Publication Date:
2005-10-01
Description:
The oceans are becoming more acidic due to absorption of anthropogenic carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The impact of ocean acidification on marine ecosystems is unclear, but it will likely depend on species adaptability and the rate of change of seawater pH relative to its natural variability. To constrain the natural variability in reef-water pH, we measured boron isotopic compositions in a approximately 300-year-old massive Porites coral from the southwestern Pacific. Large variations in pH are found over approximately 50-year cycles that covary with the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation of ocean-atmosphere anomalies, suggesting that natural pH cycles can modulate the impact of ocean acidification on coral reef ecosystems.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Pelejero, Carles -- Calvo, Eva -- McCulloch, Malcolm T -- Marshall, John F -- Gagan, Michael K -- Lough, Janice M -- Opdyke, Bradley N -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2005 Sep 30;309(5744):2204-7.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia. pelejero@cmima.csic.es〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16195458" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
Anthozoa/chemistry/*physiology
;
Atmosphere
;
Boron/analysis
;
Carbon Dioxide/analysis
;
*Ecosystem
;
Hydrogen-Ion Concentration
;
Isotopes/analysis
;
Pacific Ocean
;
Seasons
;
*Seawater
;
Time Factors
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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