Hello and welcome to the chemistry of carbon dioxide's roll in ocean acidification
and its effects on ocean life.
first let's take a look by what is meant by "acid," and we can look at this bar as a continuum
on the left showing low amounts of dissolved hydrogen ions
and on the right a high amount of dissolved H+ ions.
and going from left to right things become more acidic.
so a low amount of dissolved H+ ions is a high pH.
That would be a basic solution.
And on the right is a high amount of dissolved H+ ions is a low pH, in other words an acidic
solution.
It kind of seems reversed, and that is because pH is the inverse of the amount of dissolved
H+ ions.
That is why the pH comes out as high for basic and low for acidic.
So going from left to right is considered acidification.
In the laboratory we have ways of identifying how basic or acidic something is by the color
occurring on a universal indicator
and right in the middle, kind of a greenish, is neutral, the pH is 7.0.
So acidification is an increase in dissolved H+ ions.
Make sure you remember that you might want to write it down somewhere.
So what are the consequences of increasing dissolved carbon dioxide?
How the increased H+ ion concentration affect various chemical and life processes in the
ocean?
Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will dissolve in ocean water,
and the result of that is a reaction between the
carbon
dioxide and
the ocean water resulting in carbonic acid.