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What is Ocean Acidification? | Thankyouocean | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: What is Ocean Acidification?
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Core Theme
The ocean's chemistry is rapidly changing due to human-induced carbon dioxide emissions, leading to acidification and hypoxia, which threaten marine life that has evolved in stable conditions. Addressing these issues requires both global emission reductions and local conservation efforts.
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This is the Thank You Ocean Report.
Today, our story is basically about
chemical changes in the ocean and what
they mean to us and to the creatures who
live in that ocean. But there are a
couple of terms we need to understand
first. Ocean acidification is the
long-term change in the chemistry of
ocean water that is caused by our carbon
dioxide emissions to the atmosphere. Dr.
Dr. Tessa Hills, an associate professor
at UC Davis in the department of Earth
and Planetary Sciences. Her research is
based at UC Davis's Bedadega Marine
Laboratory. About 30% of that carbon
dioxide is soaked up by the ocean and
that fundamentally changes the chemistry
of the ocean. And while there have been
periodic changes to that chemistry
during the last million years or so,
generally speaking, the chemistry has
been fairly consistent. And so all of
the organisms that live in the ocean
have evolved in that relatively
long-term stable environment. So these
changes have not been drastic or rapid.
A very different picture to what is now
being observed. Organisms may probably
do have some capacity to adapt to change
in ocean chemistry along with ocean
temperature. But what's really notable
about our human impacts on this system
is that it is changing so much faster
than any time period we can reconstruct
in the geological record. Okay, here's
the second term we need to understand.
Hypoxia, which refers to a decrease in
oxygen in the ocean. It does happen
naturally in the ocean. So there are
actually zones in the ocean that are
lower in oxygen than others. And that
happens because of all the material
that's in the ocean, all the animals and
the plants actually degrading, breaking
apart, breaking down, actually uses up
oxygen over time. So as things die and
decay, there's a natural process where
oxygen gets used. And the nutrients we
use for gardening and farming also go
into the ocean and this can further
accelerate this hypoxia problem by
increasing plant productivity at the
surface of the ocean. Then all of that
plant or animal mass sinks down and
starts to decay and sort of accentuates
that natural process. And here is one
more wrinkle to our story. As the ocean
warms with climate change, the ocean
water will actually hold less oxygen.
Further contributing to that hypoxic
ocean. So what scientists are really
thinking about here are complex
conditions such as ocean acidification,
hypoxia and other factors which are
causing the chemistry of the ocean to
change. Now our story moves on to one of
the solutions. The ocean acidification
and hypoxia panel is actually a panel
that has California, Oregon, Washington
and British Columbia working together.
It is a science panel of about two dozen
scientists that are working together to
inform the policy makers and the
managers of those west coast states on
how to deal with ocean acidification and
hypoxia as a problem. And I serve on
that panel as well as one of my other
colleagues here at Bedadega Marine
Laboratory, John Larier. And the panel
was convened and funded by the
California Ocean Protection Council and
the California Ocean Science Trust. On
the panel, there is a close relationship
between the scientific community and
policymakers. One example is the
development of a network of monitoring
systems to track chemical changes
actually taking place in the ocean. And
Dr. Hill emphasizes that these issues
need to be addressed globally and
locally. We have to curb our fossil fuel
emissions globally. So, we need to be
making both local and global steps
towards decreasing our fossil fuel
emissions. There are things we can do in
addition to that on a local scale that
help the ocean stay resilient and
healthy. And so I would encourage people
to do everything they can to decrease
pollution to the ocean, to protect ocean
spaces using things like marine reserves
and basically help our coastal
environments be as resilient as possible
knowing that this big problem is headed
our direction. And our thanks to Dr.
Tessa Hill. And here's your thank you
ocean everyday action. Reduce your
carbon footprint and help keep the ocean
healthy so that it is more resilient to
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