There is good reason to hope and believe that our Channel Islands are creating a safety zone where ocean acidification doesn’t affect sea life as much as it does in most other places. Our islands are a blessing in many ways, and this is definitely one of them.
The Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, under which our local Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary operates, put out an informative article on the subject.
I’ll give you my own condensed version in my own way here, but if you want a much longer read with pretty photos, aim your electronic mouse at https://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/news/feb20/channel-islands-ocean-acidification-refuge.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=GovDelivery.
Acidic carbon has been sinking out through our ocean waters for centuries, some of it caused by human action. Oceanic forces and life, such as wind, waves, currents and kelp forests keep inshore, surface and shallow water relatively clean, but we are seeing signs of increasing acidification inshore.
Upwelling is a natural hydraulic force that brings up deep, old water to the surface, and we are finding that loads of carbon are coming up with it. When we add the carbon from old upwelled water to the new carbon entering the sea, we have way too much acidification, which is harmful to our ocean’s flora and fauna.
Solutions are tough to come by, but we do have great possibilities such as building kelp restoration reefs like the one proposed for Goleta Bay (see www.fishreef.org). Kelp sequesters carbon and I’ve read that one single acre of kelp removes more acidification than 60 acres of deciduous forest.
Why is this so important? Because acidic waters can make it hard for plankton, bivalves, lobster, sea urchins and other critters to build their exoskeletons. This messes up the entire food chain, which is amazingly and mystically interrelated and interdependent. It can also hurt commercial and recreational fisheries, causing widespread socioeconomic damage.
Our Channel Islands have an unusual east-west orientation and feature north-facing shorelines and associated ecosystems. This is unique within the California Current System and protects the ecosystems from the acidic upwelled water which typically comes from the west and from the south.
This protected ecosystem still gets the new carbon entering the ocean but does not get much direct upwelling, so only fights against half of the overall acid problem, compared to other areas. This means the northern shores of the Channel Islands, within the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary serve as something of a refuge from ocean acidification.
That is good news.
— Capt. David Bacon operates WaveWalker Charters and is president of SOFTIN Inc., a nonprofit organization providing seafaring opportunities for those in need. Visit softininc.blogspot.com to learn more about the organization and how you can help. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.
