Article in Nature(2005) proves Shelled organisms will dissolve in the southern ocean around 2050-2060, hurting the web of life.

Anthropogenic ocean acidification over
the twenty-first century  and it simpact on
calcifying organisms
JamesC. Orr1, VictoriaJ. Fabry2, OlivierAumont3, LaurentBopp1, ScottC. Doney4, RichardA. Feely5,
AnandGnanadesikan6, NicolasGruber7, AkioIshida8, FortunatJoos9, RobertM. Key10, KeithLindsay11,
ErnstMaier-Reimer12, RichardMatear13, PatrickMonfray1†, AnneMouchet14, RaymondG. Najjar15,
Gian-KasperPlattner7,9, KeithB. Rodgers1,16†, ChristopherL. Sabine5, JorgeL. Sarmiento10, ReinerSchlitzer17,
RichardD. Slater10, IanJ. Totterdell18†, Marie-FranceWeirig17, YasuhiroYamanaka8&AndrewYool18
Today’s surface ocean is saturated with respect to calcium carbonate, but increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide
concentrations are reducing ocean pH and carbonate ion concentrations, and thus the level of calcium carbonate
saturation. Experimental evidence suggests that if these trends continue, key marine organisms—such as corals and
some plankton—will have difficulty maintaining theirexternal calcium carbonate skeletons. Here we use 13 models of the
ocean–carbon cycle to assess calcium carbonate  saturation under the IS92a ‘business-as-usual’ scenario fo rfuture
emissions o fanthropogenic carbon dioxide. In our projections, Southern Ocean  surface waters will begin to become
undersaturated with respect to aragonite, a metastable form of calciumcarbonate, by the year 2050. By 2100, this
undersaturation could extend throughout the entire Southern Ocean and into the subarctic Pacific Ocean. When live
pteropods were exposedto ourpredicted level ofundersaturation during a two-day shipboard experiment, their
aragonite shells showed notable dissolution. Our findings indicate that conditions detrimental to high-latitude
ecosystems could develop within decades, not centuries as suggested previously.
ARTICLES
Vol 437|29September2005|doi:10.1038/nature04095

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v437/n7059/full/nature04095.html

http://www.nature.com/search/executeSearch?sp-q-1=NATURE%2CNEWS&sp-q=anthropogenic+ocean+acidification&sp-c=25&sp-m=0&sp-s=date_descending&include-collections=journals_nature%2Ccrawled_content&exclude-collections=journals_palgrave%2Clab_animal&sp-a=sp1001702d&sp-sfvl-field=subject|ujournal&sp-x-1=ujournal&sp-p-1=phrase&sp-p=all&submit=go

other articles on ocean acidification in Nature:

for more info:

http://www.nature.com/climate/index.html