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Corals in a changed sea

August 30, 2008

Postdoctoral researcher Justin Ries holds a temperate-water coral—one of many shell-forming marine animals he grew under elevated carbon dioxide levels, which increases the seawater’s acidity. Working with Anne Cohen and Dan McCorkle of the Geology and Geophysics Department, he conducted the experiment to measure the effects of high-CO₂ levels on living shelled marine animals. Many coral species may be vulnerable to increasing CO₂ in the atmosphere, because more-acidic seawater can make it difficult for them to construct their calcium carbonate skeletons.
(Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)