Oceans turning acidic – but does anyone know about it?

Very little is known about how increasingly acidic oceans will affect New Zealand marine life, a new report says.

The report, released by the Royal Society of New Zealand last month, laid out the problems for scientists and policy makers dealing with ocean acidification.

Awareness surrounding this aspect of global warming is low, even within the ocean-reliant $300 million shellfish industry.

A byproduct of global warming, one third of the carbon in the atmosphere being absorbed by the ocean, where it reacts with salt water to become more acidic. Of particular worry is the impact on sealife with calcium based shells or skeletons.

While all major players in New Zealand’s seafood industry were rung for comment, only one representative had “vaguely” heard of the issue of ocean acidification.

All of the companies asked not to be identified.

If companies had felt red faced, Professor Keith Hunter, Head of Chemistry Department at Otago University and one of the country’s leading experts in the area, is sympathetic.

“Internationally very few people realised [the oceans are getting more acidic], and not as early as we should have done. And so there isn’t much awareness,” he says.

“But that is understandable. That is the reason why they have held workshops, so that information may work its way out of the scientific community.

The workshops, run through the Science Media Centre, gave an online briefing of the report for journalists.

He says a certain amount of responsibility for ocean acidification awareness falls on the media.

“Overall, The Herald is awful at reporting science. I go to the NZ Herald online, and the science page is only updated once a week.

“It is deplorable. They should at least have one journalist that knows something about science.”

But the reaction of the industry might also be because the fallout will not be known for decades, he says. “How many business worry about problems 20 to 30 years away?”

“The solution will come after I retire, and so my job at this stage is to get people in there who know how to do the science, people who are relevant to New Zealand.”

According to Dr Hunter, funds in the science arena have become very managed by the Government who set the agenda and indicate their priorities to funding bodies. This can mean it sometimes bypasses science advisors.

“That has definitely happened on this issue,” he says.

However he said the Ministry of Fisheries had been really interested in their work.

Mary Livingston, principal scientist at the Ministery of Fisheries, says a lack of hard evidence and complexity of the chemistry behind the issue, were both obstacles to research in the area.

She describes “a bit of resistance” from the industry, with only “pockets” of interest.

Yet she believes that there is really strong interest from those “on the ground”.

So far New Zealand waters have seen little temperature change compared to other places in the world. However, New Zealand is now entering a negative phase of IPO (Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation – a temperature cycle lasting 15-30 years), and she is expecting to see a rapid catch up.

“The last 20 years have been a boom time for the shellfish industry, and we haven’t experienced one of the negative cycles. We don’t really know what will happen,” she says.

Alastair MacFarlane, General Manager of Trade and Information at the New Zealand Seafood Industry Council, says whuile he has not seen alarm over ocean acidification, he considers there to be a “generalised awareness”, particularly after the [Royal Society of New Zealand] report was released in May.

The shellfish industry in New Zealand is made up mostly of oyster and mussels, which are commercially farmed for one year to 18 months, he said. This fast turnaround time meant nothing was as yet a problem.

“With mussels, for example, if it was an issue you would expect to see more shell damage, and that isn’t happening,” says Mr MacFarlane.

“I’m not saying ocean acidification isn’t happening, but it is just as tough as it has always been to open a bluff Oyster.”