Ocean Acidification

The oceans have absorbed roughly 30% of human-produced CO2 since industrialization, dropping surface pH by 0.1 units—a rapid shift threatening shell-forming organisms from corals to pteropods. Historical sediment cores reveal current acidification rates are 10 times faster than any natural event in the past 300 million years. This discovery outperforms #8 in urgency, proving the ocean's chemical buffering system is failing under anthropogenic pressure.