Organisms critical to ocean food webs, including plant-like coccolithophores (left), deep-sea corals (center), and small swimming snails called pteropods (right) depend on the ocean?s abundant dissolved inorganic carbonate for making their protective calcium carbonate shells. Declining carbonate and increasing acidity will likely make their shell formation difficult to impossible in large parts of the world ocean by the end of the 21st century, resulting in severe impacts on these organisms. (left photo by Richard D. Norris, Scripps Institution of Oceanography (formerly of WHOI); middle, courtesy NOAA; right, courtesy Laurence Madin, WHOI)[back]
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