Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Increase In Carbon Dioxide :(


Ever wondered what might of happened 55 million years ago? Well, 55 million years ago a massive carbon release and rapid warming happened in our oceans, causing much extinction within our Marine life. When carbon dioxide levels increase, it acidifies the ocean; which caused Marine life with carbon based shells to die off. Stages of what happened previously are showing up again today. Scientists are studying this in the Mediterranean Sea where carbon levels are increasing. Scientists predict that if the carbon dioxide levels continue to increase at the pace in which it is, calcified organisms will go extinct while non calcifying organisms will take over. This will result in mass extinction, degrading coastal waters, and an outbreak of toxic jelly fish and algae. If we do not study our oceans or try to find a solution, one day we may no longer have calcified organisms in the oceans. I agree with many others that this situation would be disappointing if we at least didn't try to reduce the carbon dioxide levels. http://www.sciencedaily.com

6 comments:

  1. I think this is a really interesting article. Did it say what caused the carbon levels to increase? Like, did human impact have a role in it? I think it will be interesting to find more data on this and to see what kind of solutions come up. I hope it doesn't cause anything to become extinct, that's sad. :/

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  3. This is actually really sad. If they do know what it causing the carbon dioxide levels to increase then we should go above and beyond to make sure that we can stop it. I don't think we would know how to deal if we our ocean life died off. I was wondering if the article might have told what anyone was doing to help reduce the amount of carbon dioxide or if they are letting this go like it is no big deal. If this already happened once, I would think they would have seen a pattern as to what caused it and what we have to do to fix it now before we kill off our ocean life.

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  4. @McCall: Yes the article did say that we are primarily to blame considering levels of carbon dioxide do increase do to the burning of fossil fuels. Not to mention the greenhouse gases and just the whole global warming play a role in it as well.

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  5. @Sydney: In the article it really didn't specify whether or not they are forming a plan to reduce the carbon dioxide levels but I'm sure someone with enough intuition in this subject will step up and help out as we all should consider.

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  6. Has there been an educated prediction on how long until this phenomena may happen again? What adverse effects could it have on Humans?

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