CO2 to H2CO3 to CO32, for everybody:
RealClimate: The Acid Ocean
"Most of the carbon in seawater is in the form of HCO3-, while the concentrations of CO32- and dissolved CO2 are one and two orders of magnitude lower, respectively. The equilibrium reaction for CO2 chemistry in seawater that most cogently captures its behavior is
CO2 + CO32- + H2O == 2 HCO3-
where I am using double equal signs as double arrows, denoting chemical equilibrium. Since this is a chemical equilibrium, Le Chatlier’s principal states that a perturbation, by say the addition of CO2, will cause the equilibrium to shift in such a way as to minimize the perturbation. In this case, it moves to the right. The concentration of CO2 goes up, while the concentration of CO32- goes down. The concentration of HCO3- goes up a bit, but there is so much HCO3- that the relative change in HCO3- is smaller than the changes are for CO2 and CO32-. It works out in the end that CO2 and CO32- are very nearly inversely related to each other, as if CO2 times CO32- equaled a constant.
Coral reefs are built from limestone by the reaction Ca2+ + CO32- == CaCO3, where Ca is calcium. Acidifying the ocean decreases the concentration of CO32- ions, which by le Chatlier’s principal shifts the equilibrium toward the left, tending to dissolve CaCO3. Note that this is a sort of counter-intuitive result, that adding CO2 should make reefs dissolve rather than pushing carbon into making more reefs. It’s all because of those H+ ions.
CaCO3 tends to dissolve in the deep ocean, both because of the high pressure and because the waters have been acidified by CO2 from rotting dead plankton. Surface waters, however, are supersaturated with respect to CaCO3, meaning that there is enough Ca2+ and CO32- in surface waters that you could give up some, and still not provoke CaCO3 to dissolve. However, it has been documented that corals produce CaCO3 more slowly as the extent of supersaturation decreases. This is also true for planktonic CaCO3-secreters such as coccolithophorids and foraminifera. We should note that for coral reef communities, the acid ocean is only one problem that they face, and it’s not the worst. Rising temperatures are tightly correlated with coral bleaching events, the expulsion of symbiotic algae, often followed by death of the coral. There is a terrifying time-series of temperature and coral bleaching from Tahiti in Hoegh-Guldberg, 1999]. When you look at the temperatures that killed the coral, and project future temperatures, it looks to be all over for corals. Coral communities are also impacted by water turbidity, resulting from fertilizer runoff, and by overfishing.
Elevated CO2 levels also affect fish and other aquatic organisms, in part because of the decrease in pH, but also because CO2 is what heterotrophic organisms try to exhale. However, we should note that dissolved CO2 levels were substantially higher than today in the geologic past, and organisms were able to cope with this OK, so apparently there can be some acclimation of populations to higher CO2."
--New retard on a bike, go back over the previous posts, including the ones about die-offs accelerating, 2012. What attracted you to this thread, since you can't read? I'm still wondering what Wienerbitch wants, but like his daddy, Meat Romney, he has CRS, and I'm helping him. I think. Who can help wingpunks, actually?
