Near-shore Antarctic pH variability has implications for the design of ocean acidification experiments

Understanding how declining seawater pH caused by anthropogenic carbon emissions, or oceanacidification, impacts Southern Ocean biota is limited by a paucity of pH time-series. Here,we present the first high-frequency in-situ pH time-series in near-shore Antarctica fromspring to winter under annual sea ice. Observations from autonomous pH sensors revealed aseasonal increase of 0.3 pH units. The summer season was marked by an increase in temporalpH variability relative to spring and early winter, matching coastal pH variability observedat lower latitudes. Using our data, simulations of ocean acidification show a future periodof deleterious wintertime pH levels potentially expanding to 7–11 months annually by 2100.Given the presence of (sub)seasonal pH variability, Antarctica marine species have anexisting physiological tolerance of temporal pH change that may influence adaptation tofuture acidification. Yet, pH-induced ecosystem changes remain difficult to characterize inthe absence of sufficient physiological data on present-day tolerances. It is thereforeessential to incorporate natural and projected temporal pH variability in the design ofexperiments intended to study ocean acidification biology.

• Publication year

  2015

• Venue

  Scientific Reports

• Publication date

  2015-04-09

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1038/srep09638PMID 25856788PMCID 4488960
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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