Sieren Ernst's blog

Climate change has a number of negative effects on the ocean including warmer waters, rising seal levels, and increased ocean acidification. Warming waters and rising sea levels disrupt the ocean ecosystem in a number of ways. For example, warm waters lead to coral bleaching and kill off which impacts the entire coral-dependent ecosystem. Melting sea caps disrupt both coastal and arctic habitats, harming populations of polar bears, mangroves, and coral reef, and seal turtles, and disrupting the migration patterns of ocean species

The impacts of ocean acidification are less obvious to the human eye, but no less harmful. The ocean has always been an important carbon sink though absorbing carbon dioxide at the surface and converting it into carbonic acid. However, as atmospheric carbon dioxide rises, rate of absorption, and therefore acidification by the ocean is also increasing. This increased acidification has a harmful affect on many kinds of ocean life from mollusks to mammals. This recent article in Scientific American highlights the harmful effects of acidification on dolphins.