The shells of marine snails – known as pteropods – living in the seas around Antarctica are being dissolved by ocean acidification according to a new study published this week in the journal Nature Geoscience.  These tiny animals are a valuable food source for fish and birds and play an important role in the oceanic carbon cycle*.

During a science cruise in 2008, researchers from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and the University of East Anglia (UEA), in collaboration with colleagues from the US Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), discovered severe dissolution of the shells of living pteropods in Southern Ocean waters.

Scientists have known for years that greenhouse gasses are altering the chemical makeup of our oceans.

More and more carbon dioxide is dissolving into salt water, creating carbonic acid. That changes the ocean’s pH, or acid-alkaline balance.

And it’s hitting harder in Alaska.