Geophys. Res. Lett. doi:10.1029/2010GL043181 (2010)

As atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rise, some of that gas dissolves in ocean waters, lowering the surface pH and potentially harming marine ecosystems. Quick and aggressive emissions reductions are key to minimizing this acidification, say Dan Bernie at the Met Office Hadley Centre in Exeter, UK, and his co-workers.

By coupling a climate model to ocean and terrestrial carbon models, the researchers simulated the effect of more than 100 emissions scenarios on ocean pH. The model outputs indicate that, without any mitigation strategy in place, global mean surface pH would drop from current levels of 7.9–8.3 to between 7.67 and 7.81 by 2100. But in an aggressive mitigation scenario, in which emissions peak in 2016 and then decrease by 5% each year, pH would end up at around 8.