Ocean Acidification Session. A crash-course in ocean acidification: shellfish edition presentation summary

From a geological/earth history perspective the primary problem of ocean acidification is a discontinuity between the timescales at which the earth can buffer increases in global carbon dioxide levels, and the current rate of increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide. In the earth's geologic past volcanism is often a root cause of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels, and the plate tectonics associated with globally increase volcanic release of CO2 also results in uplift and increasing weather or primary continental rocks, which increases the delivery of alkalinity to the world's oceans. The rapid increase of atmospheric CO2 results in significant uptake by the world's oceans into the dissolve inorganic carbon pool, which represent the largest pool of reactive carbon on the planet. Over time that carbon will be absorbed into various components of the earth, and if we stop anthropogenic CO2 emissions today, it will take roughly 1 million years for that anthropogenic carbon to be re-absorbed into the earth through various geologic processes.