More Bad News For The Arctic

Last Summer, Arctic sea ice reached it's lowest extent since satellite records began in 1979 (and probably since the last ice age). Part of an ongoing decline, it was a real blow both to our chances of beating climate change and for the Arctic environment. Of course, the oil companies love it - They relish the chance of exploring for resources in an ice free Arctic.

Declining ice cover is, of course, thanks to global warming, but another effect of uncontrolled CO2 emissions, ocean acidification, is also rapidly increasing in the Arctic according to a new report by AMAP,

Ocean acidification is a process whereby the absorption of atmospheric CO2 by the world's oceans is slowly changing their pH from the alkaline end towards an acid one. This could seriously compromise marine creatures like shell-fish, corals, and plankton, that have calcium-based skeletons and shells. And if they're hit, there would be knock-on effects for all the other life that depends on them in one way or another.

Now it seems acidification is increasing in the Arctic at a faster rate than anywhere else. It's a big concern, but the precise effects are uncertain. One possible outcome is that it could reduce the size of the  fish stocks we take for granted. As if over-fishing and pollution weren't bad enough.

More and more it feels like the Arctic is reaching a tipping point. We could all live to regret it.