The Chemistry of Ocean Acidification and its Consequences for Ocean Life

This video gives an overview of how increasing carbon dioxide dissolved in ocean water creates a more acidic environment. Questions addressed in the video are what chemical processes are involved due to the presence of dissolved carbon dioxide, in particular how does increased dissolved CO2 affect those processes, and how does an increase in dissolved carbon dioxide affect marine life?

[critiqueofthegothgf]

I cannot express enough how fantastic of a communicator you are; I came in with a rudimentary understanding of ocean acidification and you took it a step further by displaying the actual reactions, applying hess' law and highlighting the consequences of acidification with simple yet informative commentary. you're a phenomenal educator

[marvinlear]

5:54 I have no problem understanding how dissolution of H2CO3 releases acidity.
But every video I’ve seen on reduction of CaCO3 skeletons seems hand wavy at the part where it describes how H+ will bond with CO3 (I don’t know how to do the superscript 2-, so I won’t). Yes, at natural waters’ pH, HCO3- predominates, so any added H+ won’t find much CO3 to bond with in the water, so when it finds CO3 via CaCO3, one might think that H+ and CO3 might bond to form HCO3, destroying the CaCO3 skeleton in the process. But there was already H+ in the ocean's water before extra CO2 gas became dissolved into the ocean, and yet the CaCO3 skeletons still formed the first time around, which I think is just because the skeletons and the ocean chemistry were in a certain equilibrium with each other prior to the dissolving of additional CO2 from the atmosphere. So how does added H2CO3 disrupt this equilibrium? It creates HCO3- and H+, but increased HCO3- actually pushes the equilibrium direction towards more CO3, not less, which would make a free H+ less likely to hunt down a CO3- within CaCO3, not more likely. <--this is the part nobody ever brings up—not even to dismiss it

If your response is that, yes, increased HCO3- does push the equilibrium more towards CO3, but not as fast as increased H+ pushes the equilibrium away from CO3, then I would ask how we know this to be true. How do we know that the added H+ and added HCO3- don’t just cancel each other out in terms of which direction the equilibrium is shifted towards (in HCO3- <==> H+ + CO3)? I’ve seen the Bjerrum plots, and while they show that acidification reduces the ratio of CO3 in water, how do we know this holds up when HCO3- is added in stoichiometrically equal amounts, such as is shown in your video? Maybe a Bjerrum plot is only what you’d have if you increased acidity without also increasing HCO3- levels to counter it. Adding any strong acid would do that (e.g., sulfuric acid, i.e, acid rain).

I even found a YouTube video someone did with a closed container filled with eggshells, water, and air, and then added dry ice CO2 (“Dissolving Egg Shell With CO2”), but I found it only partially convincing. Nevertheless, I want to understand from a chemistry perspective, not from an experiment.

[Chemixtrea]

I very much like how clearly the biochemistry is explained in this video. Top.

[mannatkalra]

Amazing video! Great explanation!

Thank you!

[bobleclair]

What happens to the ph level of the waters surrounding the white cliffs of Dover when the cliffs collapses into the waters

[jocarstairs]

This is a great vid! Thanks so much for posting.

[michaelrodriguez]

Hello,
I have read about this in a paper titled "Anthropogenic ocean acidification over the twenty-first century and its impact on calcifying organisms, " and that paper, from 2005, suggested that shell degradation would start occurring in 2050, in the southern ocean and then spread globally, if the human carbon footprint stays in a "business as usual" state. The human carbon input to the atmosphere in 2005 was less than 8 gigatons annually. In 2023 the human carbon input is greater than 10 gigatons annually. That is an increase versus static, or "business as usual." My greatest concern is oxygen depletion in the atmosphere due to shell degradation in phytoplankton. Phytoplankton are calcifying organisms that, among other marine organisms, provide a significant amount of the oxygen that we breathe. Phytoplankton are also at the base of the marine food web.

Additionally, any solutions would have to be applied at a similar rate as the pollution that is being applied to the atmosphere. For example, applying lye, iron, seaweed, or any other solution would have occur at a similar rate to the pollution that is entering the atmosphere. In 2022, globally, there were 100 million barrels (42 gallons each) of oil consumed each day. Imagine even a fraction of that, 1 million barrels a day, of lye, iron, seaweed, or something else being applied to the ocean, for many years. Should we halt the pollution or should we keep polluting and hope for a technological miracle?

[jimbledsoe]

It takes about 40 years for the burning of carbon fuels to soak the oceans and the result of our actions over the last 150 years is that we have a huge carbon battery in the oceans. We are at 400 ppm atmospheric co2 for the next 1000 years. Plant more plants on land and reestablish eelgrass in our coastal waters.

[andrewgale]

why isn't H+ becoming H3O+ when it dissolves in water ?

[bobleclair]

People with fish tanks or ponds put crushed shells into water to raise the ph . Question .Why would people think the the ocean is a good place to store co2?