Reversibilty of Ocean Acidification?

http://www.missionofmermaids.com/category/general-news/

It is important to note that carbon management is the only strategy that has the opportunity of addressing climate change, including ocean acidification.

The question now is : What can we do to reverse the current trend of increasing carbon emission and/or ocean acidification and is too late to save these pteropods? This is will be a difficult task since it is mentioned in the IPCC report that greenhouse gases (including CO₂) tend to stay in the atmosphere for a relatively long period of time. Even though we may not be able to totally reverse the current trend of ocean acidification, there are some practices we can adopt that could at least mitigate the severity of the problem:

I think this should start at an individual level by making concerted efforts to reduce our carbon footprints. It doesn’t have to be some novel genius idea. Simple things like carpooling with someone to work or school is a good starting point towards the right direction. Secondly, as a society, we need to invest in putting in place substitute carbon sinks so that our oceans do not have to do all the "work". Community tree planting event to replace the ones that are cut down for commercial use or any other reason will increase the global rate of photosynthesis and hence recycle the CO₂ back into the ecosystem instead of having it absorbed by the ocean.

Finally, it will be a good economic practice at both state and federal level to invest in research that could make best use of ocean water that has already been acidified. Researchers are making significant stride to that end. One such promising strategy is Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS).Through this approach, scientists were able to harnessed the carbon already present in the acidified ocean water and put it into use through electricity generation while at the same time restoring the chemical balance of the ocean ( Rau et al). Although approaches like CCS are not a realistic solution to solving our ocean acidification problem, thinking-outside-the-box is exactly what we need to tackle not only ocean acidification, but other impacts of climate change. In fact it can be argued that they are “no credible geo-engineering solutions to ocean acidification under discussion” due to the fact that most of solutions presented (such as CCS) are “overwhelmed  by the scale of the oceans” (uk.oneworld.net).

As far as saving the Pteropods, the chances are looking increasingly slim if swift and aggressive measures are not put in place to both curb the current trend of CO₂ emissions and restore ocean pH back to pre-industrial level. An article in the Seattle Times this week offers a very gloomy picture as far as being able to save the pteropods in  Antartic waters are concern. Researchers have found that ocean acidification has stated causing the dissolution of their shells way earlier than originally projected (http://seattletimes.com). This implies that the effect of ocean acidification on pteropods (and probably on other calcifying marine organisms) is a lot worse than we previously thought. Although, such severity in the dissolution of pteropods’ shell haven’t been established in the open ocean or in the Pacific Northwest, it is safe to assume that we are under-estimating the severity of the impact of acidification in these waters as well. I hope this is not one of those situations whereby it is too late to act now? I sure hope not!