Conversational Description

Carbon dioxide, also called “$\ce{CO2}$”, is a gas produced by life and by burning fossil fuels (gas, oil, and coal, to name a few). The amount of $\ce{CO2}$ in the air around us is going up because we burn fossil fuels. This change is invisible to us, but it represents a big shift in the environment around us. For some living things, such as life in the oceans, it completely changes the environment around them. Imagine if suddenly your house had half as much food or water, or twice as much. You would probably change the way you live. In one case you might ration resources by taking fewer showers or eating smaller meals, but in the other you might need to worry about food spoiling or flooding your house. The goal of this project is to predict what sorts of changes are expected for life in the oceans, as $\ce{CO2}$ rises in the world.

When the amount of $\ce{CO2}$ in the air increases, the amount of $\ce{CO2}$ in the oceans will also increase. This is because the water in the ocean is good at absorbing $\ce{CO2}$ from the air above it. In both the air and in the water, when the amount of $\ce{CO2}$ increases, many other things also change. One thing we already see is that seawater is becoming acidic. Acids can wreak havoc on the tissues of living things like coral (remember when Walter White and Jesse used acid to dissolve something in Breaking Bad?). We don’t know yet what other aspects of the ocean will change, but we have an idea. Returning to the food and water example, if the amount of water in your house goes up, you should expect the wood in the walls to start rotting and mold to start growing. What else will happen in the ocean as the $\ce{CO2}$ levels go up?

In this project we’re going to focus on finding out what else we expect to change in the ocean as the amount of $\ce{CO2}$ increases. Specifically, we want to find out what changes will happen that will affect living things. All living things are made up of cells, and those cells have to move charged particles, like protons, in and out of themselves to stay alive. The “machinery” that cells use to do this are called “ion pumps”. Ion pumps work sort of like air conditioning in your house. In the same way your air conditioning adjusts the temperature of your home to keep you comfortable, ion pumps adjust the acidity in the cells to keep them happy. When the protons are pumped out of the cell, the water around the cell becomes more acidic. What if the water is already acidic? That will change how efficient the pump is. The effect on the cell’s chances of survival will depend on what it is using the pump for. So as a specific example we want to predict how the $\ce{CO2}$ in the air will work its way into the oceans and then influence the ion pumps living things depend on for survival.