New Study Finds Increasing Acidification of Pacific Ocean’s Continental Shelf

This is an older article--but I just attended a workshop on it and its intense.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – An international team of scientists surveying the waters of the continental shelf off the West Coast of North America has discovered for the first time high levels of acidified ocean water within 20 miles of the shoreline, raising concern for marine ecosystems from Canada to Mexico.

Researchers aboard the Wecoma, an Oregon State University research vessel, also discovered that this corrosive, acidified water that is being “upwelled” seasonally from the deeper ocean is probably 50 years old, suggesting that future ocean acidification levels will increase since atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide have increased rapidly over the past half century.

http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/newsarch/2008/May08/acid.html