The ocean is not acidic, and model projections say the oceans wont ever become acidic. So why call it ocean acidification?
Ocean acidification refers to the process of lowering the oceans’ pH (that is, increasing the concentration of hydrogen ions) by dissolving additional carbon dioxide in seawater from the atmosphere. The word “acidification” refers to lowering pH from any starting point to any end point on the pH scale. This term is used in many other scientific areas (including medicine and food science) to refer to the addition of an acid to a solution, regardless of the solution’s pH value. For example, even though seawater’s pH is greater than 7.0 (and therefore considered “basic” in terms of the pH scale), increasing atmospheric CO2 levels are still raising the ocean’s acidity and lowering its pH. In comparison, this language is similar to the words we use when we talk about temperature. If the air temperature moves from -40°C to -29°C (-40°F to -20°F), it is still cold, but we call it “warming.” — James Orr, Senior Scientist, Laboratory for the Sciences of Climate and Environment, France; Christop
