When your sailing across oceans in small boats travelling at an average speed of about 4/5 knots per hour which is about 6 mph you can actually comprehend the vastness of them.
70% of the earth surface is covered in oceans and 97% of Earths water can be found there. For most of us we view the oceans and the seas from the land. Usually when we go down to the beach at the weekend or on a sunny day in the summer.
When we look at the sea we only see the surface when the waters clear we can sometimes see the fish beneath, and sometimes on the surface we can see dolphins, seals and whales. But these are on rare occasions in our daily lives.
If you snorkel or scuba dive you have the opportunity to enter a different aqautic universe. You get to experience weightlessness especially if you’re an experienced scuba or free diver when going over a drop off. But not many of us get to experience this amazing aquatic underworld. Especially out in the deep oceans were the average depth is 4000 metres.
Out of sight out of mind is a truism in case of our geat oceans, especially when it comes to ocean acidification.
What is ocean acidification?
Well its do with pH. Whats pH? potential of Hydrogen. Its the measure of acidity or alkalinity of water which is a soluble substance. Solubility: is the property of a solid,liquid or gaseous substance to dissolve either into a solid,liquid or a gas
Lets take the example of us humans our pH level in our arterial blood is crtical. Our pH range must be kept within a very narrow range between 7.35-7.45. Our body goes through incredible lengths to maintain these values and does this when we breath.
Every time you breath out, you breath out CO2, this rids the body of acid. Any rise in acidity will quickly dilate your blood vessels and create internal imbalance that makes consciousness impossible.
If your pH drops to 6.9 you will go into a coma at 6.8 you will die same if your pH rises to 7.8. Therefore pH outside those ranges is incompatible with human life!
Human pH is a extremely delicate and essential balancing act, we have such an amazing biological bodies which most of us take completely for granted.
The oceans are the ancestral home of us homosapiens without the great oceans we wouldn’t be here. So why is the pH values in the oceans any different then our own human pH values? This is hidden serious issue of climate change or ocean acidification, its not in plain sight! Thats the crux of the matter.
The oceans act as great carbon sink and its starting to effect the pH values of them which just like our bood pH value is critically balanced.
https://youtu.be/ckbsHM2igT0
How are the oceans becoming more acidic in the first place? Whats actually causing this acidification?
https://youtu.be/rFIE6B96O38https://youtu.be/Y8H_mWBMOQghttps://youtu.be/iUeMxjkSPyMhttps://youtu.be/dbMomQgl3FkRecently a close friend of mine became very sick through taking anti biotics for a cyst on her shoulder. The antibiotics caused her to suffer from Jaundice.
Jaundice:Yellow staining of the skin and sclerae (the whites of the eyes) by abnormally high blood levels of the bile pigmentbilirubin. The yellowing extends to other tissues and body fluids. Jaundice was once called the “morbus regius” (the regal disease) in the belief that only the touch of a king could cure it.
When red blood cells are removed from the bloodstream, hemoglobin, the molecule in red cells that carries oxygen, is broken down into bilirubin. The bilirubin is carried to the liver and excreted into the intestine as a component of bile.
Jaundice can indicate liver or gallbladder disease. When the excretion of bilirubin is hindered, excess bilirubin passes into the blood, resulting in jaundice. Inflammation or other abnormalities of liver cells hinder the excretion of bilirubin into bile. Or the bile ducts outside the liver may be blocked by a gallstone or a tumor. Jaundice can also result from the excessive breakdown of red blood cells (a process called hemolysis) and too much bilirubin is released into the bloodstream.
Whats my point about my friends illness in regards to ocean acidification?
My friend was hospitlised for about two weeks, she was very ill due to the antibotics effecting her liver. It caused the equlibrium of her liver to become out of balance with serious effects to her overall health and well being.
It had profound effect on me in realising it doesnt take much for our bodies bilogical processes to get out of equilibrium.
Why are other bilogical processes any different I ask myself?
We humans have been on one big bilogical experiment when digging up carbon fossilised remains and combusting them, with the excess carbon being released into the atmoshere, which is now having a detrimental effect on both the atmosphere and our great oceans.
We are effecting the chemistry and equiblibrum of our biosphere and some of us are in denial of those immediate consequences.
As a sailor of small boats I have seen the chemical interaction between the oceans and the sky at first hand, and its a really awesome process.
Ocean acidification is actually a more serious process than global warming because its hidden in plain sight from us as the oceans act as a big carbon sink!
TED talk by Rob Dunbar of ocean acidification
https://youtu.be/evfgbVjb688