1AC

Contention I: The Environment

Anthropogenic processes are causing ocean pH to
increase 150% by 2100 coordinated research and
monitoring is a prerequisite to effective management
strategies
Somero, Chair of the Committee on the Review of the
National Ocean Acidification, et al. 2013 (GEORGE N. SOMERO,
Stanford University, California, JAMES P. BARRY, Monterey Bay Aquarium
Research Institute, California, ANDREW G. DICKSON, Scripps Institution of
Oceanography, California, JEAN-PIERRE GATTUSO, CNRS-Pierre and Marie
Curie University, France, MARION GEHLEN, Laboratoire des Sciences du
Climat et de LEnvironnement, France, JOAN (JOANIE) A. KLEYPAS, National
Center for Atmospheric Research, Colorado, CHRIS LANGDON, University of
Miami, RSMAS, Florida CINDY LEE, Stony Brook University, New York EDWARD
L. MILES, University of Washington, JAMES SANCHIRICO, University of
California, Davis, REVIEW OF THE FEDERAL OCEAN ACIDIFICATION
RESEARCH AND MONITORING PLAN, National academies press, Accessed
7/20/14)
Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels are currently approaching 395
ppm, a value that is 40% higher than those of the preindustrial period
and exceeds CO levels of at least the past 800,000 years. Perhaps
more significant is the rapid rate of increase in atmospheric CO2
concentration, a rate that is unprecedented over the last 55 million years of
the Earths history. The ocean plays a critical role in governing atmo- spheric
CO2 levels. By absorbing a substantial share of the CO2 released
through varied human activities, the ocean reduces atmospheric
levels of this greenhouse gas and thus moderates human-induced
climate change. However, this beneficial effect of CO2 uptake by the
ocean has resulted in potentially damaging consequences due to a
lowering of ocean pH and related changes in ocean carbonate chemistry,
collectively known as ocean acidification. Since the start of the Industrial
Revolution in the mid-18th century, the average pH of the upper ocean
has decreased by about 0.1 pH unit, corresponding to an
approximately 30% rise in acidity, and is projected to decrease by an
additional 0.3 to 0.4 units by the end of this century, corresponding
to a 100 to 150% rise in acidity since preindustrial times. The current
and expected magnitude and rate of ocean acidification argue for an
expeditious and detailed investigation of ocean acidification and its
associated impacts on ecosystems and natural resources. Additional
environmental stressorssuch as rising temperatures and decreases
in dissolved oxygenthat may exacerbate the effects of acidification
on marine organisms further highlight the urgency of this challenge.
In particular, understanding the effects of ocean acidification requires
research on the changes in the chemical composition of seawater;
the direct and indirect influences of ocean acidification on chemical,

biological, and eco- logical processes; socioeconomic impacts; and the

capacities of biological systems and human societies to adapt to the
challenges arising from ocean acidification. This requires a multi-focused
yet coordinated program that integrates knowledge about ocean
acidification across the natural, social and economic sciences to
provide a foundation for predicting the future consequences of
acidification and for development of effective strategies to address
these consequences.

Scenario A is Climate Change

Ocean acidification functions as a positive feedback loop
destruction of phytoplankton reduces the amount of
aerosols in the atmosphere, substantially accelerating
warming and disrupting the sulfur cycle
Six, et. Al, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, 2012
(Katharina D., Silvia Kloster, Tatiana Ilyina, Stephen Archer, Kai Zhang, Ernst
Maier-Reimar, Global Warming Amplified by Reduced Sulphur Fluxes as a
Result of Ocean Acidification, online:
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v3/n11/full/nclimate1981.html)

Climate change and decreasing seawater pH (ocean acidification)1 have

widely been considered as uncoupled consequences of the
anthropogenic CO2 perturbation2, 3. Recently, experiments in
seawater enclosures (mesocosms) showed that concentrations of
dimethylsulphide (DMS), a biogenic sulphur compound, were markedly
lower in a low-pH environment4. Marine DMS emissions are the
largest natural source of atmospheric sulphur5 and changes in their
strength have the potential to alter the Earths radiation budget 6.
Here we establish observational-based relationships between pH changes and
DMS concentrations to estimate changes in future DMS emissions with Earth
system model7 climate simulations. Global DMS emissions decrease by
about 18(3)% in 2100 compared with pre-industrial times as a
result of the combined effects of ocean acidification and climate
change. The reduced DMS emissions induce a significant additional
radiative forcing, of which 83% is attributed to the impact of ocean
acidification, tantamount to an equilibrium temperature response
between 0.23 and 0.48K. Our results indicate that ocean acidification
has the potential to exacerbate anthropogenic warming through a
mechanism that is not considered at present in projections of future climate
change.
Impacts of climate change on marine biology and, thus, initiated potential
feedback mechanisms on climate-relevant processes in the atmosphere are
considered to be among the greatest unknowns in our understanding of
future climate evolutions. Recently, ocean acidification has been identified as
a potential source of biologically induced impacts on climate1. The
continuous uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide by the oceans changes
the chemical composition of the marine environment and lowers the

seawater pH. Todays mean surface pH values are already reduced by

0.1 units compared with preindustrial times 1 and future projections
for the end of the twenty-first century give local decreases of up to
0.5 units8. As marine biota have not been exposed to such drastic pH
changes over the past 300 million years9, multifarious impacts on
biogenic cycles are conceivable.
In mesocosm studies10 it was observed that DMS, a by-product of
phytoplankton production, showed significantly lower concentrations
in water with low pH (ref. 4). When DMS is emitted to the atmosphere
its oxidation products include gas-phase sulphuric acid, which can
condense onto aerosol particles or nucleate to form new particles,
impacting cloud condensation nuclei that, in turn, change cloud
albedo and longevity11. As oceanic DMS emissions constitute the
largest natural source of atmospheric sulphur6, changes in DMS
could affect the radiative balance and alter the heat budget of the
atmosphere 12.
The main focus here is to investigate the climate impact of a decrease in
global marine DMS emissions that might result from the exposure of marine
biota to significant pH changes induced by ocean acidification. To address this
question we apply a series of models. We use the Earth system model (ESM)
of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology7 (MPI-ESM), which combines
general circulation models of the atmosphere and the ocean. The ocean
model comprises a biogeochemical module13 that includes a
parameterization of the marine sulphur cycle14, 15(Methods). The global
pattern of present-day simulated DMS concentration of MPI-ESM agrees quite
well with an observation-based climatology16 (Supplementary Fig. S1). Note
that in the MPI-ESM, DMS emissions do not have an impact on climate. To
quantify the potential climate impact of altered marine sulphur fluxes, we
carried out simulations with a standalone version of the atmospheric
circulation model that includes sulphur chemistry and aerosol
microphysics17, 18(Methods).
With the MPI-ESM we run simulations with anthropogenic forcing following the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Emissions
Scenarios (IPCC SRES) A1B scenario19 for the period from 1860 to 2100.
Model experiments consist of a set of runs including pH-sensitive DMS
production and one reference run with no pH-change implications on the
marine sulphur cycle (Supplementary Information).
The key function here is the dependence of DMS concentration on seawater
pH. In various mesocosm and laboratory microcosm experiments a tendency
for decreasing DMS concentrations with decreasing pH has been observed20.
In contrast to these findings, one study showed a DMS increase with
decreasing pH, which was attributed to an enhanced grazing pressure due to
a community shift20. Recent data from a large mesocosm experiment in 2010
in polar waters of Svalbard, Norway, support a DMS decrease in acidified
water21. To establish functions describing the dependency of the DMS
production on pH we average these Svalbard data for the mid-phase after
nutrient addition and for the whole period of the experiment (Fig. 1; for
details see ref. 21). The DMS concentrations for the mid-phase show, to first
order, a linear decrease with lower concentrations of approximately

35(11%) between a pH range of 8.3 and 7.7 (pCO2 of 190750parts per

million by volume)21. Averaged values for the whole experiment are still
12(13%) lower for the same pH range. Furthermore, results from mesocosm
studies carried out in temperate water of a Norwegian fjord in the years
2003, 2005 and 2006 imply a much stronger sensitivity of DMS concentration
on decreasing pH (Fig. 1 and Supplementary Table S1). By basing our
approach on the results from mesocosm experiments our intention is to
encompass the variety of biological processes that govern net DMS
production. Nonetheless, we note that the level of understanding of the
processes behind the response of DMS to ocean acidification is hitherto very
poor4, 21, 22. Furthermore, establishing a consistent response among
mesocosm studies is confounded by considerable differences in the
experimental set-ups that have been used, including: volumes of seawater
enclosed; method used to alter acidity of the sea water; and the stability of
the pH values over time (Supplementary Information).
From Fig. 1 we derive a relationship, F, to modify the DMS production rate
(Supplementary Equation S2) with F=1+(pHactpHpre). The monthly
mean climatological surface pH value, pHpre, was obtained from the first ten
years of the reference run (18601869) and pHact is the present in situ pH
value. The multiplicative factor denotes the gradient of the linear fit for
each data set: the whole Svalbard experiment with a low =0.25; the midphase with a medium =0.58; the three years measurements in a Norwegian
fjord with a high =0.87 gradient (Fig. 1). We carry out three studies
applying the low, medium and high sensitivity of DMS on pH changes to
evaluate the uncertainties underlying our assumption. In the following we
focus our discussion on the results for the medium-pH-sensitive experiment.
Annual mean pHact decreases during the simulation following the increase of
anthropogenic CO2storage in the ocean. The annual mean pH reduction
varies regionally between 0.25 and 0.4 units in 2100 as compared with the
1860s (Fig. 2a). Higher latitudes, known to absorb significant amounts of
anthropogenic CO2, show a stronger pH reduction up to 0.5 units.
Besides a potential pH sensitivity, the main drivers of the marine DMS cycle
are the net primary production, or more precisely the decay of organic
matter, and the plankton composition (Supplementary Information). Any
change to these quantities will directly affect the DMS concentration. We find
that the global net primary production and export production of detritus
decrease globally by about 16% from 1860 to 2100 (Table 1 and Fig. 2d).
These changes are attributed to an increased stratification of the water
column due to climate warming, which leads to a reduction in nutrient supply
to surface layers23. In almost all ocean regions a decrease in biological
production is projected; only in polar regions does the retreat of sea ice lead
to an increased phytoplankton growth and a small increase in net primary
and export production (Fig. 2d). The increased water-column stratification
also reduces the supply of silicate to the surface layers, which causes a
plankton community shift towards calcifiers, that is, towards high-DMSproducing plankton species, in some areas (Supplementary Fig. S2). Globally,
the DMS production is decreased by 12% in 2100 in the reference run
(Fig. 2b). The reference run and the pH-sensitive runs produce basically the
same global patterns and global annual mean fluxes for net primary and
export production and result in similar plankton composition because the

physical circulation fields are identical (Table 1). In contrast, we find a

substantial decrease by 26% in DMS production in the medium-pH-sensitive
run by 2100 (Fig. 2e). Even regions in which biological production is projected
to increase, such as the Southern Ocean at 60S, show a reduction in the
DMS production due to the significant decrease of seawater pH (Fig. 2a).
Changes in the DMS production are not uniformly transferred to changes in
the DMS sea-to-air flux (Fig. 2c,f). The global annual DMS emissions in the
reference run decrease from 29 TgS to 27 TgS from 1860 to 2100
representing only a 7% reduction. For the medium-pH-sensitive run the global
annual DMS emissions drop from 29 TgS to 23.8 TgS (17%). The low-pHsensitive experiment results in a 12% and the high one in a 24% decrease in
DMS emission; thus, we find a linear response of DMS emission to the change
of the multiplicative factor (Table 1). The relatively smaller reduction of the
DMS emission compared with the DMS production in all experiments can be
explained by a shift of high-DMS-producing areas into ocean regions with
higher wind speeds, which allows for a more effective DMS gas transfer to the
atmosphere.
Incorporating the pH-induced decrease in DMS emissions in a standalone
atmospheric circulation model that includes sulphur chemistry and aerosolcloud mircophysics18 (Methods) leads to a positive global mean top-of-theatmosphere radiative forcing (Table 1). In the reference run the global
radiative forcing is small (0.08Wm2). For the medium-pH-sensitive run a
global radiative forcing of 0.48Wm2 is simulated. Subtracting the
contribution owing to climate change as deduced from the reference run, we
get an additional radiative forcing of 0.40Wm2 from the impact of pH on
DMS. The low- and high-pH-sensitive runs project an additional global
radiative forcing of 0.18 and 0.64Wm2, respectively. The strongest positive
radiative forcing is located in the latitudinal bands around 40 in both
hemispheres in areas in which DMS emissions were reduced significantly
(Fig. 3 and Supplementary Fig. S3). Consistently, areas with increased DMS
emission such as the remote polar oceans show a negative radiative forcing.
The subtropical gyre in the South Pacific is also an area with increased DMS
emission, but there is no detectable signal in the radiative forcing pattern
(Supplementary Fig. S3). This apparent contradiction emphazises that
nonlinear processes associated with aerosol chemistry, cloud microphysics
and cloud-dynamical adjustments may play an important role in regulating
the climate response to regional DMS emission changes as shown by other
model studies24, 25.
It is interesting to note that the impact of the pH-induced DMS emission
changes on radiative forcing varies little when different anthropogenic
background aerosol emissions are applied. We carried out a set of additional
runs with a medium pH sensitivity and anthropogenic aerosol emissions,
representative of the year 2000 or a Representative Concentration Pathway
projection26 for the year 2100. We found a mean radiative forcing of
0.500.03Wm2 for this set of experiments (Supplementary Information).
Our result of an additional radiative forcing of 0.40Wm2 for the mediumpH-sensitive run can be compared with the radiative forcing of 3.71W
m2 that is estimated for a CO2 doubling19. The significance of our result
might become clearer if we convert the signal into a temperature response:
by applying an equilibrium climate sensitivity given for a CO2 doubling of

2.14.4K (ref. 19) we diagnose an additional equilibrium temperature

response between +0.23 and +0.48K for the medium-pH-sensitive run (from
+0.1 to +0.76K including low and high runs).
To our knowledge we are the first to highlight the potential climate impact
due to changes in the global sulphur cycle triggered by ocean acidification.
We find that even in a future CO2 emission scenario as moderate as
the IPCC SRES A1B, pH changes in sea water are large enough to
significantly reduce marine DMS emissions by the end of the twentyfirst century, causing an additional radiative forcing of 0.40Wm2. This
would be tantamount to a 10% additional increase of the radiative
forcing estimated for a doubling of CO2. Our result emphasizes that
this potential climate impact mechanism of ocean acidification
should be considered in projections of future climate change .
Additional sensitivity experiments show this result varies little with regard to
the anthropogenic aerosol background emission. However, a fully coupled
transient climate run would be necessary to account for possible feedbacks
between ocean acidification and aerosol emissions. Owing to the
nonlinear atmospheric response to changes in DMS emissions the
projected temperature increase could be amplified if the Earth system faces a
higher CO2 emission scenario or a higher sensitivity of DMS on pH changes.
Furthermore, ocean acidification might additionally have other
impacts on marine biota that may provoke further reductions in
marine DMS emission27. Progress in understanding the sensitivity of
pelagic plankton communities to ocean acidification is required to reduce
uncertainties in the effects of non-CO2 climate-relevant gases in future
climate projections.

Independently, phytoplankton loss causes extinction

collapses ecoysystems and we need them to breathe
Westenskow, UPI Correspondent, 2008
(Rosalie, Acidic Oceans may tangle food chain,
http://www.upi.com/Energy_Resources/2008/06/06/Acidic_oceans_may_tangle
_food_chain/UPI-84651212763771/print/)
Although most of the concern about carbon emissions has focused on the
atmosphere and resulting temperature changes, accumulation of carbon
dioxide in the ocean also could have disturbing outcomes, experts
said at the hearing, which examined legislation that would create a program
to study how the ocean responds to increased carbon levels.
Ocean surface waters quickly absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, so
as carbon concentrations rise in the skies, they also skyrocket in the watery
depths that cover almost 70 percent of the planet. As carbon dioxide
increases in oceans, the acidity of the water also rises, and this
change could affect a wide variety of organisms, said Scott Doney,
senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, a nonprofit research institute based in Woods Hole, Mass.
"Greater acidity slows the growth or even dissolves ocean plant and animal
shells built from calcium carbonate," Doney told representatives in the House

Committee on Energy and the Environment. "Acidification thus threatens a

wide range of marine organisms, from microscopic plankton and shellfish to
massive coral reefs."
If small organisms, like phytoplankton, are knocked out by acidity,
the ripples would be far-reaching, said David Adamec, head of ocean
sciences at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
"If the amount of phytoplankton is reduced, you reduce the amount
of photosynthesis going on in the ocean," Adamec told United Press
International. "Those little guys are responsible for half of the oxygen
you're breathing right now."
A hit to microscopic organisms can also bring down a whole food
chain. For instance, several years ago, an El Nino event wiped out the
phytoplankton near the Galapagos Islands. That year, juvenile bird and seal
populations almost disappeared. If ocean acidity stunted phytoplankton
populations like the El Nino did that year, a similar result would
occur -- but it would last for much longer than one year, potentially
leading to extinction for some species, Adamec said.

Sulfur cycle disruption causes extinction

Ayres, Center for Management and Environmental
Resources, INSEAD, 1997
(Robert U., Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 2, p. 107, Integrated
Assessment of the Grand Nutrient Cycles, online:
http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/865/art%253A10.1023%252FA
%253A1019057210374.pdf?
auth66=1406078982_0b279f7c7b35b8a5eacb2eed233079ec&ext=.pdf)
There are four major elements that are required by the biosphere in
significantly greater quantities than they are available in nature. These four
are carbon (C), nitrogen (N), sulfur (S) and phosphorus (P).
(Hydrogen and oxygen, the other two major ingredients of organic materials,
are not scarce in the earths crust, though oxygen is also recycled along with
carbon.) These natural cycles are driven by geological, hydrological,
atmospheric and biological processes. In effect, the geo-biosphere is a
dissipative system (in the sense of Prigogine) in a quasi steady state, far
from thermodynamic equilibrium. This steady state is maintained by the
influx of solar energy. Interruption or disturbance of these natural
cycles as a consequence of human industrial/economic activity could
adversely affect the stability of the biosphere, and might possibly
reduce its productivity. Indeed, because the more complex long-lived
organisms such as large mammals (including man), birds and even trees
evolve more slowly than smaller short-lived organisms, the very nature of
an altered steady state might not be favorable to many existing
species. Thus there is even a potential threat to human survival
itself. Unfortunately, the interactions among these cycles have received
relatively little attention up to now.

Acidification prevents oceans from absorbing CO2,

accelerating climate change
Devic 2014 (Magali, Associate at the Womens Council on Energy and the
Environment, REDUCTIONS IN OCEANS' UPTAKE CAPACITY COULD SPEED UP
GLOBAL WARMING, March 18 2014, http://www.climate.org/topics/climatechange/ocean-uptake-climate-change.html, Accessed 7/21/14 //CM)
The uptake of anthropogenic CO2 by the ocean changes the
chemistry of the oceans and can potentially have significant impacts
on the biological systems in the upper oceans. In June 2005, The Royal
Society (the United Kingdom's National Academy of Science) released a
report analyzing the impact of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide on
ocean acidification. Surface oceans have an average pH globally of about 8.2
units. Carbon emissions in the atmosphere have lowered the ocean
pH, increasing the acidity of the ocean by 30 percent in the last 100
years, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA). NOAA also projects that, by the end of the century, current levels of
carbon dioxide emissions could result in the lowest levels of ocean pH in 20
million years. A balanced pH is vital in order to maintain water quality
favorable to marine life and in order to keep the ocean serving as a
"carbon reservoir." If the oceans become too acidic, the shells of
animals such as scallops, clams, crabs, plankton and corals are
immediately threatened. Although studies into the impacts of high
concentrations of CO2 in the oceans are still in their infancy, evidence
indicates that reduced ocean carbon uptake is starting to occur and
that this poses a serious hazard because this is likely to speed up
global warming , as occurred when this type of feedback was
initiated during the early warming stages of previous interglacials
On October 16th 2007, the US Senate passed a provision proposed by
Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) to Protect Oceans from Acidification. The
legislation, co-sponsored by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) would focus more
research attention on ocean acidification, which threatens marine life and the
fishing industry. Both the trends in ocean acidification and CO2
absorption will have very large implications , perhaps comparable to
the potential impacts of more rapid melting of the Greenland Ice
Sheet. Moreover, reduced CO2 absorption by the oceans could accelerate
warming greatly, pushing the climate toward a more precipitous melting of
the Greenland ice sheet. The recent developments give heightened
urgency to our having a grasp of the ocean acidification and CO2
absorption trends. Although research and resources aiming at monitoring
oceans should be drastically enhanced to fully understand the various
consequences that will bring about anthropogenic Co2 emissions, there is
cause for great concern over the threat carbon dioxide poses for the health of
our oceans.

Addressing positive feedback loops is the key internal link

to warming they contribute to temperature increases
and warming solutions wont work without addressing
them first
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 2006
(Feedback Loops in Global Cimate Change Point to a Very Hot 21 st Century,
Published in Science Daily, online:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060522151248.htm)
Using as a source the Vostok ice core, which provides information about
glacial-interglacial cycles over hundreds of thousands of years, the
researchers were able to estimate the amounts of carbon dioxide
and methane, two of the principal greenhouse gases, that were
released into the atmosphere in response to past global warming
trends. Combining their estimates with standard climate model assumptions,
they calculated how much these rising concentration levels caused global
temperatures to climb, further increasing carbon dioxide and methane
emissions, and so on.
The results indicate a future that is going to be hotter than we
think, said Margaret Torn, who heads the Climate Change and Carbon
Management program for Berkeley Labs Earth Sciences Division,
and is an Associate Adjunct Professor in UC Berkeleys Energy and
Resources Group. She and John Harte, a UC Berkeley professor in the
Energy and Resources Group and in the Ecosystem Sciences Division of the
College of Natural Resources, have co-authored a paper entitled: Missing
feedbacks, asymmetric uncertainties, and the underestimation of future
warming, which appears in the May, 2006 issue of the journal Geophysical
Research Letters (GRL).
In their GRL paper, Torn and Harte make the case that the current climate
change models, which are predicting a global temperature increase
of as much as 5.8 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, may be
off by nearly 2.0 degrees Celsius because they only take into
consideration the increased greenhouse gas concentrations that result from
anthropogenic (human) activities.
If the past is any guide, then when our anthropogenic greenhouse gas
emissions cause global warming, it will alter earth system processes,
resulting in additional atmospheric greenhouse gas loading and additional
warming, said Torn.
Torn is an authority on carbon and nutrient cycling in terrestrial
ecosystems, and on the impacts of anthropogenic activities on terrestrial
ecosystem processes. Harte has been a leading figure for the past two
decades on climate-ecosystem interactions, and has authored or co-authored
numerous books on environmental sciences, including the highly praised
Consider a Spherical Cow: A Course in Environmental Problem Solving.
In their GRL paper, Torn and Harte provide an answer to those who have
argued that uncertainties in climate change models make it equally possible
that future temperature increases could as be smaller or larger than what is
feared. This argument has been based on assumptions about the
uncertainties in climate prediction.

However, in their GRL paper, Torn and Harte conclude that: A rigorous
investigation of the uncertainties in climate change prediction reveals that
there is a higher risk that we will experience more severe, not less
severe, climate change than is currently forecast.
Serious scientific debate about global warming has ended, but the process of
refining and improving climate models called general circulation models or
GCMs - is ongoing. Current GCMs project temperature increases at the end of
this century based on greenhouse gas emissions scenarios due to
anthropogenic activities. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, for example, has
already climbed from a pre-industrial 280 parts per million (ppm) to 380 ppm
today, causing a rise in global temperature of 0.6 degrees Celsius. The
expectations are for atmospheric carbon dioxide to soar beyond 550 ppm by
2100 unless major changes in energy supply and demand are implemented.
Concerning as these projection are, they do not take into account
additional amounts of carbon dioxide and methane released when
rising temperatures trigger ecological and chemical responses, such
as warmer oceans giving off more carbon dioxide, or warmer soils
decomposing faster, liberating ever increasing amounts of carbon dioxide and
methane. The problem has been an inability to quantify the impact of
Natures responses in the face of overwhelming anthropogenic input. Torn
and Harte were able to provide this critical information by examining the
paleo data stored in ancient ice cores.
Paleo data can provide us with an estimate of the greenhouse gas increases
that are a natural consequence of global warming, said Torn. In the
absence of human activity, these greenhouse gas increases are the
dominant feedback mechanism.
In examining data recorded in the Vostok ice core, scientists have known that
cyclic variations in the amount of sunlight reaching the earth trigger glacialinterglacial cycles. However, the magnitude of warming and cooling
temperatures cannot be explained by variations in sunlight alone.
Instead, large rises in temperatures are more the result of strong upsurges in
atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane concentrations set-off by the initial
warming.
Using deuterium-corrected temperature records for the ice cores, which yield
hemispheric rather than local temperature conditions, GCM climate
sensitivity, and a mathematical formula for quantifying feedback effects, Torn
and Harte calculated the magnitude of the greenhouse gas-temperature
feedback on temperature.
Our results reinforce the fact that every bit of greenhouse gas we
put into the atmosphere now is committing us to higher global
temperatures in the future and we are already near the highest
temperatures of the past 700,000 years, Torn said. At this point, mitigation
of greenhouse gas emissions is absolutely critical.
The feedback loop from greenhouse gas concentrations also has a reverse
effect, the authors state, in that reduced atmospheric levels can enhance the
cooling of global temperatures. This presents at least the possibility of extra
rewards if greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere could be rolled back, but
the challenge is great as Harte explained.
If we reduce emissions so much that the atmospheric concentration of
carbon dioxide actually starts to come down and the global temperature also

starts to decrease, then the feedback would work for us and speed the
recovery, Harte said. However, if we reduce emissions by an amount
that greatly reduces the rate at which the carbon dioxide level in the
atmosphere increases, but don't cut emissions back to the point
where the carbon dioxide level actually decreases, then the positive
feedback still works against us.

These feedback loops have a meaningful effect even a 2

degree rise in global temperatures causes catastrophic
changes
Parry, LiveScience writer, 2011
(Wynne, 2 degrees of warming a recipe for disaster, NASA scientist says,
online: http://www.livescience.com/17340-agu-climate-sensitivity-nasahansen.html)

SAN FRANCISCO The target set by nations in global warming talks won't
prevent the devastating effects of global warming, according to climate
scientist James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for
Space Studies.
The history of ancient climate changes, which occurred over millions of years
in the planet's history as it moved in and out of ice ages, offers the best
insight into how humans' greenhouse gas emissions will alter the planet,
Hansen said here today (Dec. 6) at the annual American Geophysical Union
(AGU) meeting. And his research suggests the climate is more sensitive
to greenhouse gas emissions than had been suspected.
"What the paleoclimate record tells us is that the dangerous level of global
warming is less than what we thought a few years ago," Hansen said. "The
target that has been talked about in international negotiations for 2 degrees
of warming is actually a prescription for long-term disaster."
Hansen is referring to the goal set by climate negotiators in Copenhagen in
2009 to keep the increase in the average global temperature below 3.6
degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius). That cap was put in place as a means
to avoid the most devastating effects of global warming. [How 2 Degrees Will
Change Earth]
However, signs of changes that will exacerbate the situation, such as
the loss of ice sheets that will raise sea level and change how much
sunlight is reflected off the planet's surface, are already appearing,
according to Hansen.
Two degrees of warming will lead to an ice-free Arctic and sea-level
rise in the tens of meters, Hansen told LiveScience. "We can't say how
long that will take, [but]its clear it's a different planet."
Climate negotiators, currently gathered in Durban, South Africa, are working
with that 2-degree goal, trying to figure out ways to meet it.
If greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise unabated, the Earth's
temperature is expected to increase by about 5.4 degrees F (3
degrees C) thanks to short-term effects, such as an increase in water
vapor in the atmosphere and changes in cloud cover , which will amplify

or weaken the temperature increase. But this is only a small piece of the
warming that is expected, according to Hansen's research.
Some fast-feedback effects show up within decades, and some of
these show up only when other parts of the system , particularly
the oceans, which warm slowly, catch up with atmospheric warming.
This can take centuries.
There are also slow-feedback effects that are expected to amplify global
warming, particularly, the melting of ice sheets. The darker ground beneath
the ice and the meltwater that pools on top of it absorbs more sunlight,
warming the planet even more.

Warming will cause extinction a single feedback loop

could be the difference between life and death for the
entire planet
Ahmed, Executive Director of the Institute for Policy
Research and Development at Brunel University, 2010
(Nafeez Ahmed, Executive Director of the Institute for Policy Research and
Development, professor of International Relations and globalization at Brunel
University and the University of Sussex, Spring/Summer 2010, Globalizing
Insecurity: The Convergence of Interdependent Ecological, Energy, and
Economic Crises, Spotlight on Security, Volume 5, Issue 2, online)
Perhaps the most notorious indicator is anthropogenic global
warming. The landmark 2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the UN
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which warned that
at then-current rates of increase of fossil fuel emissions, the earths
global average temperature would likely rise by 6C by the end of
the 21st century creating a largely uninhabitable planet was a wake-up
call to the international community.[v] Despite the pretensions of
climate sceptics, the peer-reviewed scientific literature has
continued to produce evidence that the IPCCs original scenarios
were wrong not because they were too alarmist, but on the contrary,
because they were far too conservative. According to a paper in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, current CO2 emissions
are worse than all six scenarios contemplated by the IPCC. This
implies that the IPCCs worst-case six-degree scenario severely
underestimates the most probable climate trajectory under current
rates of emissions.[vi] It is often presumed that a 2C rise in global
average temperatures under an atmospheric concentration of
greenhouse gasses at 400 parts per million (ppm) constitutes a safe
upper limit beyond which further global warming could trigger
rapid and abrupt climate changes that, in turn, could tip the whole
earth climate system into a process of irreversible, runaway
warming.[vii] Unfortunately, we are already well past this limit, with the
level of greenhouse gasses as of mid-2005 constituting 445 ppm.[viii] Worse
still, cutting-edge scientific data suggests that the safe upper limit is in fact
far lower. James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for
Space Studies, argues that the absolute upper limit for CO2 emissions is
350 ppm: If the present overshoot of this target CO2 is not brief, there is a

possibility of seeding irreversible catastrophic effects.[ix] A wealth of

scientific studies has attempted to explore the role of positivefeedback mechanisms between different climate sub-systems, the
operation of which could intensify the warming process. Emissions beyond
350 ppm over decades are likely to lead to the total loss of Arctic sea-ice in
the summer triggering magnified absorption of sun radiation, accelerating
warming; the melting of Arctic permafrost triggering massive methane
injections into the atmosphere, accelerating warming; the loss of half the
Amazon rainforest triggering the momentous release of billions of tonnes of
stored carbon, accelerating warming; and increased microbial activity in the
earths soil leading to further huge releases of stored carbon, accelerating
warming; to name just a few. Each of these feedback sub-systems alone
is sufficient by itself to lead to irreversible, catastrophic effects that
could tip the whole earth climate system over the edge.[x] Recent
studies now estimate that the continuation of business-as-usual would
lead to global warming of three to four degrees Celsius before 2060
with multiple irreversible, catastrophic impacts; and six, even as
high as eight, degrees by the end of the century a situation
endangering the survival of all life on earth .[xi]

Climate change creates global instability, poverty, hunger,

disease, migration, and mass death; breaking down
traditionally constraining institutions and acting as a
threat multiplier
Sawin, Senior Director of the Energy and Climate Change
Program at the WorldWatch Institute, 2012
(Janet, Climate Change Poses Greater Security Threat than Terrorism,
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/77)

As early as 1988, scientists cautioned that human tinkering with the Earth's
climate amounted to "an unintended, uncontrolled globally pervasive
experiment whose ultimate consequences could be second only to a global
nuclear war." Since then, hundreds of scientific studies have documented
ever-mounting evidence that human activities are altering the climate around
the world. A growing number of international leaders now warn that climate
change is, in the words of U.K. Chief Scientific Advisor David King, "the most
severe problem that we are facing todaymore serious even than the threat
of terrorism." Climate change will likely trigger severe disruptions with
ever-widening consequences for local, regional, and global security.
Droughts, famines, and weather-related disasters could claim
thousands or even millions of lives and exacerbate existing tensions
within and among nations, fomenting diplomatic and trade disputes .
In the worst case, further warming will reduce the capacities of Earth's
natural systems and elevate already-rising sea levels, which could
threaten the very survival of low-lying island nations, destabilize
the global economy and geopolitical balance , and incite violent

conflict. Already, there is growing evidence that climate change is affecting

the life-support systems on which humans and other species depend. And
these impacts are arriving faster than many climate scientists predicted.
Recent studies have revealed changes in the breeding and migratory patterns
of animals worldwide, from sea turtles to polar bears. Mountain glaciers are
shrinking at ever-faster rates, threatening water supplies for millions of
people and plant and animal species. Average global sea level has risen 2025 centimeters (8-10 inches) since 1901, due mainly to thermal expansion;
more than 2.5 centimeters (one inch) of this rise occurred over the past
decade. A recent report by the International Climate Change Taskforce, cochaired by Republican U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe, concludes that climate
change is the "single most important long term issue that the planet faces." It
warns that if average global temperatures increase more than two
degrees Celsiuswhich will likely occur in a matter of decades if we
continue with business-as-usualthe world will reach the "point of no
return," where societies may be unable to cope with the accelerating
rates of change. Existing threats to security will be amplified as
climate change has increasing impacts on regional water supplies,
agricultural productivity, human and ecosystem health,
infrastructure, financial flows and economies, and patterns of
international migration. Specific threats to human welfare and global
security include: Climate change will undermine efforts to mitigate
world poverty, directly threatening people's homes and livelihoods
through increased storms, droughts, disease, and other stressors.
Not only could this impede development, it might also increase national and
regional instability and intensify income disparities between rich and poor.
This, in turn, could lead to military confrontations over distribution of the
world's wealth, or could feed terrorism or transnational crime. Rising
temperatures, droughts, and floods, and the increasing acidity of
ocean waters, coupled with an expanding human population, could
further stress an already limited global food supply, dramatically
increasing food prices and potentially triggering internal unrest or the use
of food as a weapon. Even the modest warming experienced to date has
affected fisheries and agricultural productivity, with a 10 percent decrease in
corn yields across the U.S. Midwest seen per degree of warming. Altered
rainfall patterns could heighten tensions over the use of shared
water bodies and increase the likelihood of violent conflict over
water resources. It is estimated that about 1.4 billion people already live in
areas that are water-stressed. Up to 5 billion people (most of the world's
current population) could be living in such regions by 2025. Widespread
impacts of climate change could lead to waves of migration,
threatening international stability. One study estimates that by 2050, as
many as 150 million people may have fled coastlines vulnerable to rising sea
levels, storms or floods, or agricultural land too arid to cultivate. Historically,
migration to urban areas has stressed limited services and infrastructure,
inciting crime or insurgency movements, while migration across borders has
frequently led to violent clashes over land and resources.

Scenario B is Biodiversity
Ocean acidification undermines biodiversity creates
algae blooms that release toxins, crushing entire
ecosystems
Moore, PhD and research scientist, 2013
(Stephanie Moore [earned her Ph.D. from the University of New South Wales,
Australia, in 2005. She then completed her post-doctoral training with the
University of Washingtons Climate Impacts Group and the School of
Oceanography (2005-2008). She is currently a research scientist with the
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research and visiting scientist with
the Northwest Fisheries Science Center.], Impacts of Climate Change on the
Occurrence of Harmful Algal Blooms, May 2013, Online:
http://www2.epa.gov/sites/production/files/documents/climatehabs.pdf)
Climate change is predicted to change many environmental conditions
that could affect the natural properties of fresh and marine waters both
in the US and worldwide. Changes in these factors could favor the
growth of harmful algal blooms and habitat changes such that
marine HABs can invade and occur in freshwater. An increase in the
occurrence and intensity of harmful algal blooms may negatively impact
the environment, human health, and the economy for communities
across the US and around the world. The purpose of this fact sheet is to
provide climate change researchers and decisionmakers a summary of the
potential impacts of climate change on harmful algal blooms in freshwater
and marine ecosystems. Although much of the evidence presented in this
fact sheet suggests that the problem of harmful algal blooms may worsen
under future climate scenarios, further research is needed to better
understand the association between climate change and harmful algae. Algae
occur naturally in marine and fresh waters.
Under favorable conditions that include adequate light availability, warm waters, and high nutrient levels, algae can

Blooms of algae can cause damage to aquatic

environments by blocking sunlight and depleting oxygen required by other aquatic
organisms, restricting their growth and survival. Some species of algae, including golden and red algae and certain
types of cyanobacteria, can produce potent toxins that can cause adverse health
effects to wildlife and humans, such as damage to the liver and
nervous system. When algal blooms impair aquatic ecosystems or have the potential to affect human health,
they are known as harmful algal blooms (HABs). In recent decades, scientists have observed an
increase in the frequency, severity and geographic distribution of
HABs worldwide. Recent research suggests that the impacts of climate change may
promote the growth and dominance of harmful algal blooms through
a variety of mechanisms including: Warmer water temperatures Changes in salinity Increases in
atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations Changes in rainfall patterns Intensifying
rapidly grow and multiply causing blooms.

of coastal upwelling Sea level rise. Climate change may cause summer droughts to increase in intensity and duration
worldwide. During a drought, the amount of water flowing into lakes and reservoirs decreases. Combined with warmer
temperatures that cause more evaporation, water levels of fresh water bodies decrease. This causes the salinity, or
concentration of salt in the water body, to increase. Although certain toxin-producing cyanobacteria are quite salt tolerant,

increases in salinity can also cause salt stress leading to leakage of cells and the
release of toxins. Increases in salinity during drought conditions can also create favorable
conditions for the invasion of marine algae into what are usually freshwater
ecosystems. This is currently occurring in our southwestern and south
temporary

central US lakes where marine alga, Prymnesium parvum, or golden algae, has been increasing since 2000,
causing significant fish kills in inland waters. All algae, including harmful species,
require carbon dioxide (CO2) for photosynthesis. Increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide will increase the
levels of dissolved carbon dioxide in marine and freshwater
ecosystems, favoring those algae that can grow faster in elevated dissolved carbon dioxide
conditions. In addition, cyanobacteria that can float to the surface have a distinct advantage over other competing algae
because they can directly utilize carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

As atmospheric carbon dioxide

concentrations increase due to human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation,
cyanobacteria that can float to the surface will have greater access
to carbon dioxide for growth, increasing the occurrence of harmful algal
blooms. This also could lead to changes in the chemistry of ambient
waters. Higher photosynthesis converts carbon dioxide into living algal biomass, some of which dies
and settles to the bottom. The eventual decomposition of this surplus
organic material is analogous to our own breathing activity because
it consumes oxygen and increases carbon dioxide in areas with poor circulation.
This can contribute to increases in acidity (i.e., lower pH). This ecological
source of acidification is added to the direct acidifying effects of atmospheric carbon dioxide,
commonly known as ocean acidification. Like temperature, these changes in water chemistry can change
the competitive relationships between HABs and other algae, and can also change the ability of zooplankton to control
HABs through their grazing activity.

Specifically, ocean acidification kills shellfish

Hari Sreenivasan, et. Al, 2013
(PBS NewsHour, interviewing Wysocki owner of Chelsea Farms, Feely
National Oceanic and Atmopheric Marine Environment Laboratory, Ocean
Acidifications Impact on Oysters and Other Shellfish, transcript available
online:
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/Ocean+Acidification's+impact+on+oyst
ers+and+other+shellfish)
SHINA WYSOCKI: Ocean acidification is a huge problem. And there are so
many things. It's the currents, it's the carbon dioxide, it's the aragonite. And
it's most of which, I understand a tiny fraction of, but what I do understand is
when the nursery calls on the phone and says there's no oyster seed to ship,
we don't have any.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Seed production in the Northwest plummeted by
as much as 80 percent between 2005 and 2009.
RICHARD FEELY, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Pacific
Marine Environmental Laboratory: And what we found was just very
dramatic. When the waters were highly corrosive, the organisms
died within two days. The oyster larvae just simply died. When the water
was high pH, they did just fine. It was just like a switch.
HARI SREENIVASAN: That switch is happening around the world as
oceans take in large amounts of carbon dioxide, or CO2, says Dick
Feely, a senior scientist at the National Oceanographic and
Atmospheric Administration.
RICHARD FEELY: Over the last 200 years or so, we have released about
two trillion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. And about a
quarter of that, or 550 billion tons of carbon dioxide, have been absorbed by
the oceans.

HARI SREENIVASAN: All that CO2 changes the chemistry of the water by
making it more acidic, 30 percent more since the start of the Industrial
Revolution. Because of natural tide and wave patterns, the Pacific Northwest
Coast has been hit hardest, with corrosive water being brought up from the
deep ocean to the surface, where shellfish live. That's why Washington's
shellfish industry, worth $270 million a year and responsible for thousands of
jobs, is the first to feel the effects of this global phenomenon, says Bill Dewey
of Taylor Shellfish, the largest producer of farmed shellfish in the country. In a
single night, Taylor's growers will bring in about 50,000 oysters.
BILL DEWEY, Taylor Shellfish Farms: This is the first place these deep
corrosive waters are coming to the surface. And we're an industry that relies
on calcifiers, so we're the first to see the effects and to scream about it.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Ocean acidification acts a lot like osteoporosis,
the condition that causes bones to become brittle in humans. For
oysters, scallops and other shellfish, lower pH means less carbonate,
which they rely on to build their essential shells. As acidity
increases, shells become thinner, growth slows down and death
rates rise.

Shellfish key to biodiversity act as ecosystem

engineers
Brumbaugh, et. Al, The Nature Conservatory at the
University of Rhode Island, 2006

(Robert D., M.W. Beck Center for Ocean Health at the University of California
Santa Cruz, L.D. Coen - South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, L.
Craig NOAA Restoration Center, P. Hicks NOAA Restoration Center, A
Practitioners Guide to the Design and Monitoring of Shellfish Restoration
Projects, online:
http://www.habitat.noaa.gov/pdf/tncnoaa_shellfish_hotlinks_final.pdf)
Once considered nearly inexhaustible, many shellfish populations
around the world have declined precipitously some to commercial
extinction - over the past two hundred years. These declines are due in large
part to over-exploitation as well as from the related overall decline in the
condition of estuaries (Gross and Smyth 1946; Cook et al 2000; Jackson et al
2001; Edgar and Samson 2004; Kirby 2004). In recent decades the
translocation of shellfish parasites and diseases between coastal areas has
contributed to further losses and has exacerbated the effect of habitat loss
(Kennedy et at 1996).
While bivalve fisheries in many places have produced substantial landings,
traditional management efforts for shellfish have generally failed to
sustain shellfish populations or the fisheries that depended on them.
Few bivalve fisheries, if any, have been managed with any evidence of longterm sustainability, both in the U.S. and in many other parts of the world.
Oysters and mussels in particular have posed a unique challenge to fishery
managers since fishing activities for these species, unlike most fish and other
mobile organisms, tends to simultaneously remove their habitat. Various
approaches for countering fishery declines have been implemented, ranging

from hatchery based put-and-take fisheries to introductions of non-native

species, often with mixed results. By managing bivalves and their
habitats almost exclusively for recreational and commercial fishing,
many facets of their ecology that contribute to maintaining the
overall condition of our coastal bays and estuaries have been
ignored.
Engineers at Work
With the decline of shellfish populations we have lost more than the fisheries
and economic activity associated with fishing. A growing body of
research in recent decades has illuminated the profoundly
important ecological roles that shellfish play in coastal ecosystems .
These roles include filtering water as bivalves feed on suspended
algae, providing structured habitat for other species, and protecting
shorelines from erosion by stabilizing sediments and dampening
waves. In fact, many bivalve shellfish have been labeled ecosystem
engineers (Jones et al 1994; Lenihan 1999) in recognition of the
multiple roles they play in shaping the environments in which they
live. Restoring shellfish populations to our coastal waters, therefore,
represents a powerful way to restore the integrity and resilience of
these ecosystems.
The Water Filter
Shellfish are suspension-feeders that strain microscopic algae
(phytoplankton) that grow suspended in surrounding waters. In some coastal
systems shellfish, through their feeding activity and resultant deposition of
organic material onto the bottom sediments, were abundant enough to
influence or control the overall abundance of phytoplankton growing in the
overlying waters. This control was accomplished both by direct removal of
suspended material and by controlling the rate that nutrients were
exchanged between the sedi- ments and overlying waters (Officer et al 1982;
Dame 1996; Newell 2004). For example, it is widely touted that in the late
19th century oysters were so abundant in the Chesapeake Bay that they
likely filtered a volume of water equivalent to the entire volume of the Bay in
less than a week (Newell 1988). This feeding activity contributed to greater
water clarity and allowed seagrasses to thrive in more areas of the estuary
than is observed today (Newell and Koch 2004).
Similar ecological impacts have been attributed to other species of bivalves
as well. Hard clams in Long Islands Great South Bay were likely abundant
enough, until about two decades ago, to prevent outbreaks brown tides
caused by planktonic algae that cloud the water and prevent light from
reaching seagrasses growing in the bay. As these algae die, sink to the
bottom and decay, they also rob the Bay of oxygen (Kassner 1993; Cerrato et
al 2004). The uptake of nutrients and localized impacts on water quality
documented for blue mussels, Mytilus edulis, using flume experiments
(Asmus and Asmus 1991) and field observations in European estuaries
suggest that robust populations of mussels are capable of consuming a
considerable fraction of the phytoplankton from overlying waters (Haamer
and Rodhe 2000).

Ecosystem modeling and mesocosm studies have indicated that

restoring shellfish populations to even a modest fraction of their
historic abundance could improve water quality and aid in the
recovery of seagrasses (Newell and Koch 2004; Ulanowicz and Tuttle
1992). Field studies have also revealed positive feedback mechanisms from
shellfish populations that promote greater seagrass productivity (Peterson
and Heck 1999).
The Habitat Provider
In addition to their impacts as filter feeders, some species of bivalve
shellfish such as oysters and mussels form reefs or complex
structures that provide refuge or hard substrate for other species of
marine plants and animals to colonize. For example, the eastern oyster
Crassostrea virginica, forms three-dimensional reefs as generations of oysters
settle and grow attached to one another (Zimmerman et al 1989; Hargis and
Haven 1999; Steimle and Zetlin 2000). Reefs can occur subtidally, often
associated with edges of channels, as well as in intertidal habitats, keeping
pace with sea-level rise (DeAlteris 1988; McCormick-Ray 1998 and 2005;
Hargis and Haven 1999). These reefs represent a temperate analog to coral
reefs that occur in more tropical environments. Both kinds of reefs are
biogenic, being formed by the accumulation of colonial animals, and both
provide complex physical structure and surface area used by scores of other
species as a temporary or permanent habitat. A single square meter of oyster
reef ay provide 50 square meters of surface area in its cracks, crevices, and
convolutions, providing attachment points and shelter for an array of plants
and animals (Bahr and Lanier 1981). Given the variety of species and
complex interactions of species associated with oyster reefs, they have been
suggested as essential fish habitat, which is an important distinction for
fisheries management in the U.S. (Coen et al. 1999). Unfortunately, many of
the reefs that were once so prevalent have been mined away through fishing
and dredging activities, and their remnant footprints have been silted over
in the past century (Rothschild et al. 1994, Hargis and Haven 1999). The
Shoreline Protector In some regions, intertidal oyster reefs and, likely,
mussel beds serve as natural breakwaters that can stabilize shorelines and reduce the amount of suspended sediment in the adjacent
waters. This reduction in suspended sediment improves water clarity
and protects shellfish, seagrasses and other species. Shellfish
restoration, therefore, offers a way to recapture this important
ecosystem service (Meyer et al 1997) in some locations. Given the
increased understanding of the various roles that shellfish play in
nearshore ecosystems, there is increasing interest in re-establishing
robust and self-sustaining native shellfish populations as a
component of coastal ecosystems. Indeed, the restoration of shellfish is
increasingly invoked as a key strategy for rehabilitating and conserving
marine and estuarine systems because of these anticipated ecosystem
services. However, surprisingly little effort has been made to document the
degree to which these ecosystem services are provided through restoration
activities in actual practice.

Marine ecosystem collapse causes extinction

Craig, Associate Professor of Law, Indiana University
School of Law, 2003
(Robin Kundis , 34 McGeorge L. Rev. 155)
Biodiversity and ecosystem function arguments for conserving marine
ecosystems also exist, just as they do for terrestrial ecosystems, but these
arguments have thus far rarely been raised in political debates. For example,
besides significant tourism values - the most economically valuable
ecosystem service coral reefs provide, worldwide - coral reefs protect
against storms and dampen other environmental fluctuations,
services worth more than ten times the reefs' value for food production. n856
Waste treatment is another significant, non-extractive ecosystem function
that intact coral reef ecosystems provide. n857 More generally, "ocean
ecosystems play a major role in the global geochemical cycling of all
the elements that represent the basic building blocks of living
organisms, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur, as well
as other less abundant but necessary elements." n858 In a very real
and direct sense, therefore, human degradation of marine ecosystems
impairs the planet's ability to support life.
Maintaining biodiversity is often critical to maintaining the functions
of marine ecosystems. Current evidence shows that, in general, an
ecosystem's ability to keep functioning in the face of disturbance is
strongly dependent on its biodiversity , "indicating that more diverse
ecosystems are more stable." n859 Coral reef ecosystems are particularly
dependent on their biodiversity. [*265] Most ecologists agree that the
complexity of interactions and degree of interrelatedness among component
species is higher on coral reefs than in any other marine environment. This
implies that the ecosystem functioning that produces the most highly valued
components is also complex and that many otherwise insignificant species
have strong effects on sustaining the rest of the reef system. n860 Thus,
maintaining and restoring the biodiversity of marine ecosystems is critical to
maintaining and restoring the ecosystem services that they provide. Non-use
biodiversity values for marine ecosystems have been calculated in the wake
of marine disasters, like the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. n861 Similar
calculations could derive preservation values for marine wilderness. However,
economic value, or economic value equivalents, should not be "the sole or
even primary justification for conservation of ocean ecosystems. Ethical
arguments also have considerable force and merit." n862 At the forefront of
such arguments should be a recognition of how little we know about the sea and about the actual effect of human activities on marine ecosystems. The
United States has traditionally failed to protect marine ecosystems because it
was difficult to detect anthropogenic harm to the oceans, but we now know
that such harm is occurring - even though we are not completely sure about
causation or about how to fix every problem. Ecosystems like the NWHI coral
reef ecosystem should inspire lawmakers and policymakers to admit that
most of the time we really do not know what we are doing to the sea and
hence should be preserving marine wilderness whenever we can - especially
when the United States has within its territory relatively pristine marine

ecosystems that may be unique in the world. We may not know much about
the sea, but we do know this much: if we kill the ocean we kill ourselves,
and we will take most of the biosphere with us. The Black Sea is almost
dead, n863 its once-complex and productive ecosystem almost entirely
replaced by a monoculture of comb jellies, "starving out fish and dolphins,
emptying fishermen's nets, and converting the web of life into brainless,
wraith-like blobs of jelly." n864 More importantly, the Black Sea is not
necessarily unique. The Black Sea is a microcosm of what is
happening to the ocean systems at large. The stresses piled up:
overfishing, oil spills, industrial discharges, nutrient pollution, wetlands
destruction, the introduction of an alien species. The sea weakened, slowly
at first, then collapsed with [*266] shocking suddenness . The
lessons of this tragedy should not be lost to the rest of us, because much of
what happened here is being repeated all over the world. The ecological
stresses imposed on the Black Sea were not unique to communism. Nor,
sadly, was the failure of governments to respond to the emerging crisis. n865
Oxygen-starved "dead zones" appear with increasing frequency off
the coasts of major cities and major rivers, forcing marine animals to
flee and killing all that cannot. n866 Ethics as well as enlightened selfinterest thus suggest that the United States should protect fully-functioning
marine ecosystems wherever possible - even if a few fishers go out of
business as a result.

Algae blooms cause extinction

Leake 2008 [Jonathan, Environment Editor, Zones of death are spreading
in oceans due to global warming, The Sunday Times, May 18,
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3953924.ece]
Marine dead zones, where fish and other sea life can suffocate from lack of
oxygen, are spreading across the worlds tropical oceans, a study has
warned. Researchers found that the warming of sea water through climate
change is reducing its ability to carry dissolved oxygen, potentially turning
swathes of the worlds oceans into marine graveyards. The study, by
scientists from some of the worlds most prestigious marine research
institutes, warns that if global temperatures keep rising there could be
dramatic consequences for marine life and for humans in communities that
depend on the sea for a living. Organisms such as fish, crabs, lobsters
and prawns will die in such zones, warned Lothar Stramma of the Leibniz
Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel, Germany, who co-wrote the research
paper with Janet Sprintall, a physical oceanographer at Scripps Institution of
Oceanography in California. In the study, published in the journal Science,
they collated hundreds of oxygen concentration readings taken over the past
50 years in the Atlantic and Pacific over depths ranging from 985ft to 2,500ft.
In the central and eastern tropical Atlantic and equatorial Pacific the oxygenminimum zones appear to have expanded and intensified during the past 50
years, Stramma said. The researchers found that such regions now extend
deeper into the oceans and closer to the surface. Fish and other sea life
cannot survive in such waters, said Sprintall. The researchers say the change
is closely linked to rising sea water temperature. At 0C, one kilogram of sea
water can hold about 10ml of dissolved oxygen but at 25C this falls to just

4ml. This impact is amplified by a host of other factors. One of the most
important is that parts of the eastern Atlantic, eastern Pacific and the Indian
Ocean are naturally low in oxygen so a small additional decline has a
disproportionately greater effect. Examples of partly dead zones include
a stretch of the Pacific about 5,000 miles wide off the west coast of
South America. Others are found off the west coasts of Africa and India.
Additionally, as surface water heats up it becomes less dense and forms an
insulating layer that stops oxygen percolating into the colder layers beneath.
Climate change is also suspected of altering the direction and strength of
ocean currents, causing dead zones such as the one that suddenly appeared
off Oregon, in Americas Pacific Northwest, six years ago and which appears
to have become an annual event, killing marine life at every level from
plankton to salmon, seals and sea birds. Lisa Levin, professor of biological
oceanography at Scripps, and a world expert on the expansion of oxygen
depletion in the oceans, predicted that similar zones would eventually appear
off California. Around the world there are already around 150 areas suffering
from low or declining oxygen levels, she said. Many of these are close to
coastlines where the main cause is not climate change but pollution,
especially agricultural chemicals washed off the land. The nitrogen in such
run-off effectively fertilises the sea, causing a sudden bloom of algae
and other planktonic life. As such organisms die they are decomposed
by bacteria that multiply so fast they suck all the oxygen from the
water. A report by the United Nations Environment Programme found that
such coastal dead zones have doubled in number since 1995, with some
extending over 27,000 square miles, about the size of the Republic of Ireland.
Among the worst affected are the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea, and parts of the
Mediterranean. Perhaps the biggest of all is found in the Gulf of Mexico,
where the Mississippi carries thousands of tons of agrochemicals into the sea
every year. Recent research has revealed that about 250m years ago
average oxygen levels in oceans fell almost to zero a reduction
associated with dramatic changes in climate that resulted in the
extinction of 95% of the worlds species.

Traditional great power conflict is obsolete economic

interdependence, international organizations, and
mutually assured destruction
Ikenberry, Professor of Politics and International Affairs at
Princeton University, and Deudney, Professor of political
science at Johns Hopkins University, 2009
(Daniel and G. John, Jan/Feb, The Myth of the Autocratic Revival, Foreign
Affairs, Online: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/63721/daniel-deudneyand-g-john-ikenberry/the-myth-of-the-autocratic-revival)

It is in combination with these factors that the regime divergence between

autocracies and democracies will become increasingly dangerous. If all the
states in the world were democracies, there would still be competition, but a
world riven by a democratic-autocratic divergence promises to be even more
conflictual. There are even signs of the emergence of an "autocrats

international" in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, made up of China,

Russia, and the poorer and weaker Central Asian dictatorships. Overall, the
autocratic revivalists paint the picture of an international system
marked by rising levels of conflict and competition, a picture quite
unlike the "end of history" vision of growing convergence and cooperation.
This bleak outlook is based on an exaggeration of recent
developments and ignores powerful countervailing factors and
forces. Indeed, contrary to what the revivalists describe, the most striking
features of the contemporary international landscape are the
intensification of economic globalization, thickening institutions, and
shared problems of interdependence. The overall structure of the
international system today is quite unlike that of the nineteenth century.
Compared to older orders, the contemporary liberal-centered
international order provides a set of constraints and opportunities
of pushes and pulls that reduce the likelihood of severe conflict
while creating strong imperatives for cooperative problem solving.
Those invoking the nineteenth century as a model for the twenty-first also fail
to acknowledge the extent to which war as a path to conflict resolution and
great-power expansion has become largely obsolete. Most important,
nuclear weapons have transformed great-power war from a routine
feature of international politics into an exercise in national suicide.
With all of the great powers possessing nuclear weapons and ample
means to rapidly expand their deterrent forces, warfare among
these states has truly become an option of last resort. The prospect of
such great losses has instilled in the great powers a level of caution and
restraint that effectively precludes major revisionist efforts. Furthermore, the
diffusion of small arms and the near universality of nationalism have
severely limited the ability of great powers to conquer and occupy
territory inhabited by resisting populations (as Algeria, Vietnam,
Afghanistan, and now Iraq have demonstrated). Unlike during the days of
empire building in the nineteenth century, states today cannot translate
great asymmetries of power into effective territorial control; at most,
they can hope for loose hegemonic relationships that require them to give
something in return. Also unlike in the nineteenth century, today the
density of trade, investment, and production networks across
international borders raises even more the costs of war. A Chinese
invasion of Taiwan, to take one of the most plausible cases of a future
interstate war, would pose for the Chinese communist regime
daunting economic costs, both domestic and international. Taken
together, these changes in the economy of violence mean that the
international system is far more primed for peace than the autocratic
revivalists acknowledge. The autocratic revival thesis neglects other key
features of the international system as well. In the nineteenth century, rising
states faced an international environment in which they could reasonably
expect to translate their growing clout into geopolitical changes that would
benefit themselves. But in the twenty-first century, the status quo is much
more difficult to overturn. Simple comparisons between China and the
United States with regard to aggregate economic size and capability
do not reflect the fact that the United States does not stand alone
but rather is the head of a coalition of liberal capitalist states in

Europe and East Asia whose aggregate assets far exceed those of China or
even of a coalition of autocratic states. Moreover, potentially revisionist
autocratic states, most notably China and Russia, are already
substantial players and stakeholders in an ensemble of global
institutions that make up the status quo, not least the UN Security
Council (in which they have permanent seats and veto power). Many other
global institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World
Bank, are configured in such a way that rising states can increase their voice
only by buying into the institutions. The pathway to modernity for rising
states is not outside and against the status quo but rather inside
and through the flexible and accommodating institutions of the
liberal international order. The fact that these autocracies are capitalist
has profound implications for the nature of their international interests that
point toward integration and accommodation in the future. The domestic
viability of these regimes hinges on their ability to sustain high economic
growth rates, which in turn is crucially dependent on international trade and
investment; today's autocracies may be illiberal, but they remain
fundamentally dependent on a liberal international capitalist system. It is not
surprising that China made major domestic changes in order to join the WTO
or that Russia is seeking to do so now. The dependence of autocratic
capitalist states on foreign trade and investment means that they
have a fundamental interest in maintaining an open, rulebased
economic system. (Although these autocratic states do pursue bilateral
trade and investment deals, particularly in energy and raw materials, this
does not obviate their more basic dependence on and commitment to the
WTO order.) In the case of China, because of its extensive dependence on
industrial exports, the WTO may act as a vital bulwark against
protectionist tendencies in importing states. Given their position in this
system, which so serves their interests, the autocratic states are unlikely to
become champions of an alternative global or regional economic order, let
alone spoilers intent on seriously damaging the existing one. The prospects
for revisionist behavior on the part of the capitalist autocracies are further
reduced by the large and growing social networks across international
borders. Not only have these states joined the world economy, but
their people particularly upwardly mobile and educated elites have
increasingly joined the world community. In large and growing numbers,
citizens of autocratic capitalist states are participating in a sprawling array of
transnational educational, business, and avocational networks. As
individuals are socialized into the values and orientations of these
networks, stark: "us versus them" cleavages become more difficult
to generate and sustain. As the Harvard political scientist Alastair Iain
Johnston has argued, China's ruling elite has also been socialized, as its
foreign policy establishment has internalized the norms and practices of the
international diplomatic community. China, far from cultivating causes for
territorial dispute with its neighbors, has instead sought to resolve
numerous historically inherited border conflicts, acting like a satisfied
status quo state. These social and diplomatic processes and
developments suggest that there are strong tendencies toward
normalization operating here. Finally, there is an emerging set of
global problems stemming from industrialism and economic

globalization that will create common interests across states

regardless of regime type. Autocratic China is as dependent on
imported oil as are democratic Europe, India, Japan, and the United
States, suggesting an alignment of interests against petroleumexporting autocracies, such as Iran and Russia. These states share a
common interest in price stability and supply security that could form the
basis for a revitalization of the International Energy Agency, the consumer
association created during the oil turmoil of the 1970s. The emergence of
global warming and climate change as significant problems also
suggests possibilities for alignments and cooperative ventures
cutting across the autocratic-democratic divide. Like the United States,
China is not only a major contributor to greenhouse gas accumulation but
also likely to be a major victim of climate-induced desertification and coastal
flooding. Its rapid industrialization and consequent pollution means that
China, like other developed countries, will increasingly need to import
technologies and innovative solutions for environmental management.
Resource scarcity and environmental deterioration pose global
threats that no state will be able to solve alone, thus placing a
further premium on political integration and cooperative institution
building. Analogies between the nineteenth century and the twenty-first are
based on a severe mischaracterization of the actual conditions of the new
era. The declining utility of war, the thickening of international
transactions and institutions, and emerging resource and
environmental interdependencies together undercut scenarios of
international conflict and instability based on autocratic-democratic
rivalry and autocratic revisionism. In fact, the conditions of the twentyfirst century point to the renewed value of international integration
and cooperation.

Plan
Plan: The United States Federal Government should
develop a national program office for monitoring ocean
acidification.

Contention II: Solvency

A one-stop ocean acidification information office is
necessary to mitigation and adaptation strategies
Morel et al, Committee on the development of an
integrated science strategy for ocean acidification
monitoring, research, and impact assessment, 2010

(Francois M.M. Morel, Chair, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey

David Archer, University of Chicago, Illinois James P. Barry, Monterey Bay
Aquarium Research Institute, California Garry D. Brewer, Yale University, New
Haven, Connecticut Jorge E. CORREDOR, University of Puerto Rico, Mayagez
SCOTT C. Doney, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Massachusetts
Victoria J. Fabby, California State University, San Marcos Gretchen E. Hofman,
University of California, Santa Barbara Daniel S. Holland, Gulf of Maine
Research Institute, Portland Joan A. Kelypas, National Center for Atmospheric
Research, Boulder, Colorado Frank J. Millero, University of Miami, Florida Ulf
Riebesell, Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences, Kiel, Germany, Ocean
Acidification: A National Strategy to Meet the Challenges of a Changing
Ocean)
The FOARAM Act calls for an Ocean Acidification Information
Exchange to make information on ocean acidification developed through
or utilized by the interagency ocean acidification program accessible through
electronic means, including information which would be useful to
policymakers, researchers, and other stakeholders in mitigating or
adapting to the impacts of ocean acidification (P.L. 11111). The
committee agrees that information exchange is an important priority
for the pro gram. The Information Exchange proposed by the Act would
go beyond chemical and biological measurements and also include
syntheses and assessments that would be accessible to and
understandable by managers, policy makers, and the general public
(see section 6.3). It could also act as a conduit for twoway dialogue
between stakeholders and scientists to ensure that decision support
products are meeting needs of the stake holders. A onestop shop
of ocean acidification information would be an extremely powerful
tool, but would require resources and expertise, particularly in science
communication, to perform effectively. The committee was asked to consider
the appropriate balance among research, observations, modeling, and
communication. While the appropriate balance of research, observing, and
modeling activities will best be determined by the IWG and individual
agencies relative to their missions, the committee would like to stress the
importance of communication. To successfully engage stakeholders in a
twoway dialogue, the National Ocean Acidification Program will
require a mechanism for effectively communicating results of the
research and receiving feedback and input from managers and
others seeking decision support. Inadequate progress in communicating
results and engaging stakeholders, largely due to the lack of a
communication strategy, has been a criticism of the U.S. Climate Change

Science Program (National Research Council, 2007b). It will be important that

the Ocean Acidification Information Exchange avoid a similar outcome. Both
the EPOCA and OCB Program have webbased approaches for communicating
science information on ocean acidification to the general public, and the
National Program is encouraged to build on and learn from existing efforts in
its development of an Ocean Acidifica tion Information Exchange.

Current monitoring networks are inadequate because

they focus only on localized effects national coordination
is key
NRC (National Research Council), 2010
(National Research Council, Ocean Acidification: A National Strategy to Meet
The Challenges of a Changing Ocean, Online:
http://books.google.com/books?
id=gVt0AAAAQBAJ&pg=PT17&lpg=PT17&dq=ocean+acidification+monitorin
g+current+techniques+insufficiency&source=bl&ots=WoOjp7Dtq4&sig=MXo9hu3OPR5hJFD4jj14jP0OCI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=RVfQU_mIEYvgsATHmYHABw&
ved=0CCkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=ocean%20acidification%20monitoring
%20current%20techniques%20insufficiency&f=false)
CONCLUSION:

The existing observing networks are inadequate for the

task of monitoring ocean acidification and its effects. However, these
networks can be used as the backbone of a broader monitoring
network.
RECOMMENDATION: The National Ocean Acidification Program should review
existing and emergent observing networks to identify existing
measurements, chemical and biological, that could become part of a
comprehensive ocean acidification observing network and to identify
any critical spatial or temporal gaps in the current capacity to
monitor ocean acidification. The Program should work to fill these gaps by ensuring that existing
coastal and oceanic carbon observing sites adequately measure the seawater carbonate system and a range of bio logical
parameters; identifying and leveraging other long-term ocean monitoring programs by adding relevant chemical and
biological measurements at existing and new sites; adding additional time-series sites, repeat transects, and in situ
sensors in key areas that are currently undersampled. These should be prioritized based on ecological and societal
vulnerabilities; deploying and field testing new remote sensing and in situ technologies for observing ocean acidification
and its impacts; and supporting the development and application of new data analysis and modeling techniques for
integrating satellite, ship-based, and in situ observations.
RECOMMENDATION: The National Ocean Acidification Program should plan for the long-term sustainability of an integrated
ocean acidification observation network.

Ocean acidification research is still in its

infancy. A great deal of research has been conducted and new
information gathered in the past several years, and it is clear from
this research that ocean acidification may threaten marine
ecosystems and the services they provide. However, much more
information is needed in order to fully understand and address these
changes. Most previous research on the biological effects of ocean
acidification has dealt with acute responses in a few species , and
very little is known about the impacts of acidification on many
ecologically or economically important organisms, their populations,
and communities; the effects on a variety of physiological and
biogeochemical processes; and the capacity of organisms to adapt to
projected changes in ocean chemistry (Boyd et al., 2008). There is a need for

research that provides a mechanistic understanding of physiological

effects, elucidates the acclimation and adaptation potential of
organisms, and allows scaling up to ecosystem effects, taking into
account the role and response of humans in those systems and how
best to support decision making in affected systems. There is also a
need to understand these effects in light of multiple and potentially
compounding environmental stressors, such as increasing
temperature, pollution, and overfishing. The committee identifies eight broad research
areas that address these critical information gaps; detailed research recommendations on specific regions and topics are
contained in other community-based reports (i.e., Raven et al., 2005; Kleypas et al., 2006; Fabry et al., 2008a; Orr et al.,

Present knowledge is insufficient to guide

federal and state agencies in evaluating potential impacts for
management purposes.
2009; Joint et al., 2009). CONCLUSION:

Plan is essential to international coordination on

monitoring and acidification solutions
Jewett et al., the first director of NOAA's Ocean
Acidification Program, 2014
(Elizabeth Jewett, Mary Boatman (BOEM), Phillip Taylor and Priscilla Viana

(formerly with NSF), Todd Capson (formerly with DOS), Katherine Nixon
(formerly with U.S. Navy) and Fredric Lipshultz (formerly with NASA) ,
Strategic Plan for Federal Research and Monitoring of Ocean
Acidification, Online:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/NSTC/i
wg-oa_strategic_plan_march_2014.pdf)
Beyond linking to existing education and outreach initiatives, the National
Ocean Acidification Program Office will have to forge new
partnerships. The need for new partnerships will become clear after an
assessment of current efforts has highlighted successful strategies and
important gaps. New partnerships and initiatives will be streamlined
with ongoing efforts as to avoid redundancy and will target
education and outreach messages and key audiences where gaps
have been identified.
The National Ocean Acidification Program Office can play a pivotal
role in uniting key partners by promoting working relationships
between other National Science and Technology Council Interagency
Working Groups such as the Interagency Working Group on Aquaculture,
U.S. agencies, NGOs, academia, and private businesses throughout the world
at ongoing and developing venues. New partnerships may take the form of
public-private partnerships, which have proven successful at uniting public,
private, and philanthropic partners to address complex, cross-cutting issues.
International partnerships may form via new initiatives that address
emerging cross-cutting issues while striving to promote sustainable
development on bilateral, regional, and global levels. As previously
mentioned, formal science and technology agreements can unite
governments in research partnerships, which may serve education and
outreach needs. Science and technology cooperation, in addition to
grants for international cooperation, supports the establishment of

science-based industries, encourages investment in national sci ence

infrastructure, education, and application of scientific standards,
and it promotes international dialogue. Additionally, the National
Ocean Acidification Program Office can form new international
partnerships by leveraging existing relationships established
through U.S. embassies, consulates, and missions. By building off of
existing relationships, an international engagement strategy will
have more relevant and achievable goals.

Absent the plan, agency overlap will prevent solutions to

ocean acidification
Ekstrom, Sea Grant California, 2008
(Julia A. Ekstrom, Sea Grant California, Navigating Fragmented Ocean Law in
the California Current: Tools to Identify and Measure Gaps and Overlaps for
Ecosystem-Based Management, site: http://www.opc.ca.gov)
Despite institutional challenges, confronting ocean acidification is not a
lost cause. To move forward, it is crucial to recognize that no
institution can be created as if it exists or will exist in a vacuum. As
such, we can work within the context of the existing governance by
either proposing to modify what exists or to develop entirely new institutions.
It is critical that a new institution be created as a productive partner
in the existing web of institutions and not cause unintended interplay
among overlapping jurisdictions (Ebbin 2002). Thus, baseline data about
existing institutions provides policymakers and stakeholders with a blue print
of the regulatory environment in regard to ocean acidification, so they can
determine the most effective strategies toward realistic resolution of the
issue. For example, there are numerous laws pertaining to the regulation of
carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, a causal factor in the problem of ocean
acidification. Similarly, there are monitoring systems and regulations in place
that pertain to pH balance of water. Although these laws were not written to
address ocean acidification, they can still play a role in the institutional
environment where, if reasonable, a new institution that directly tackles
ocean acidification could be developed. The amount of governing law as a
whole that inherently, though peripherally, relates to ocean acidification is
enormous as a consequence of sector-based management. Historically, in
the United States and many other developed countries, management
of the oceans has been conducted within sectors or industries, such
as fishing, mining, shipping, and recreation (USCOP 2004, Elliott et al.
2006, Cao and Wong 2007). Government agencies, along with other
ocean-related stakeholders, recognize that this approach is no
longer effective. With the increases in coastal populations (and its
associated development), ocean pollution, and technological advances, the
human footprint left on the oceans and coasts is visible everywhere on earth
(Halpern et al. 2008). With industry priorities leading regulation, marine and
coastal uses (and abuses) were developed in a piecemeal manner within the
sectors. As a result, sector-based management has created a
governance system riddled with gaps and overlaps in ocean law and

regulation (Knecht et al. 1988, USCOP 2004, Crowder et al. 2006).

Fragmented decision-making is fraught with problems. One problem
is the negative consequences that result from overlapping
jurisdictions, such as when one institutions regulation conflicts with
the actions or objectives of another. Some of these overlaps can be
mitigated through improved coordination or collaboration. Another
common problem associated with fragmented management is the
mismatch of institutions in the context of the ecosystem. This is
referred to as the problem of fit, which calls attention to the potentially
harmful ecological implications of developing institutions without adequate
consideration of the relevant ecosystems properties (Young 2002, Folke et al.
2007). Clearly the fragmented nature of sector- based policy-making
is no longer adequate for the complexity of modern ocean uses and
the severity of poor management consequences (Pew Oceans
Commission 2003, USCOP 2004). New methods for effective
management call for a broader perspective and better use of
information about the institutional environment (Sutinen et al. 2000,
Juda and Hennessey 2001).

Mitigation and adaptation strategies are already being

developed plan is key to ensure their effectiveness
NRC (National Research Council), 2010
(National Research Council, Ocean Acidification: A National Strategy to Meet
The Challenges of a Changing Ocean, Online:
http://books.google.com/books?
id=gVt0AAAAQBAJ&pg=PT17&lpg=PT17&dq=ocean+acidification+monitorin
g+current+techniques+insufficiency&source=bl&ots=WoOjp7Dtq4&sig=MXo9hu3OPR5hJFD4jj14jP0OCI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=RVfQU_mIEYvgsATHmYHABw&
ved=0CCkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=ocean%20acidification%20monitoring
%20current%20techniques%20insufficiency&f=false)
The FOARAM Act of 2009 charges an interagency working group with
overseeing the development of impacts assessments and adaptation and
mitigation strategies, and with facilitating communication and outreach with
stakeholders. Because ocean acidification is a relatively new concern and
research results are just emerging, it will be challenging to move from
science to decision support. Nonetheless, ocean acidification is occurring now
and will continue for some time. Resource managers will need
information in order to adapt to changes in ocean chemistry and
biology. In view of the limited current knowledge about the impacts
of ocean acidification, the first step for the National Ocean
Acidification Program will be to clearly define the problem and the
stakeholders (i.e., for whom is this a problem and at what time scales), and
build a process for decision support. It must be noted that a one-time
identification of stakeholders and their concerns will not be adequate in the
long term, and it should be considered an iterative process. As research is
performed and the effects of ocean acidification are better defined,
additional stakeholders may be identified, and the results of the

socioeconomic analysis may change. For climate change decision

support, there have been pilot programs within some federal agencies and
there is growing interest within the federal government for developing a
national climate service to further develop climate-related decision support.
Similarly, new approaches for ecosystem-based management and
marine spatial planning are also being developed . The National
Ocean Acidification Program could leverage the expertise of these
existing and future programs.