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Figure 1.1 Size, percentage germination, and percentage survival of spores of the macroalga Fucus sp. as a function of pH and temperature at the
end of a 4-week experiment ( Gail 1919 ).
water and on the organisms living in the sea.
The i rst effect would be to change the aver-
age pH of sea water from about 8.2 to
5.9. . . . This acid water would be much less
than saturated with calcium carbonate, and
thus further changes would follow. Eventually,
when equilibrium was re-established, the par-
tial pressure of carbon dioxide in the atmos-
phere would be about 110 [sic.] times its
present value, and the pH of the sea water
would end up at an average of about 7.0.
The effects of these changes on living organ-
isms would be drastic. If the supposed increase
of carbon dioxide happened suddenly, it would
probably mean wholesale extinction of many of
the marine species of today. If, however, the
increase were gradual, so that organisms
could adapt themselves by generations of evolu-
tionary changes, the effects would be much less
disastrous—but perhaps no less clearly recorded
in the physiological adaptations of the surviving
forms. From the paleontologic record it appears
improbable that any change so drastic as an
abrupt sevenfold increase of carbon dioxide has
happened, at least since the beginning of the
Cambrian.
 
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