No chips, no fish: ocean acidification

The Coral Triangle, covering 5.4 million square kilometres includes reefs growing off the shores of Indonesia, PNG, Solomon Islands, Philippines and Malaysia. It provides habitat for more than 3,000 fish species on which at least 100 million people depend for protein. Both the Triangle, its myriad of fish and many of those dependent on them will be dead by the end of this century, unless atmospheric CO2 absorption is curbed.

The loss of coral reefs exposes coastlines to far greater damage from king tides, tidal surges (especially those associated with high winds) and other phenomena. Combined with rising sea levels, induced by melting land-based ice, this increases the potential for major coastal flooding, loss of fixed assets, even loss of the agricultural production of coastal plains.

The future for all coral reefs, including the Great Barrier Reef, is bleak. There is little that Australia, by itself, can do to change this prognosis. The fate of shallow and deep water coral reefs depends on the conduct of the major emitters. If they fail to make major reductions in their CO2 emissions, the latter will further reduce the pH of seawater, and could even create localised acidity and increase damage to the marine ecology, much of it permanent.

In summary, the science associated with the effects of CO2 on sea water, the marine environment and its flora and fauna needs to be better understood and more established. For example, our knowledge of the effects of a changing pH and the increasing presence of CO2 on water breathing animals is far from complete. However we do know from empirical observations that as atmospheric CO2 increases, so does its pressure on water surfaces, resulting in it being absorbed in increasing quantities.

The threat to pteropods has serious implications for the survival of the vast number and variety of fish which rely on them as a food source - and for the many larger fish which eat the smaller fish. Those larger fish include many species which humans depend on as a source of protein - in some areas, their only source.

The prognosis for habitat and marine animals is not good. We can only avoid these disastrous outcomes by reducing emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere. But will we?

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