Progressive seawater acidification on the Great Barrier Reef continental shelf
Abstract Coral reefs are highly sensitive to ocean acidification due to rising atmospheric CO 2 concentrations. We present 10 years of data (2009–2019) on the long-term trends and sources of variation in the carbon chemistry from two fixed stations in the Australian Great Barrier Reef. Data from the...
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crspringernat:10.1038/s41598-020-75293-1 2023-05-15T17:50:30+02:00 Progressive seawater acidification on the Great Barrier Reef continental shelf Fabricius, Katharina E. Neill, Craig Van Ooijen, Erik Smith, Joy N. Tilbrook, Bronte Australian Institute of Marine Science CSIRO Ocean and Atmosphere, Australia 2020 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-75293-1 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-75293-1.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-75293-1 en eng Springer Science and Business Media LLC https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 CC-BY Scientific Reports volume 10, issue 1 ISSN 2045-2322 Multidisciplinary journal-article 2020 crspringernat https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-75293-1 2022-01-04T09:42:40Z Abstract Coral reefs are highly sensitive to ocean acidification due to rising atmospheric CO 2 concentrations. We present 10 years of data (2009–2019) on the long-term trends and sources of variation in the carbon chemistry from two fixed stations in the Australian Great Barrier Reef. Data from the subtropical mid-shelf GBRWIS comprised 3-h instrument records, and those from the tropical coastal NRSYON were monthly seawater samples. Both stations recorded significant variation in seawater CO 2 fugacity ( f CO 2 ), attributable to seasonal, daytime, temperature and salinity fluctuations. Superimposed over this variation, f CO 2 progressively increased by > 2.0 ± 0.3 µatm year −1 at both stations. Seawater temperature and salinity also increased throughout the decade, whereas seawater pH and the saturation state of aragonite declined. The decadal upward f CO 2 trend remained significant in temperature- and salinity-normalised data. Indeed, annual f CO 2 minima are now higher than estimated f CO 2 maxima in the early 1960s, with mean f CO 2 now ~ 28% higher than 60 years ago. Our data indicate that carbonate dissolution from the seafloor is currently unable to buffer the Great Barrier Reef against ocean acidification. This is of great concern for the thousands of coral reefs and other diverse marine ecosystems located in this vast continental shelf system. Article in Journal/Newspaper Ocean acidification Springer Nature (via Crossref) Scientific Reports 10 1 |
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Springer Nature (via Crossref) |
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English |
topic |
Multidisciplinary |
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Multidisciplinary Fabricius, Katharina E. Neill, Craig Van Ooijen, Erik Smith, Joy N. Tilbrook, Bronte Progressive seawater acidification on the Great Barrier Reef continental shelf |
topic_facet |
Multidisciplinary |
description |
Abstract Coral reefs are highly sensitive to ocean acidification due to rising atmospheric CO 2 concentrations. We present 10 years of data (2009–2019) on the long-term trends and sources of variation in the carbon chemistry from two fixed stations in the Australian Great Barrier Reef. Data from the subtropical mid-shelf GBRWIS comprised 3-h instrument records, and those from the tropical coastal NRSYON were monthly seawater samples. Both stations recorded significant variation in seawater CO 2 fugacity ( f CO 2 ), attributable to seasonal, daytime, temperature and salinity fluctuations. Superimposed over this variation, f CO 2 progressively increased by > 2.0 ± 0.3 µatm year −1 at both stations. Seawater temperature and salinity also increased throughout the decade, whereas seawater pH and the saturation state of aragonite declined. The decadal upward f CO 2 trend remained significant in temperature- and salinity-normalised data. Indeed, annual f CO 2 minima are now higher than estimated f CO 2 maxima in the early 1960s, with mean f CO 2 now ~ 28% higher than 60 years ago. Our data indicate that carbonate dissolution from the seafloor is currently unable to buffer the Great Barrier Reef against ocean acidification. This is of great concern for the thousands of coral reefs and other diverse marine ecosystems located in this vast continental shelf system. |
author2 |
Australian Institute of Marine Science CSIRO Ocean and Atmosphere, Australia |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Fabricius, Katharina E. Neill, Craig Van Ooijen, Erik Smith, Joy N. Tilbrook, Bronte |
author_facet |
Fabricius, Katharina E. Neill, Craig Van Ooijen, Erik Smith, Joy N. Tilbrook, Bronte |
author_sort |
Fabricius, Katharina E. |
title |
Progressive seawater acidification on the Great Barrier Reef continental shelf |
title_short |
Progressive seawater acidification on the Great Barrier Reef continental shelf |
title_full |
Progressive seawater acidification on the Great Barrier Reef continental shelf |
title_fullStr |
Progressive seawater acidification on the Great Barrier Reef continental shelf |
title_full_unstemmed |
Progressive seawater acidification on the Great Barrier Reef continental shelf |
title_sort |
progressive seawater acidification on the great barrier reef continental shelf |
publisher |
Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-75293-1 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-75293-1.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-75293-1 |
genre |
Ocean acidification |
genre_facet |
Ocean acidification |
op_source |
Scientific Reports volume 10, issue 1 ISSN 2045-2322 |
op_rights |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-75293-1 |
container_title |
Scientific Reports |
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10 |
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1 |
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1766157264096329728 |