Ocean Acidification Most Damaging During Night Time, New Study Finds

According to findings published  in the journal Scientific Reports ocean acidification will keep many marine organisms at risk by exacerbating normal changes in ocean chemistry that happens at night. 

By analyzing California's rocky coastline, the study found out that the most vulnerable organisms are carbonate shell and skeletons. 

As the ocean builds up more carbon dioxide, the water becomes more acidic which makes lt hard for mollusks like mussels and oysters to get their calcium carbonate shells. 

However, at night, plants and animals respire just like human do, taking up oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide. This pushes carbon dioxide to the seawater and exacerbates effects of ocean acidification, causing the building risk to calcifying organisms. 

"Unless carbon dioxide emissions are rapidly curtailed, we expect ocean acidification to continue to lower the pH of seawater," lead study author Lester Kwiatkowski, a researcher at the Carnegie Science Foundation, said in a news release. "This work highlights that even in today's temperate coastal oceans, calcifying species, such as mussels and coralline algae, can dissolve during the night due to the more-acidic conditions caused by community respiration." 

"If what we see happening along California's coast today is indicative of what will continue in the coming decades, by the year 2050 there will likely be twice as much nighttime dissolution as there is today," co-author Ken Caldera added. "Nobody really knows how our coastal ecosystems will respond to these corrosive waters, but it certainly won't be well."

The study was a team effort by the Carnegie Institution for Science, UC Davis and UC Santa Cruz. This work was supported by the Carnegie Institution for Science, UC Multi-campus Research Initiatives and Programs and the National Science Foundation.