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The problem with using the term “acidify” for what rainwater does to the ocean is that people misunderstand what is happening. Sure, a hard-core scientist hearing “acidify” might think “decreasing pH”. But most people think “Ooooh, acid, bad, burns the skin.” It leads people to say things like the following gem that I came across yesterday:
Rapid increases in CO2 (such as today) overload the system, causing surface waters to become corrosive.
In reality, it’s quite the opposite. The increase in CO2 is making the ocean, not more corrosive, but more neutral. Since both alkalinity and acidity corrode things, the truth is that rainwater (or more CO2) will make the ocean slightly less corrosive, by marginally neutralizing its slight alkalinity. That is the problem with the term “acidify”, and it is why I use and insist on the more accurate term “neutralize”. Using “acidify”, is both alarmist and incorrect. The ocean is not getting acidified by additional CO2. It is getting neutralized by additional CO2.
But our Congresscritters where shown just how this oceanic acidification caused by CO2 effects life in the ocean
http://globalwarming.house.gov/pubs?id=0014
Scroll down until you see the brilliant scientist and head of NOAA, Lubchenko, for her demonstration. (It’s in two parts) She really WOW’s ‘em!
As the AGW myth began to disappear we got “climate change”. As that also retreats into oblivion, we are getting “ocean acidification” caused by man made CO2.