Earth's acidic oceans (Photo : Reuters)
Meet global warming's sister. Although global warming often makes headline news, acidic oceans can also have devastating effects on Earth's environment. They once triggered the "Great Dying," which was Earth's worst-ever mass extinction
During the past two centuries the oceans' acidic levels have already increased by 30 percent. The Earth's ocean's pH has dropped (become more acidic) by 0.1 units since the Industrial Revolution's start.
The plummet has mainly been due to the burning of fossil fuels. The results have negatively affected animals with shells, coral reefs, and fisheries.
A new study included in the journal Science reveals that this acidification resulted in a mass extinction. It nearly destroyed all life on Earth.
Carbon that resulted from extreme volcanic activity entered the oceans, causing the "Great Dying" during the Permian period's end. It wiped out over 90 percent of the marine species on Earth, and two-thirds of its land animals.
University of Edinburgh researchers learned about this event by evaluating rocks located in the United Arab Emirates. They were on the seafloor when the Great Dying happened 252 million years ago, according to Nature.
Researchers concluded that the mass extinction period lasted 60,000 years. Huge volcanic eruptions in Siberia ejected carbon into the air, killing off animal life.
In the last 10,000 years of the Great Dying the air could not absorb any more carbon. This resulted in the acidification of the oceans.
Matthew Clarkson of The University of Otago (New Zealand), the study's coordinator, referred to his team's findings as "worrying." That is because today's oceans' acidity has also increased, this time due to human-caused carbon emissions.
The "good" news is that humans would unlikely be able to produce the total volume of carbon emissions that the Great Dying did, according to Salon. However, the current rate of carbon emissions' increase equals that period's rate.
The study's researchers say that if Earth's carbon dioxide emissions continue to increase, the worst case scenario could happen: another mass extinction.
