The researchers have linked carbon dioxide
to thinner shells.
Image: ACE CRC
Scientists from the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre (ACE CRC) have published the first field evidence of a link between ocean acidification and a decrease in the shell-making ability of some marine organisms.
Funded by the Australian Government Department of Climate Change and released on 9 March 2009 in Nature Geoscience, the study compared the shell weights of microscopic marine animals - called forams - from the Southern Ocean with those of older, pre-industrial forams preserved in sediments on the sea floor.
The researchers found that shells in today's more acidic oceans are thinner than pre-industrial specimens.
