| Summary: | Patrizia Ziveri, a paleooceanographer at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, is coordinating an $8 million project called Mediterranean Sea acidification in a changing climate (MedSeA) to investigate the combined impacts of climate change and ocean acidification on the Mediterranean sea. To study how Mediterranean organisms fare at different pH levels, Hall-Spencer and other scientists make use of underwater volcanoes around Italy and Greece where CO 2 bubbles up from the seabed in shallow regions of the sea. Aside from the biodiversity loss, Ziveri says, various Mediterranean industries can be affected adversely by acidification, such as the aquaculture of shellfish, which may see a reduction in body mass as the organisms devote more energy to maintaining their shells. Getting legally binding environmental policies for the whole Mediterranean continues to be difficult as the region's 22 nations have vastly different political orientations.
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