8 Ways Climate Change Isn't Messing Around

5. Acidification Of The Oceans

Right, so sticking with our maritime theme, let's talk about the ocean.

The ocean has this trade relationship going on with the atmosphere whereby it absorbs all the carbon dioxide that the trees and plants don't want. This soluble carbon goes towards the marine vegetation and helping a load of aquatic little critters do things like build shells and make pearls and so on.

When those animals die they sink to the bottom of the ocean and take all that carbon with them to be buried on the ocean floor. Awesome stuff.

However, this process causes the PH of the ocean to drop a little bit every time it does it, making it more acidic. Usually, this is fine, but with all the extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the oceans get gradually more acidic.

As it turns out, there are a lot of things in the ocean that don't really appreciate having to swim around in acid. Unfortunately, a lot of these organisms happen to be right at the bottom of the food chain which means if they go down, they're taking the rest of the ocean with them.

Believe it or not, the mass extinction of most marine life isn't even the worst thing that can happen.