Comment #59 David James Finlay @ 2022-01-16 12:42

Thank you Jean-Pierre. The paper referenced in my preprint regarding ocean acidification was authored by the highly experienced Roslin Innovation Centre's GOES Team team of scientists with many decades of experience in marine biology, photochemical marine toxicity and water treatment systems. Their opening abstract sentence states, 'Marine plants and animals should be thriving in ocean waters because of the current high concentrations of carbon dioxide and nutrients along with slightly elevated temperatures - but they are not.' What their paper is clearly pointing out is that even at normal atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, the 50% loss of phytoplankton in the oceans from the effects of micro-plastics and toxic chemicals has so severely compromised the oceans' buffering ability that acidification would be happening anyway. Thus the driver of ocean acidification is human caused ecological degradation.

Comment #58 Jean-Pierre Gattuso @ 2022-01-16 10:48

"Ocean acidification has been associated with the rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which is in balance with carbon dioxide in the oceans."

This is precisely the cause of ocean acidification. CO2 increases in the atmosphere due to anthropogenic CO2 emissions. About 25% of these emissions end up in the ocean, moderating climate change but causing ocean acidification.

The following statement is incorrect and contrary the scientific literature. See above.
"Human caused ecological degradation is likely the primary driver of ocean acidification."