Climate change-driven sea ice melt makes Arctic Ocean more acidic: study

BEIJING, Oct. 1 (Xinhua) -- An international group led by Chinese scientists has revealed that the Arctic Ocean is seeing much faster acidification than elsewhere in the world's open oceans due to the sea ice melt there.

The study published on Friday in the journal Science shows that the acidification rates in the western Arctic Ocean are three to four times faster than in other ocean basins.

An increase in human-induced carbon dioxide resulted in a more acidic seawater and less saturated calcium carbonate mineral, a process called ocean acidification.

The team led by researchers in the Polar and Marine Research Institute from Jimei University synthesized oceanic carbonate data from 47 research cruises across the Arctic Ocean from 1994 to 2020 to investigate how the Arctic Ocean carbon cycle responds to climate change.

They found that due to climate change and subsequent sea ice retreat, a larger area of seawater that was initially covered by ice has been exposed to the atmosphere, which promotes the rapid uptake of atmospheric CO2, thus leading to drastic ocean acidification and lowering the oceanic buffering capacity.

They predicted a further pH decrease at higher latitudes where sea ice retreat is active, highlighting the urgency to cut carbon emissions to preserve the Arctic ecosystem.

"Ocean acidification can exert catastrophic impact on marine life like clam, mussel and conch, which are the staple for the Arctic salmon and herrings," said Qi Di, a professor from Jimei University and the paper's first author.