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Phytoplankton populations are collapsing due to increased ocean acidity and warming. Phytoplankton is the basis for the entire marine food chain.

chadcmulligan 7y ago
and a lot of the air we breathe
bashinator 7y ago
Not to mention a potentially significant amount of the free oxygen on Earth
- agumonkey 7y ago
  And here I thought Total Recall was my favorite movie.
ageofwant 7y ago
> Phytoplankton populations are collapsing due to increased ocean acidity and warming. Do you have a citation for this ?
- hootbootscoot 7y ago
  it's old news by now, matey... https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/phytoplankton-population/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/phytoplankton-pop... https://edition.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/08/14/satellite.plankton/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/08/14/satellite.plan... https://news.mit.edu/2015/ocean-acidification-phytoplankton-0720 https://news.mit.edu/2015/ocean-acidification-phytoplankton-... https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/What+is+Ocean+Acidification%3F https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/What+is+Ocean+Acidificat... https://www.sciencebuzz.com/the-effects-of-ph-on-the-abundance-of-phytoplankton-for-mariculture/ https://www.sciencebuzz.com/the-effects-of-ph-on-the-abundan... Why would the onus be on a commentator to provide citations for a fact one could readily <branded search engine verb> for in less time than our roundtrip efforts combined? (me not being the commentator either, to boot!) it almost sounds like you can't believe peanut butter is sticky... I mean, I suppose "calfiferous plankton" is kinda a giveaway that ocean acidification would affect it...
  - Izkata 7y ago
    > Why would the onus be on a commentator to provide citations for a fact one could readily <branded search engine verb> for in less time than our roundtrip efforts combined? Because a simple search results in it not being "old news", but actually having conflicting results: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytoplankton#Environmental_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytoplankton#Environmental_co...
    - acqq 7y ago
      > actually having conflicting results: "Conflicting" only if you want to ignore a significant part of the text behind the very link you give: "A more recent multi-model study estimated that primary production would decline by 2-20% by 2100 A.D.[12] Despite substantial variation in both the magnitude and spatial pattern of change, the majority of published studies predict that phytoplankton biomass and/or primary production will decline over the next century.[11][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47]" (Note the majority and how many of them are cited (all the numbers in brackets) and could be checked. It's surely not "one says yes, one says no".)
vixen99 7y ago
The ocean is not acid, it's alkaline (about pH 8.1) so you mean lessened alkalinity. Even seawater near active volcanic CO2 vents in the Mediterranean where the CO2 is nearly 6,000 ppm is still alkaline. Between 1751 and 1996, surface ocean pH is estimated to have decreased from approximately 8.25 to 8.14.
- Supermancho 7y ago
  > The ocean is not acid, it's alkaline > increased ocean acidity It's generally phrased that a decrease in alkaline is due to acidification (an increase in acid) and vice versa. The average ph is not specifically relevant.
- martinpw 7y ago
  Since pH is a log scale, that is a huge change - almost 40%.

chadcmulligan 7y ago

and a lot of the air we breathe

bashinator 7y ago

Not to mention a potentially significant amount of the free oxygen on Earth

agumonkey 7y ago
And here I thought Total Recall was my favorite movie.

ageofwant 7y ago

> Phytoplankton populations are collapsing due to increased ocean acidity and warming. Do you have a citation for this ?

hootbootscoot 7y ago
it's old news by now, matey... https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/phytoplankton-population/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/phytoplankton-pop... https://edition.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/08/14/satellite.plankton/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/08/14/satellite.plan... https://news.mit.edu/2015/ocean-acidification-phytoplankton-0720 https://news.mit.edu/2015/ocean-acidification-phytoplankton-... https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/What+is+Ocean+Acidification%3F https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/What+is+Ocean+Acidificat... https://www.sciencebuzz.com/the-effects-of-ph-on-the-abundance-of-phytoplankton-for-mariculture/ https://www.sciencebuzz.com/the-effects-of-ph-on-the-abundan... Why would the onus be on a commentator to provide citations for a fact one could readily <branded search engine verb> for in less time than our roundtrip efforts combined? (me not being the commentator either, to boot!) it almost sounds like you can't believe peanut butter is sticky... I mean, I suppose "calfiferous plankton" is kinda a giveaway that ocean acidification would affect it...
- Izkata 7y ago
  > Why would the onus be on a commentator to provide citations for a fact one could readily <branded search engine verb> for in less time than our roundtrip efforts combined? Because a simple search results in it not being "old news", but actually having conflicting results: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytoplankton#Environmental_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytoplankton#Environmental_co...
  - acqq 7y ago
    > actually having conflicting results: "Conflicting" only if you want to ignore a significant part of the text behind the very link you give: "A more recent multi-model study estimated that primary production would decline by 2-20% by 2100 A.D.[12] Despite substantial variation in both the magnitude and spatial pattern of change, the majority of published studies predict that phytoplankton biomass and/or primary production will decline over the next century.[11][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47]" (Note the majority and how many of them are cited (all the numbers in brackets) and could be checked. It's surely not "one says yes, one says no".)

vixen99 7y ago

The ocean is not acid, it's alkaline (about pH 8.1) so you mean lessened alkalinity. Even seawater near active volcanic CO2 vents in the Mediterranean where the CO2 is nearly 6,000 ppm is still alkaline. Between 1751 and 1996, surface ocean pH is estimated to have decreased from approximately 8.25 to 8.14.

Supermancho 7y ago
> The ocean is not acid, it's alkaline > increased ocean acidity It's generally phrased that a decrease in alkaline is due to acidification (an increase in acid) and vice versa. The average ph is not specifically relevant.
martinpw 7y ago
Since pH is a log scale, that is a huge change - almost 40%.