As a result of man-made emissions, the content of CO2 in the atmosphere and oceans has increased dramatically during recent decades. In the ocean, the accumulating CO2 is gradually acidifying the surface waters, making it harder for shelled organisms like corals and certain open sea plankton to build their calcium carbonate skeletons.
Since this process impacts the functioning of many marine ecosystems, it has been intensively studied in recent years. However, getting an accurate measure is complicated because the effect of ocean acidification on the rates of calcium produced by marine organisms is highly variable and species specific. Since scientists tend to use local and site-specific field measurements, treating reef environments and open sea environments separately, their measurements reflect the local response of individual organisms to elevated CO2 levels, and not the overall picture.
To get a clearer picture of how ocean acidification is affecting large marine areas, a group of Israeli researchers studied a 5,000 km long strip of ocean, from Eilat to the Seychelles crossing the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Western Indian Ocean.
The group was led by Profs. Boaz Lazar and Jonathan Erez and the Ph.D. student Zvi Steiner, together with Prof. Amitai Katz, all from the Fredy and Nadine Herrmann Institute of Earth Sciences at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, together with Prof. Aldo Shemesh and Dr. Ruth Yam of the Weizmann Institute of Science.
Read more here: http://phys.org/news/2014-11-co2-acidifies-oceans-scientists-effect.html