Global Warming

The island of Castello Aragonese in the Tyrrhenian Sea west of Naples, Italy, is being pushed by the African plate toward Eurasia, moving an inch or so closer to Rome each year. Streams of gas bubbles up from vents on the sea floor. Humans have burned through fossil fuels – coal, oil and natural gas – which have added 365 billion metric tons of carbon into the air. The average global temperature is expected to rise seven degrees F higher which will trigger global events including the melting of the glaciers, the drowning of islands and coastal cities and the melting of the Arctic cap. Additionally, the oceans will be inundated with carbon, some of which will be retained making for toxic conditions. The acid reduces the pH balance. The biologists believed that this area represented what the future of the ocean would be like. In the waters far from the vents, the assemblage of fish was normal. The scientists found that certain fish failed to assemble closer to the vents. The ecosystem completed crashed at pH 7.8 which is where scientists expect the ocean to be in 2100. Much research has been on acidification subsequently confirming these findings.