COP 20 US Center Presenters Dave Osborne & Libby Jewett Ocean – Ocean Acidification Information

COP 20 Lima US Center Panel Presenters Dave Osborne (UN) & Dr. Libby Jewett (NOAA) on: Ocean acidification, ocean resilience and marine adaptation measures that need to be urgently implemented globally. More than 1 Billion people are dependent on the ocean eco-systems for their food security & livelihoods.

This side show filmed ar COP 20 Lima Peru provides very useful information on  ocean acidification that is easy to digest and understand. Dave Osborne is the Director for the Environment Laboratories for the International Atomic Energy Agency, link to his work can be found here: https://www.iaea.org/nael/page.php. He also does a fairly candid interview on the subject here: https://vimeo.com/98113269.

Dr. Libby Jewett heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations program for Ocean Acidification, more information on her can be found here: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2011/20110513_oceanacidification.html and her qualifications on the subject matter can be found here: http://oceanacidification.noaa.gov/aboutus/leadership.aspx. Important to note that she is extremely vocal in the field of ocean acidification and has done numerous interviews on the subject.

What is Ocean Acidification?

If you dont have time to watch the interviews you can find out a bit more about it here:

Fundamental changes in seawater chemistry are occurring throughout the world’s oceans. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the release of carbon dioxide (CO₂) from humankind’s industrial and agricultural activities has increased the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere. The ocean absorbs about a quarter of the CO₂ we release into the atmosphere every year, so as atmospheric CO₂ levels increase, so do the levels in the ocean. Initially, many scientists focused on the benefits of the ocean removing this greenhouse gas from the atmosphere.  However, decades of ocean observations now show that there is also a downside — the CO₂ absorbed by the ocean is changing the chemistry of the seawater, a process called ocean acidification.

This was extracted from NOAA, links for more information can found here:

Wikipedia

NOAA – Information