary stable genius as its president who will take this problem seriously and lead the best minds in the nation and the power of the nation's economy to mitigate and ultimately solves this crisis.
Oh, wait. I posted that in the wrong universe. My bad.
Just one of many things (Score:2)
That will now go wrong on a slowly accelerating pace. At some time, feeding people becomes difficult in places where it was not before.
Obviously, nothing of that comes as a surprise to anybody that has kept up with reality.
Re: (Score:2)
Doctor Donald Trump told me in the last few days that Tylenol is the cause of Autism, and that there is no global warming. CO2 must not be able to dissolve into water. Dr. Donald Trump told me so. (*drinking seltzer water now*).