Karen Weaver's Fight for Clean Water November 2017 | Page 13

In the natural scheme of things, in the spring and summer months, environmental
conditions in the ocean such as water temperature, light and seagrass growth are
favorable for the growth of coral limestone. During the fall and winter, low light and
temperature conditions along with the annual decomposition of seagrass result in a
slowing, or small-scale loss of reef growth. As atmospheric carbon dioxide is
absorbed by seawater, ocean pH declines. The result is that the natural summer
growth cycle of coral is no longer large enough to offset the effects of dissolution
from ocean acidification.
The data for the study were collected in 2009-2010. The study was accepted for
publication in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles, a journal of the American
Geophysical Union.