PARIS: Typically when you think of acid and shellfish, you might picture some fresh lemon juice or a light mignonette to brighten up a perfectly shucked raw oyster. But another kind of acidification is threatening the occupants of the raw bar, and the outlook is not very good.
A new report in Nature Climate Change found that ocean acidification is threatening shellfisheries (places where people harvest shellfish) across the United States. The combination of air pollution, runoff into rivers, and warming waters is slowly changing the ocean chemistry, especially in coastal areas where shellfish thrive. As more carbon dioxide gets absorbed by the ocean, the waters become more acidic, reducing the amount of shell-building chemicals in the water. In extreme cases, the acidic waters can actually eat away at the calcium carbonate that is the main component of most mollusk shells. And even if you aren’t a fan of shellfish, you could be affected: Harvesting shellfish is a huge contributor to coastal economies, and some are already starting to get hit.
“Ocean acidification has already cost the oyster industry in the Pacific Northwest nearly $110 million and jeopardized about 3,200 jobs,” Julia Ekstrom, author of the report, said in a press release
The four areas that Ekstrom and colleagues identified as particularly problematic are the Pacific Northwest, the Gulf of Mexico, the Mid-Atlantic, and New England, all of which are affected by the issue in different ways. The news is dire, but luckily there are some things that communities can do to combat the individual problems.
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