1ACContention I: The EnvironmentAnthropogenic processes are causing ocean pH to increase 150% by 2100 coordinated research and monitoring is a prerequisite to effective management strategiesSomero, Chair of the Committee on the Review of the National Ocean Acidification, et al. 2013 (GEORGE N. SOMERO, Stanford University, California, JAMES P. BARRY, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, California, ANDREW G. DICKSON, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, California, JEAN-PIERRE GATTUSO, CNRS-Pierre and Marie Curie University, France, MARION GEHLEN, Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de LEnvironnement, France, JOAN (JOANIE) A. KLEYPAS, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Colorado, CHRIS LANGDON, University of Miami, RSMAS, Florida CINDY LEE, Stony Brook University, New York EDWARD L. MILES, University of Washington, JAMES SANCHIRICO, University of California, Davis, REVIEW OF THE FEDERAL OCEAN ACIDIFICATION RESEARCH AND MONITORING PLAN, National academies press, Accessed 7/20/14)

Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels are currently approaching 395 ppm, a value that is 40% higher than those of the preindustrial period and exceeds CO levels of at least the past 800,000 years. Perhaps more significant is the rapid rate of increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration, a rate that is unprecedented over the last 55 million years of the Earths history. The ocean plays a critical role in governing atmo- spheric CO2 levels. By absorbing a substantial share of the CO2 released through varied human activities, the ocean reduces atmospheric levels of this greenhouse gas and thus moderates human-induced climate change. However, this beneficial effect of CO2 uptake by the ocean has resulted in potentially damaging consequences due to a lowering of ocean pH and related changes in ocean carbonate chemistry, collectively known as ocean acidification. Since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the mid-18th century, the average pH of the upper ocean has decreased by about 0.1 pH unit, corresponding to an approximately 30% rise in acidity, and is projected to decrease by an additional 0.3 to 0.4 units by the end of this century, corresponding to a 100 to 150% rise in acidity since preindustrial times. The current and expected magnitude and rate of ocean acidification argue for an expeditious and detailed investigation of ocean acidification and its associated impacts on ecosystems and natural resources. Additional environmental stressorssuch as rising temperatures and decreases in dissolved oxygenthat may exacerbate the effects of acidification on marine organisms further highlight the urgency of this challenge. In particular, understanding the effects of ocean acidification requires research on the changes in the chemical composition of seawater; the direct and indirect influences of ocean acidification on chemical, biological, and eco- logical processes; socioeconomic impacts; and the capacities of biological systems and human societies to adapt to the challenges arising from ocean acidification. This requires a multi-focused yet coordinated program that integrates knowledge about ocean acidification across the natural, social and economic sciences to provide a foundation for predicting the future consequences of acidification and for development of effective strategies to address these consequences.

Scenario A is Climate Change

Ocean acidification functions as a positive feedback loop destruction of phytoplankton reduces the amount of aerosols in the atmosphere, substantially accelerating warming and disrupting the sulfur cycleSix, et. Al, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, 2012(Katharina D., Silvia Kloster, Tatiana Ilyina, Stephen Archer, Kai Zhang, Ernst Maier-Reimar, Global Warming Amplified by Reduced Sulphur Fluxes as a Result of Ocean Acidification, online: http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v3/n11/full/nclimate1981.html)

Climate change and decreasing seawater pH (ocean acidification)1have widely been considered as uncoupled consequences of the anthropogenic CO2perturbation2,3. Recently, experiments in seawater enclosures (mesocosms) showed that concentrations of dimethylsulphide (DMS), a biogenic sulphur compound, were markedly lower in a low-pH environment4. Marine DMS emissions are the largest natural source of atmospheric sulphur5and changes in their strength have the potential to alter the Earths radiation budget6. Here we establish observational-based relationships between pH changes and DMS concentrations to estimate changes in future DMS emissions with Earth system model7climate simulations. Global DMS emissions decrease by about 18(3)%in 2100 compared with pre-industrial times as a result of the combined effects of ocean acidification and climate change. The reduced DMS emissions induce a significant additional radiative forcing, of which 83%is attributed to the impact of ocean acidification, tantamount to an equilibrium temperature response between 0.23 and 0.48K. Our results indicate that ocean acidification has the potential to exacerbate anthropogenic warming through a mechanism that is not considered at present in projections of future climate change.Impacts of climate change on marine biology and, thus, initiated potential feedback mechanisms on climate-relevant processes in the atmosphere are considered to be among the greatest unknowns in our understanding of future climate evolutions. Recently, ocean acidification has been identified as a potential source of biologically induced impacts on climate1. The continuous uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide by the oceans changes the chemical composition of the marine environment and lowers the seawater pH. Todays mean surface pH values are already reduced by 0.1 units compared with preindustrial times1and future projections for the end of the twenty-first century give local decreases of up to 0.5 units8. As marine biota have not been exposed to such drastic pH changes over the past 300 million years9, multifarious impacts on biogenic cycles are conceivable.In mesocosm studies10it was observed that DMS, a by-product of phytoplankton production, showed significantly lower concentrations in water with low pH (ref.4). When DMS is emitted to the atmosphere its oxidation products include gas-phase sulphuric acid, which can condense onto aerosol particles or nucleate to form new particles, impacting cloud condensation nuclei that, in turn, change cloud albedo and longevity11. As oceanic DMS emissions constitute the largest natural source of atmospheric sulphur6, changes in DMS could affect the radiative balance and alter the heat budget of the atmosphere12.The main focus here is to investigate the climate impact of a decrease in global marine DMS emissions that might result from the exposure of marine biota to significant pH changes induced by ocean acidification. To address this question we apply a series of models. We use the Earth system model (ESM) of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology7(MPI-ESM), which combines general circulation models of the atmosphere and the ocean. The ocean model comprises a biogeochemical module13that includes a parameterization of the marine sulphur cycle14,15(Methods). The global pattern of present-day simulated DMS concentration of MPI-ESM agrees quite well with an observation-based climatology16(Supplementary Fig. S1). Note that in the MPI-ESM, DMS emissions do not have an impact on climate. To quantify the potential climate impact of altered marine sulphur fluxes, we carried out simulations with a standalone version of the atmospheric circulation model that includes sulphur chemistry and aerosol microphysics17,18(Methods).With the MPI-ESM we run simulations with anthropogenic forcing following the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (IPCC SRES) A1B scenario19for the period from 1860 to 2100. Model experiments consist of a set of runs including pH-sensitive DMS production and one reference run with no pH-change implications on the marine sulphur cycle (Supplementary Information).The key function here is the dependence of DMS concentration on seawater pH. In various mesocosm and laboratory microcosm experiments a tendency for decreasing DMS concentrations with decreasing pH has been observed20. In contrast to these findings, one study showed a DMS increase with decreasing pH, which was attributed to an enhanced grazing pressure due to a community shift20. Recent data from a large mesocosm experiment in 2010 in polar waters of Svalbard, Norway, support a DMS decrease in acidified water21. To establish functions describing the dependency of the DMS production on pH we average these Svalbard data for the mid-phase after nutrient addition and for the whole period of the experiment (Fig.1; for details see ref.21). The DMS concentrations for the mid-phase show, to first order, a linear decrease with lower concentrations of approximately 35(11%) between a pH range of 8.3 and 7.7 (pCO2of 190750parts per million by volume)21. Averaged values for the whole experiment are still 12(13%) lower for the same pH range. Furthermore, results from mesocosm studies carried out in temperate water of a Norwegian fjord in the years 2003, 2005 and 2006 imply a much stronger sensitivity of DMS concentration on decreasing pH (Fig.1andSupplementary Table S1). By basing our approach on the results from mesocosm experiments our intention is to encompass the variety of biological processes that govern net DMS production. Nonetheless, we note that the level of understanding of the processes behind the response of DMS to ocean acidification is hitherto very poor4,21,22. Furthermore, establishing a consistent response among mesocosm studies is confounded by considerable differences in the experimental set-ups that have been used, including: volumes of seawater enclosed; method used to alter acidity of the sea water; and the stability of the pH values over time (Supplementary Information).FromFig.1we derive a relationship,F, to modify the DMS production rate (Supplementary Equation S2) withF=1+(pHactpHpre). The monthly mean climatological surface pH value, pHpre, was obtained from the first ten years of the reference run (18601869) and pHactis the presentin situpH value. The multiplicative factordenotes the gradient of the linear fit for each data set: the whole Svalbard experiment with a low=0.25; the mid-phase with a medium=0.58; the three years measurements in a Norwegian fjord with a high=0.87 gradient (Fig.1). We carry out three studies applying the low, medium and high sensitivity of DMS on pH changes to evaluate the uncertainties underlying our assumption. In the following we focus our discussion on the results for the medium-pH-sensitive experiment.Annual mean pHactdecreases during the simulation following the increase of anthropogenic CO2storage in the ocean. The annual mean pH reduction varies regionally between 0.25 and 0.4 units in 2100 as compared with the 1860s (Fig.2a). Higher latitudes, known to absorb significant amounts of anthropogenic CO2, show a stronger pH reduction up to 0.5 units.Besides a potential pH sensitivity, the main drivers of the marine DMS cycle are the net primary production, or more precisely the decay of organic matter, and the plankton composition (Supplementary Information). Any change to these quantities will directly affect the DMS concentration. We find that the global net primary production and export production of detritus decrease globally by about 16%from 1860 to 2100 (Table1andFig.2d). These changes are attributed to an increased stratification of the water column due to climate warming, which leads to a reduction in nutrient supply to surface layers23. In almost all ocean regions a decrease in biological production is projected; only in polar regions does the retreat of sea ice lead to an increased phytoplankton growth and a small increase in net primary and export production (Fig.2d). The increased water-column stratification also reduces the supply of silicate to the surface layers, which causes a plankton community shift towards calcifiers, that is, towards high-DMS-producing plankton species, in some areas (Supplementary Fig. S2). Globally, the DMS production is decreased by 12%in 2100 in the reference run (Fig.2b). The reference run and the pH-sensitive runs produce basically the same global patterns and global annual mean fluxes for net primary and export production and result in similar plankton composition because the physical circulation fields are identical (Table1). In contrast, we find a substantial decrease by 26%in DMS production in the medium-pH-sensitive run by 2100 (Fig.2e). Even regions in which biological production is projected to increase, such as the Southern Ocean at 60S, show a reduction in the DMS production due to the significant decrease of seawater pH (Fig.2a).Changes in the DMS production are not uniformly transferred to changes in the DMS sea-to-air flux (Fig.2c,f). The global annual DMS emissions in the reference run decrease from 29 TgS to 27 TgS from 1860 to 2100 representing only a 7%reduction. For the medium-pH-sensitive run the global annual DMS emissions drop from 29 TgS to 23.8 TgS (17%). The low-pH-sensitive experiment results in a 12%and the high one in a 24%decrease in DMS emission; thus, we find a linear response of DMS emission to the change of the multiplicative factor(Table1). The relatively smaller reduction of the DMS emission compared with the DMS production in all experiments can be explained by a shift of high-DMS-producing areas into ocean regions with higher wind speeds, which allows for a more effective DMS gas transfer to the atmosphere.Incorporating the pH-induced decrease in DMS emissions in a standalone atmospheric circulation model that includes sulphur chemistry and aerosol-cloud mircophysics18(Methods) leads to a positive global mean top-of-the-atmosphere radiative forcing (Table1). In the reference run the global radiative forcing is small (0.08Wm2). For the medium-pH-sensitive run a global radiative forcing of 0.48Wm2is simulated. Subtracting the contribution owing to climate change as deduced from the reference run, we get an additional radiative forcing of 0.40Wm2from the impact of pH on DMS. The low- and high-pH-sensitive runs project an additional global radiative forcing of 0.18 and 0.64Wm2, respectively. The strongest positive radiative forcing is located in the latitudinal bands around 40 in both hemispheres in areas in which DMS emissions were reduced significantly (Fig.3andSupplementary Fig. S3). Consistently, areas with increased DMS emission such as the remote polar oceans show a negative radiative forcing. The subtropical gyre in the South Pacific is also an area with increased DMS emission, but there is no detectable signal in the radiative forcing pattern (Supplementary Fig. S3). This apparent contradiction emphazises that nonlinear processes associated with aerosol chemistry, cloud microphysics and cloud-dynamical adjustments may play an important role in regulating the climate response to regional DMS emission changes as shown by other model studies24,25.It is interesting to note that the impact of the pH-induced DMS emission changes on radiative forcing varies little when different anthropogenic background aerosol emissions are applied. We carried out a set of additional runs with a medium pH sensitivity and anthropogenic aerosol emissions, representative of the year 2000 or a Representative Concentration Pathway projection26for the year 2100. We found a mean radiative forcing of 0.500.03Wm2for this set of experiments (Supplementary Information).Our result of an additional radiative forcing of 0.40Wm2for the medium-pH-sensitive run can be compared with the radiative forcing of 3.71Wm2that is estimated for a CO2doubling19. The significance of our result might become clearer if we convert the signal into a temperature response: by applying an equilibrium climate sensitivity given for a CO2doubling of 2.14.4K (ref.19) we diagnose an additional equilibrium temperature response between +0.23 and +0.48K for the medium-pH-sensitive run (from +0.1 to +0.76K including low and high runs).To our knowledge we are the first to highlight the potential climate impact due to changes in the global sulphur cycle triggered by ocean acidification. We find that even in a future CO2emission scenario as moderate as the IPCC SRES A1B, pH changes in sea water are large enough to significantly reduce marine DMS emissions by the end of the twenty-first century, causing an additional radiative forcing of 0.40Wm2. This would be tantamount to a 10%additional increase of the radiative forcing estimated for a doubling of CO2. Our result emphasizes that this potential climate impact mechanism of ocean acidification should be considered in projections of future climate change. Additional sensitivity experiments show this result varies little with regard to the anthropogenic aerosol background emission. However, a fully coupled transient climate run would be necessary to account for possible feedbacks between ocean acidification and aerosol emissions. Owing to the nonlinear atmospheric response to changes in DMS emissions the projected temperature increase could be amplified if the Earth system faces a higher CO2emission scenario or a higher sensitivity of DMS on pH changes. Furthermore, ocean acidification might additionally have other impacts on marine biota that may provoke further reductions in marine DMS emission27. Progress in understanding the sensitivity of pelagic plankton communities to ocean acidification is required to reduce uncertainties in the effects of non-CO2climate-relevant gases in future climate projections.

Independently, phytoplankton loss causes extinction collapses ecoysystems and we need them to breatheWestenskow, UPI Correspondent, 2008(Rosalie, Acidic Oceans may tangle food chain, http://www.upi.com/Energy_Resources/2008/06/06/Acidic_oceans_may_tangle_food_chain/UPI-84651212763771/print/)

Although most of the concern about carbon emissions has focused on the atmosphere and resulting temperature changes, accumulation of carbon dioxide in the ocean also could have disturbing outcomes, experts said at the hearing, which examined legislation that would create a program to study how the ocean responds to increased carbon levels.Ocean surface waters quickly absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, so as carbon concentrations rise in the skies, they also skyrocket in the watery depths that cover almost 70 percent of the planet. As carbon dioxide increases in oceans, the acidity of the water also rises, and this change could affect a wide variety of organisms, said Scott Doney, senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, a non-profit research institute based in Woods Hole, Mass."Greater acidity slows the growth or even dissolves ocean plant and animal shells built from calcium carbonate," Doney told representatives in the House Committee on Energy and the Environment. "Acidification thus threatens a wide range of marine organisms, from microscopic plankton and shellfish to massive coral reefs."If small organisms, like phytoplankton, are knocked out by acidity, the ripples would be far-reaching, said David Adamec, head of ocean sciences at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration."If the amount of phytoplankton is reduced, you reduce the amount of photosynthesis going on in the ocean," Adamec told United Press International. "Those little guys are responsible for half of the oxygen you're breathing right now."A hit to microscopic organisms can also bring down a whole food chain. For instance, several years ago, an El Nino event wiped out the phytoplankton near the Galapagos Islands. That year, juvenile bird and seal populations almost disappeared. If ocean acidity stunted phytoplankton populations like the El Nino did that year, a similar result would occur -- but it would last for much longer than one year, potentially leading to extinction for some species, Adamec said.

Sulfur cycle disruption causes extinctionAyres, Center for Management and Environmental Resources, INSEAD, 1997(Robert U., Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 2, p. 107, Integrated Assessment of the Grand Nutrient Cycles, online: http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/865/art%253A10.1023%252FA%253A1019057210374.pdf?auth66=1406078982_0b279f7c7b35b8a5eacb2eed233079ec&ext=.pdf)

There are four major elements that are required by the biosphere in significantly greater quantities than they are available in nature. These four are carbon (C), nitrogen (N), sulfur (S) and phosphorus (P). (Hydrogen and oxygen, the other two major ingredients of organic materials, are not scarce in the earths crust, though oxygen is also recycled along with carbon.) These natural cycles are driven by geological, hydrological, atmospheric and biological processes. In effect, the geo-biosphere is a dissipative system (in the sense of Prigogine) in a quasi steady state, far from thermodynamic equilibrium. This steady state is maintained by the influx of solar energy. Interruption or disturbance of these natural cycles as a consequence of human industrial/economic activity could adversely affect the stability of the biosphere, and might possibly reduce its productivity. Indeed, because the more complex long-lived organisms such as large mammals (including man), birds and even trees evolve more slowly than smaller short-lived organisms, the very nature of an altered steady state might not be favorable to many existing species. Thus there is even a potential threat to human survival itself. Unfortunately, the interactions among these cycles have received relatively little attention up to now.

Acidification prevents oceans from absorbing CO2, accelerating climate changeDevic 2014 (Magali, Associate at the Womens Council on Energy and the Environment, REDUCTIONS IN OCEANS' UPTAKE CAPACITY COULD SPEED UP GLOBAL WARMING, March 18 2014, http://www.climate.org/topics/climate-change/ocean-uptake-climate-change.html, Accessed 7/21/14 //CM)

The uptake of anthropogenic CO2 by the ocean changes the chemistry of the oceans and can potentially have significant impacts on the biological systems in the upper oceans. In June 2005, The Royal Society (the United Kingdom's National Academy of Science) released a report analyzing the impact of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide on ocean acidification. Surface oceans have an average pH globally of about 8.2 units. Carbon emissions in the atmosphere have lowered the ocean pH, increasing the acidity of the ocean by 30 percent in the last 100 years, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA also projects that, by the end of the century, current levels of carbon dioxide emissions could result in the lowest levels of ocean pH in 20 million years. A balanced pH is vital in order to maintain water quality favorable to marine life and in order to keep the ocean serving as a "carbon reservoir." If the oceans become too acidic, the shells of animals such as scallops, clams, crabs, plankton and corals are immediately threatened. Although studies into the impacts of high concentrations of CO2 in the oceans are still in their infancy, evidence indicates that reduced ocean carbon uptake is starting to occur and that this poses a serious hazard because this is likely to speed up global warming, as occurred when this type of feedback was initiated during the early warming stages of previous interglacials On October 16th 2007, the US Senate passed a provision proposed by Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) to Protect Oceans from Acidification. The legislation, co-sponsored by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) would focus more research attention on ocean acidification, which threatens marine life and the fishing industry. Both the trends in ocean acidification and CO2 absorption will have very large implications, perhaps comparable to the potential impacts of more rapid melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Moreover, reduced CO2 absorption by the oceans could accelerate warming greatly, pushing the climate toward a more precipitous melting of the Greenland ice sheet. The recent developments give heightened urgency to our having a grasp of the ocean acidification and CO2 absorption trends. Although research and resources aiming at monitoring oceans should be drastically enhanced to fully understand the various consequences that will bring about anthropogenic Co2 emissions, there is cause for great concern over the threat carbon dioxide poses for the health of our oceans.

Addressing positive feedback loops is the key internal link to warming they contribute to temperature increases and warming solutions wont work without addressing them firstLawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 2006(Feedback Loops in Global Cimate Change Point to a Very Hot 21st Century, Published in Science Daily, online: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060522151248.htm)

Using as a source the Vostok ice core, which provides information about glacial-interglacial cycles over hundreds of thousands of years, the researchers were able to estimate the amounts of carbon dioxide and methane, two of the principal greenhouse gases, that were released into the atmosphere in response to past global warming trends. Combining their estimates with standard climate model assumptions, they calculated how much these rising concentration levels caused global temperatures to climb, further increasing carbon dioxide and methane emissions, and so on.The results indicate a future that is going to be hotter than we think, said Margaret Torn, who heads the Climate Change and Carbon Management program for Berkeley Labs Earth Sciences Division, and is an Associate Adjunct Professor in UC Berkeleys Energy and Resources Group. She and John Harte, a UC Berkeley professor in the Energy and Resources Group and in the Ecosystem Sciences Division of the College of Natural Resources, have co-authored a paper entitled: Missing feedbacks, asymmetric uncertainties, and the underestimation of future warming, which appears in the May, 2006 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters (GRL).In their GRL paper, Torn and Harte make the case that the current climate change models, which are predicting a global temperature increase of as much as 5.8 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, may be off by nearly 2.0 degrees Celsius because they only take into consideration the increased greenhouse gas concentrations that result from anthropogenic (human) activities.If the past is any guide, then when our anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions cause global warming, it will alter earth system processes, resulting in additional atmospheric greenhouse gas loading and additional warming, said Torn.Torn is an authority on carbon and nutrient cycling in terrestrial ecosystems, and on the impacts of anthropogenic activities on terrestrial ecosystem processes. Harte has been a leading figure for the past two decades on climate-ecosystem interactions, and has authored or co-authored numerous books on environmental sciences, including the highly praised Consider a Spherical Cow: A Course in Environmental Problem Solving.In their GRL paper, Torn and Harte provide an answer to those who have argued that uncertainties in climate change models make it equally possible that future temperature increases could as be smaller or larger than what is feared. This argument has been based on assumptions about the uncertainties in climate prediction.However, in their GRL paper, Torn and Harte conclude that: A rigorous investigation of the uncertainties in climate change prediction reveals that there is a higher risk that we will experience more severe, not less severe, climate change than is currently forecast.Serious scientific debate about global warming has ended, but the process of refining and improving climate models called general circulation models or GCMs - is ongoing. Current GCMs project temperature increases at the end of this century based on greenhouse gas emissions scenarios due to anthropogenic activities. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, for example, has already climbed from a pre-industrial 280 parts per million (ppm) to 380 ppm today, causing a rise in global temperature of 0.6 degrees Celsius. The expectations are for atmospheric carbon dioxide to soar beyond 550 ppm by 2100 unless major changes in energy supply and demand are implemented.Concerning as these projection are, they do not take into account additional amounts of carbon dioxide and methane released when rising temperatures trigger ecological and chemical responses, such as warmer oceans giving off more carbon dioxide, or warmer soils decomposing faster, liberating ever increasing amounts of carbon dioxide and methane. The problem has been an inability to quantify the impact of Natures responses in the face of overwhelming anthropogenic input. Torn and Harte were able to provide this critical information by examining the paleo data stored in ancient ice cores.Paleo data can provide us with an estimate of the greenhouse gas increases that are a natural consequence of global warming, said Torn. In the absence of human activity, these greenhouse gas increases are the dominant feedback mechanism.In examining data recorded in the Vostok ice core, scientists have known that cyclic variations in the amount of sunlight reaching the earth trigger glacial-interglacial cycles. However, the magnitude of warming and cooling temperatures cannot be explained by variations in sunlight alone. Instead, large rises in temperatures are more the result of strong upsurges in atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane concentrations set-off by the initial warming.Using deuterium-corrected temperature records for the ice cores, which yield hemispheric rather than local temperature conditions, GCM climate sensitivity, and a mathematical formula for quantifying feedback effects, Torn and Harte calculated the magnitude of the greenhouse gas-temperature feedback on temperature.Our results reinforce the fact that every bit of greenhouse gas we put into the atmosphere now is committing us to higher global temperatures in the future and we are already near the highest temperatures of the past 700,000 years, Torn said. At this point, mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions is absolutely critical.The feedback loop from greenhouse gas concentrations also has a reverse effect, the authors state, in that reduced atmospheric levels can enhance the cooling of global temperatures. This presents at least the possibility of extra rewards if greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere could be rolled back, but the challenge is great as Harte explained.If we reduce emissions so much that the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide actually starts to come down and the global temperature also starts to decrease, then the feedback would work for us and speed the recovery, Harte said. However, if we reduce emissions by an amount that greatly reduces the rate at which the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere increases, but don't cut emissions back to the point where the carbon dioxide level actually decreases, then the positive feedback still works against us.

These feedback loops have a meaningful effect even a 2 degree rise in global temperatures causes catastrophic changesParry, LiveScience writer, 2011(Wynne, 2 degrees of warming a recipe for disaster, NASA scientist says, online: http://www.livescience.com/17340-agu-climate-sensitivity-nasa-hansen.html)

SAN FRANCISCO The target set by nations in global warming talks won't prevent the devastating effects of global warming, according to climate scientist James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.Thehistory of ancient climate changes, which occurred over millions of years in the planet's history as it moved in and out of ice ages, offers the best insight into how humans' greenhouse gas emissions will alter the planet, Hansen said here today (Dec. 6) at the annual American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting. And hisresearchsuggests the climate is more sensitive to greenhouse gas emissions than had been suspected."What the paleoclimate record tells us is that the dangerous level of global warming is less than what we thought a few years ago," Hansen said. "The target that has been talked about in international negotiations for 2 degrees of warming is actually a prescription for long-term disaster."Hansen is referring to the goal set by climate negotiators in Copenhagen in 2009 to keep the increase in the average global temperature below 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius). That cap was put in place as a means to avoid the most devastating effects of global warming. [How 2 Degrees Will Change Earth]However, signs of changes that will exacerbate the situation, such as the loss of ice sheets that will raise sea level and change how much sunlight is reflected off the planet's surface, are already appearing, according to Hansen.Two degrees of warming will lead to anice-free Arcticand sea-level rise in the tens of meters, Hansen told LiveScience. "We can't say how long that will take, [but]its clear it's a different planet."Climate negotiators, currently gathered in Durban, South Africa, are working with that 2-degree goal, trying to figure out ways to meet it.If greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise unabated, the Earth's temperature is expected to increase by about 5.4 degrees F (3 degrees C) thanks to short-term effects, such as an increase in water vapor in the atmosphere andchanges in cloud cover, which will amplify or weaken the temperature increase. But this is only a small piece of the warming that is expected, according to Hansen's research.Some fast-feedback effects show up within decades, and some of these show up only when other parts of thesystem, particularly the oceans, which warm slowly, catch up with atmospheric warming. This can take centuries.There are also slow-feedback effects that are expected to amplify global warming, particularly, themelting of ice sheets. The darker ground beneath the ice and the meltwater that pools on top of it absorbs more sunlight, warming the planet even more.

Warming will cause extinction a single feedback loop could be the difference between life and death for the entire planetAhmed, Executive Director of the Institute for Policy Research and Development at Brunel University, 2010(Nafeez Ahmed, Executive Director of the Institute for Policy Research and Development, professor of International Relations and globalization at Brunel University and the University of Sussex, Spring/Summer 2010, Globalizing Insecurity: The Convergence of Interdependent Ecological, Energy, and Economic Crises, Spotlight on Security, Volume 5, Issue 2, online)Perhaps the most notorious indicator is anthropogenic global warming. The landmark 2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which warned that at then-current rates of increase of fossil fuel emissions, the earths global average temperature would likely rise by 6C by the end of the 21st century creating a largely uninhabitable planet was a wake-up call to the international community.[v] Despite the pretensions of climate sceptics, the peer-reviewed scientific literature has continued to produce evidence that the IPCCs original scenarios were wrong not because they were too alarmist, but on the contrary, because they were far too conservative. According to a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, current CO2 emissions are worse than all six scenarios contemplated by the IPCC. This implies that the IPCCs worst-case six-degree scenario severely underestimates the most probable climate trajectory under current rates of emissions.[vi] It is often presumed that a 2C rise in global average temperatures under an atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gasses at 400 parts per million (ppm) constitutes a safe upper limit beyond which further global warming could trigger rapid and abrupt climate changes that, in turn, could tip the whole earth climate system into a process of irreversible, runaway warming.[vii] Unfortunately, we are already well past this limit, with the level of greenhouse gasses as of mid-2005 constituting 445 ppm.[viii] Worse still, cutting-edge scientific data suggests that the safe upper limit is in fact far lower. James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, argues that the absolute upper limit for CO2 emissions is 350 ppm: If the present overshoot of this target CO2 is not brief, there is a possibility of seeding irreversible catastrophic effects.[ix] A wealth of scientific studies has attempted to explore the role of positive-feedback mechanisms between different climate sub-systems, the operation of which could intensify the warming process. Emissions beyond 350 ppm over decades are likely to lead to the total loss of Arctic sea-ice in the summer triggering magnified absorption of sun radiation, accelerating warming; the melting of Arctic permafrost triggering massive methane injections into the atmosphere, accelerating warming; the loss of half the Amazon rainforest triggering the momentous release of billions of tonnes of stored carbon, accelerating warming; and increased microbial activity in the earths soil leading to further huge releases of stored carbon, accelerating warming; to name just a few. Each of these feedback sub-systems alone is sufficient by itself to lead to irreversible, catastrophic effects that could tip the whole earth climate system over the edge.[x] Recent studies now estimate that the continuation of business-as-usual would lead to global warming of three to four degrees Celsius before 2060 with multiple irreversible, catastrophic impacts; and six, even as high as eight, degrees by the end of the century a situation endangering the survival of all life on earth.[xi]

Climate change creates global instability, poverty, hunger, disease, migration, and mass death; breaking down traditionally constraining institutions and acting as a threat multiplierSawin, Senior Director of the Energy and Climate Change Program at the WorldWatch Institute, 2012 (Janet, Climate Change Poses Greater Security Threat than Terrorism, http://www.worldwatch.org/node/77)

As early as 1988, scientists cautioned that human tinkering with the Earth's climate amounted to "an unintended, uncontrolled globally pervasive experiment whose ultimate consequences could be second only to a global nuclear war." Since then, hundreds of scientific studies have documented ever-mounting evidence that human activities are altering the climate around the world. A growing number of international leaders now warn that climate change is, in the words of U.K. Chief Scientific Advisor David King, "the most severe problem that we are facing todaymore serious even than the threat of terrorism." Climate change will likely trigger severe disruptions with ever-widening consequences for local, regional, and global security. Droughts, famines, and weather-related disasters could claim thousands or even millions of lives and exacerbate existing tensions within and among nations, fomenting diplomatic and trade disputes. In the worst case, further warming will reduce the capacities of Earth's natural systems and elevate already-rising sea levels, which could threaten the very survival of low-lying island nations, destabilize the global economy and geopolitical balance, and incite violent conflict. Already, there is growing evidence that climate change is affecting the life-support systems on which humans and other species depend. And these impacts are arriving faster than many climate scientists predicted. Recent studies have revealed changes in the breeding and migratory patterns of animals worldwide, from sea turtles to polar bears. Mountain glaciers are shrinking at ever-faster rates, threatening water supplies for millions of people and plant and animal species. Average global sea level has risen 20-25 centimeters (8-10 inches) since 1901, due mainly to thermal expansion; more than 2.5 centimeters (one inch) of this rise occurred over the past decade. A recent report by the International Climate Change Taskforce, co-chaired by Republican U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe, concludes that climate change is the "single most important long term issue that the planet faces." It warns that if average global temperatures increase more than two degrees Celsiuswhich will likely occur in a matter of decades if we continue with business-as-usualthe world will reach the "point of no return," where societies may be unable to cope with the accelerating rates of change. Existing threats to security will be amplified as climate change has increasing impacts on regional water supplies, agricultural productivity, human and ecosystem health, infrastructure, financial flows and economies, and patterns of international migration. Specific threats to human welfare and global security include: Climate change will undermine efforts to mitigate world poverty, directly threatening people's homes and livelihoods through increased storms, droughts, disease, and other stressors. Not only could this impede development, it might also increase national and regional instability and intensify income disparities between rich and poor. This, in turn, could lead to military confrontations over distribution of the world's wealth, or could feed terrorism or transnational crime. Rising temperatures, droughts, and floods, and the increasing acidity of ocean waters, coupled with an expanding human population, could further stress an already limited global food supply, dramatically increasing food prices and potentially triggering internal unrest or the use of food as a weapon. Even the modest warming experienced to date has affected fisheries and agricultural productivity, with a 10 percent decrease in corn yields across the U.S. Midwest seen per degree of warming. Altered rainfall patterns could heighten tensions over the use of shared water bodies and increase the likelihood of violent conflict over water resources. It is estimated that about 1.4 billion people already live in areas that are water-stressed. Up to 5 billion people (most of the world's current population) could be living in such regions by 2025. Widespread impacts of climate change could lead to waves of migration, threatening international stability. One study estimates that by 2050, as many as 150 million people may have fled coastlines vulnerable to rising sea levels, storms or floods, or agricultural land too arid to cultivate. Historically, migration to urban areas has stressed limited services and infrastructure, inciting crime or insurgency movements, while migration across borders has frequently led to violent clashes over land and resources.

Scenario B is Biodiversity

Ocean acidification undermines biodiversity creates algae blooms that release toxins, crushing entire ecosystemsMoore, PhD and research scientist, 2013 (Stephanie Moore [earned her Ph.D. from the University of New South Wales, Australia, in 2005. She then completed her post-doctoral training with the University of Washingtons Climate Impacts Group and the School of Oceanography (2005-2008). She is currently a research scientist with the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research and visiting scientist with the Northwest Fisheries Science Center.], Impacts of Climate Change on the Occurrence of Harmful Algal Blooms, May 2013, Online: http://www2.epa.gov/sites/production/files/documents/climatehabs.pdf)Climate change is predicted to change many environmental conditions that could affect the natural properties of fresh and marine waters both in the US and worldwide. Changes in these factors could favor the growth of harmful algal blooms and habitat changes such that marine HABs can invade and occur in freshwater. An increase in the occurrence and intensity of harmful algal blooms may negatively impact the environment, human health, and the economy for communities across the US and around the world. The purpose of this fact sheet is to provide climate change researchers and decisionmakers a summary of the potential impacts of climate change on harmful algal blooms in freshwater and marine ecosystems. Although much of the evidence presented in this fact sheet suggests that the problem of harmful algal blooms may worsen under future climate scenarios, further research is needed to better understand the association between climate change and harmful algae. Algae occur naturally in marine and fresh waters. Under favorable conditions that include adequate light availability, warm waters, and high nutrient levels, algae can rapidly grow and multiply causing blooms. Blooms of algae can cause damage to aquatic environments by blocking sunlight and depleting oxygen required by other aquatic organisms, restricting their growth and survival. Some species of algae, including golden and red algae and certain types of cyanobacteria, can produce potent toxins that can cause adverse health effects to wildlife and humans, such as damage to the liver and nervous system. When algal blooms impair aquatic ecosystems or have the potential to affect human health, they are known as harmful algal blooms (HABs). In recent decades, scientists have observed an increase in the frequency, severity and geographic distribution of HABs worldwide. Recent research suggests that the impacts of climate change may promote the growth and dominance of harmful algal blooms through a variety of mechanisms including: Warmer water temperatures Changes in salinity Increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations Changes in rainfall patterns Intensifying of coastal upwelling Sea level rise. Climate change may cause summer droughts to increase in intensity and duration worldwide. During a drought, the amount of water flowing into lakes and reservoirs decreases. Combined with warmer temperatures that cause more evaporation, water levels of fresh water bodies decrease. This causes the salinity, or concentration of salt in the water body, to increase. Although certain toxin-producing cyanobacteria are quite salt tolerant, temporary increases in salinity can also cause salt stress leading to leakage of cells and the release of toxins. Increases in salinity during drought conditions can also create favorable conditions for the invasion of marine algae into what are usually freshwater ecosystems. This is currently occurring in our southwestern and south central US lakes where marine alga, Prymnesium parvum, or golden algae, has been increasing since 2000, causing significant fish kills in inland waters. All algae, including harmful species, require carbon dioxide (CO2) for photosynthesis. Increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide will increase the levels of dissolved carbon dioxide in marine and freshwater ecosystems, favoring those algae that can grow faster in elevated dissolved carbon dioxide conditions. In addition, cyanobacteria that can float to the surface have a distinct advantage over other competing algae because they can directly utilize carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. As atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations increase due to human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation, cyanobacteria that can float to the surface will have greater access to carbon dioxide for growth, increasing the occurrence of harmful algal blooms. This also could lead to changes in the chemistry of ambient waters. Higher photosynthesis converts carbon dioxide into living algal biomass, some of which dies and settles to the bottom. The eventual decomposition of this surplus organic material is analogous to our own breathing activity because it consumes oxygen and increases carbon dioxide in areas with poor circulation. This can contribute to increases in acidity (i.e., lower pH). This ecological source of acidification is added to the direct acidifying effects of atmospheric carbon dioxide, commonly known as ocean acidification. Like temperature, these changes in water chemistry can change the competitive relationships between HABs and other algae, and can also change the ability of zooplankton to control HABs through their grazing activity.

Specifically, ocean acidification kills shellfishHari Sreenivasan, et. Al, 2013(PBS NewsHour, interviewing Wysocki owner of Chelsea Farms, Feely National Oceanic and Atmopheric Marine Environment Laboratory, Ocean Acidifications Impact on Oysters and Other Shellfish, transcript available online: http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/Ocean+Acidification's+impact+on+oysters+and+other+shellfish)

SHINA WYSOCKI: Ocean acidification is a huge problem. And there are so many things. It's the currents, it's the carbon dioxide, it's the aragonite. And it's most of which, I understand a tiny fraction of, but what I do understand is when the nursery calls on the phone and says there's no oyster seed to ship, we don't have any.HARI SREENIVASAN: Seed production in the Northwest plummeted by as much as 80 percent between 2005 and 2009.RICHARD FEELY, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory: And what we found was just very dramatic. When the waters were highly corrosive, the organisms died within two days. The oyster larvae just simply died. When the water was high pH, they did just fine. It was just like a switch.HARI SREENIVASAN: That switch is happening around the world as oceans take in large amounts of carbon dioxide, or CO2, says Dick Feely, a senior scientist at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.RICHARD FEELY: Over the last 200 years or so, we have released about two trillion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. And about a quarter of that, or 550 billion tons of carbon dioxide, have been absorbed by the oceans.HARI SREENIVASAN: All that CO2changes the chemistry of the water by making it more acidic, 30 percent more since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Because of natural tide and wave patterns, the Pacific Northwest Coast has been hit hardest, with corrosive water being brought up from the deep ocean to the surface, where shellfish live. That's why Washington's shellfish industry, worth $270 million a year and responsible for thousands of jobs, is the first to feel the effects of this global phenomenon, says Bill Dewey of Taylor Shellfish, the largest producer of farmed shellfish in the country. In a single night, Taylor's growers will bring in about 50,000 oysters.BILL DEWEY, Taylor Shellfish Farms: This is the first place these deep corrosive waters are coming to the surface. And we're an industry that relies on calcifiers, so we're the first to see the effects and to scream about it.HARI SREENIVASAN: Ocean acidification acts a lot like osteoporosis, the condition that causes bones to become brittle in humans. For oysters, scallops and other shellfish, lower pH means less carbonate, which they rely on to build their essential shells. As acidity increases, shells become thinner, growth slows down and death rates rise.

Shellfish key to biodiversity act as ecosystem engineers Brumbaugh, et. Al, The Nature Conservatory at the University of Rhode Island, 2006(Robert D., M.W. Beck Center for Ocean Health at the University of California Santa Cruz, L.D. Coen - South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, L. Craig NOAA Restoration Center, P. Hicks NOAA Restoration Center, A Practitioners Guide to the Design and Monitoring of Shellfish Restoration Projects, online: http://www.habitat.noaa.gov/pdf/tncnoaa_shellfish_hotlinks_final.pdf)

Once considered nearly inexhaustible, many shellfish populations around the world have declined precipitously some to commercial extinction - over the past two hundred years. These declines are due in large part to over-exploitation as well as from the related overall decline in the condition of estuaries (Gross and Smyth 1946; Cook et al 2000; Jackson et al 2001; Edgar and Samson 2004; Kirby 2004). In recent decades the translocation of shellfish parasites and diseases between coastal areas has contributed to further losses and has exacerbated the effect of habitat loss (Kennedy et at 1996).While bivalve fisheries in many places have produced substantial landings, traditional management efforts for shellfish have generally failed to sustain shellfish populations or the fisheries that depended on them. Few bivalve fisheries, if any, have been managed with any evidence of long-term sustainability, both in the U.S. and in many other parts of the world. Oysters and mussels in particular have posed a unique challenge to fishery managers since fishing activities for these species, unlike most fish and other mobile organisms, tends to simultaneously remove their habitat. Various approaches for countering fishery declines have been implemented, ranging from hatchery based put-and-take fisheries to introductions of non-native species, often with mixed results. By managing bivalves and their habitats almost exclusively for recreational and commercial fishing, many facets of their ecology that contribute to maintaining the overall condition of our coastal bays and estuaries have been ignored.Engineers at WorkWith the decline of shellfish populations we have lost more than the fisheries and economic activity associated with fishing. A growing body of research in recent decades has illuminated the profoundly important ecological roles that shellfish play in coastal ecosystems. These roles include filtering water as bivalves feed on suspended algae, providing structured habitat for other species, and protecting shorelines from erosion by stabilizing sediments and dampening waves. In fact, many bivalve shellfish have been labeled ecosystem engineers (Jones et al 1994; Lenihan 1999) in recognition of the multiple roles they play in shaping the environments in which they live. Restoring shellfish populations to our coastal waters, therefore, represents a powerful way to restore the integrity and resilience of these ecosystems.The Water FilterShellfish are suspension-feeders that strain microscopic algae (phytoplankton) that grow suspended in surrounding waters. In some coastal systems shellfish, through their feeding activity and resultant deposition of organic material onto the bottom sediments, were abundant enough to influence or control the overall abundance of phytoplankton growing in the overlying waters. This control was accomplished both by direct removal of suspended material and by controlling the rate that nutrients were exchanged between the sedi- ments and overlying waters (Officer et al 1982; Dame 1996; Newell 2004). For example, it is widely touted that in the late 19th century oysters were so abundant in the Chesapeake Bay that they likely filtered a volume of water equivalent to the entire volume of the Bay in less than a week (Newell 1988). This feeding activity contributed to greater water clarity and allowed seagrasses to thrive in more areas of the estuary than is observed today (Newell and Koch 2004).Similar ecological impacts have been attributed to other species of bivalves as well. Hard clams in Long Islands Great South Bay were likely abundant enough, until about two decades ago, to prevent outbreaks brown tides caused by planktonic algae that cloud the water and prevent light from reaching seagrasses growing in the bay. As these algae die, sink to the bottom and decay, they also rob the Bay of oxygen (Kassner 1993; Cerrato et al 2004). The uptake of nutrients and localized impacts on water quality documented for blue mussels, Mytilus edulis, using flume experiments (Asmus and Asmus 1991) and field observations in European estuaries suggest that robust populations of mussels are capable of consuming a considerable fraction of the phytoplankton from overlying waters (Haamer and Rodhe 2000).Ecosystem modeling and mesocosm studies have indicated that restoring shellfish populations to even a modest fraction of their historic abundance could improve water quality and aid in the recovery of seagrasses (Newell and Koch 2004; Ulanowicz and Tuttle 1992). Field studies have also revealed positive feedback mechanisms from shellfish populations that promote greater seagrass productivity (Peterson and Heck 1999).The Habitat ProviderIn addition to their impacts as filter feeders, some species of bivalve shellfish such as oysters and mussels form reefs or complex structures that provide refuge or hard substrate for other species of marine plants and animals to colonize. For example, the eastern oyster Crassostrea virginica, forms three-dimensional reefs as generations of oysters settle and grow attached to one another (Zimmerman et al 1989; Hargis and Haven 1999; Steimle and Zetlin 2000). Reefs can occur subtidally, often associated with edges of channels, as well as in intertidal habitats, keeping pace with sea-level rise (DeAlteris 1988; McCormick-Ray 1998 and 2005; Hargis and Haven 1999). These reefs represent a temperate analog to coral reefs that occur in more tropical environments. Both kinds of reefs are biogenic, being formed by the accumulation of colonial animals, and both provide complex physical structure and surface area used by scores of other species as a temporary or permanent habitat. A single square meter of oyster reef ay provide 50 square meters of surface area in its cracks, crevices, and convolutions, providing attachment points and shelter for an array of plants and animals (Bahr and Lanier 1981). Given the variety of species and complex interactions of species associated with oyster reefs, they have been suggested as essential fish habitat, which is an important distinction for fisheries management in the U.S. (Coen et al. 1999). Unfortunately, many of the reefs that were once so prevalent have been mined away through fishing and dredging activities, and their remnant footprints have been silted over in the past century (Rothschild et al. 1994, Hargis and Haven 1999). The Shoreline Protector In some regions, intertidal oyster reefs and, likely, mussel beds serve as natural breakwaters that can stabilize shore- lines and reduce the amount of suspended sediment in the adjacent waters. This reduction in suspended sediment improves water clarity and protects shellfish, seagrasses and other species. Shellfish restoration, therefore, offers a way to recapture this important ecosystem service (Meyer et al 1997) in some locations. Given the increased understanding of the various roles that shellfish play in nearshore ecosystems, there is increasing interest in re-establishing robust and self-sustaining native shellfish populations as a component of coastal ecosystems. Indeed, the restoration of shellfish is increasingly invoked as a key strategy for rehabilitating and conserving marine and estuarine systems because of these anticipated ecosystem services. However, surprisingly little effort has been made to document the degree to which these ecosystem services are provided through restoration activities in actual practice.

Marine ecosystem collapse causes extinctionCraig, Associate Professor of Law, Indiana University School of Law, 2003(Robin Kundis , 34 McGeorge L. Rev. 155)

Biodiversity and ecosystem function arguments for conserving marine ecosystems also exist, just as they do for terrestrial ecosystems, but these arguments have thus far rarely been raised in political debates. For example, besides significant tourism values - the most economically valuable ecosystem service coral reefs provide, worldwide - coral reefs protect against storms and dampen other environmental fluctuations, services worth more than ten times the reefs' value for food production. n856 Waste treatment is another significant, non-extractive ecosystem function that intact coral reef ecosystems provide. n857 More generally, "ocean ecosystems play a major role in the global geochemical cycling of all the elements that represent the basic building blocks of living organisms, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur, as well as other less abundant but necessary elements." n858 In a very real and direct sense, therefore, human degradation of marine ecosystems impairs the planet's ability to support life.Maintaining biodiversity is often critical to maintaining the functions of marine ecosystems. Current evidence shows that, in general, an ecosystem's ability to keep functioning in the face of disturbance is strongly dependent on its biodiversity, "indicating that more diverse ecosystems are more stable." n859 Coral reef ecosystems are particularly dependent on their biodiversity. [*265] Most ecologists agree that the complexity of interactions and degree of interrelatedness among component species is higher on coral reefs than in any other marine environment. This implies that the ecosystem functioning that produces the most highly valued components is also complex and that many otherwise insignificant species have strong effects on sustaining the rest of the reef system. n860 Thus, maintaining and restoring the biodiversity of marine ecosystems is critical to maintaining and restoring the ecosystem services that they provide. Non-use biodiversity values for marine ecosystems have been calculated in the wake of marine disasters, like the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. n861 Similar calculations could derive preservation values for marine wilderness. However, economic value, or economic value equivalents, should not be "the sole or even primary justification for conservation of ocean ecosystems. Ethical arguments also have considerable force and merit." n862 At the forefront of such arguments should be a recognition of how little we know about the sea - and about the actual effect of human activities on marine ecosystems. The United States has traditionally failed to protect marine ecosystems because it was difficult to detect anthropogenic harm to the oceans, but we now know that such harm is occurring - even though we are not completely sure about causation or about how to fix every problem. Ecosystems like the NWHI coral reef ecosystem should inspire lawmakers and policymakers to admit that most of the time we really do not know what we are doing to the sea and hence should be preserving marine wilderness whenever we can - especially when the United States has within its territory relatively pristine marine ecosystems that may be unique in the world. We may not know much about the sea, but we do know this much: if we kill the ocean we kill ourselves, and we will take most of the biosphere with us. The Black Sea is almost dead, n863 its once-complex and productive ecosystem almost entirely replaced by a monoculture of comb jellies, "starving out fish and dolphins, emptying fishermen's nets, and converting the web of life into brainless, wraith-like blobs of jelly." n864 More importantly, the Black Sea is not necessarily unique. The Black Sea is a microcosm of what is happening to the ocean systems at large. The stresses piled up: overfishing, oil spills, industrial discharges, nutrient pollution, wetlands destruction, the introduction of an alien species. The sea weakened, slowly at first, then collapsed with [*266] shocking suddenness. The lessons of this tragedy should not be lost to the rest of us, because much of what happened here is being repeated all over the world. The ecological stresses imposed on the Black Sea were not unique to communism. Nor, sadly, was the failure of governments to respond to the emerging crisis. n865 Oxygen-starved "dead zones" appear with increasing frequency off the coasts of major cities and major rivers, forcing marine animals to flee and killing all that cannot. n866 Ethics as well as enlightened self-interest thus suggest that the United States should protect fully-functioning marine ecosystems wherever possible - even if a few fishers go out of business as a result.

Algae blooms cause extinctionLeake 2008 [Jonathan, Environment Editor, Zones of death are spreading in oceans due to global warming, The Sunday Times, May 18, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3953924.ece]Marine dead zones, where fish and other sea life can suffocate from lack of oxygen, are spreading across the worlds tropical oceans, a study has warned. Researchers found that the warming of sea water through climate change is reducing its ability to carry dissolved oxygen, potentially turning swathes of the worlds oceans into marine graveyards. The study, by scientists from some of the worlds most prestigious marine research institutes, warns that if global temperatures keep rising there could be dramatic consequences for marine life and for humans in communities that depend on the sea for a living. Organisms such as fish, crabs, lobsters and prawns will die in such zones, warned Lothar Stramma of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel, Germany, who co-wrote the research paper with Janet Sprintall, a physical oceanographer at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California. In the study, published in the journal Science, they collated hundreds of oxygen concentration readings taken over the past 50 years in the Atlantic and Pacific over depths ranging from 985ft to 2,500ft. In the central and eastern tropical Atlantic and equatorial Pacific the oxygen-minimum zones appear to have expanded and intensified during the past 50 years, Stramma said. The researchers found that such regions now extend deeper into the oceans and closer to the surface. Fish and other sea life cannot survive in such waters, said Sprintall. The researchers say the change is closely linked to rising sea water temperature. At 0C, one kilogram of sea water can hold about 10ml of dissolved oxygen but at 25C this falls to just 4ml. This impact is amplified by a host of other factors. One of the most important is that parts of the eastern Atlantic, eastern Pacific and the Indian Ocean are naturally low in oxygen so a small additional decline has a disproportionately greater effect. Examples of partly dead zones include a stretch of the Pacific about 5,000 miles wide off the west coast of South America. Others are found off the west coasts of Africa and India. Additionally, as surface water heats up it becomes less dense and forms an insulating layer that stops oxygen percolating into the colder layers beneath. Climate change is also suspected of altering the direction and strength of ocean currents, causing dead zones such as the one that suddenly appeared off Oregon, in Americas Pacific Northwest, six years ago and which appears to have become an annual event, killing marine life at every level from plankton to salmon, seals and sea birds. Lisa Levin, professor of biological oceanography at Scripps, and a world expert on the expansion of oxygen depletion in the oceans, predicted that similar zones would eventually appear off California. Around the world there are already around 150 areas suffering from low or declining oxygen levels, she said. Many of these are close to coastlines where the main cause is not climate change but pollution, especially agricultural chemicals washed off the land. The nitrogen in such run-off effectively fertilises the sea, causing a sudden bloom of algae and other planktonic life. As such organisms die they are decomposed by bacteria that multiply so fast they suck all the oxygen from the water. A report by the United Nations Environment Programme found that such coastal dead zones have doubled in number since 1995, with some extending over 27,000 square miles, about the size of the Republic of Ireland. Among the worst affected are the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea, and parts of the Mediterranean. Perhaps the biggest of all is found in the Gulf of Mexico, where the Mississippi carries thousands of tons of agrochemicals into the sea every year. Recent research has revealed that about 250m years ago average oxygen levels in oceans fell almost to zero a reduction associated with dramatic changes in climate that resulted in the extinction of 95% of the worlds species.

Traditional great power conflict is obsolete economic interdependence, international organizations, and mutually assured destructionIkenberry, Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University, and Deudney, Professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University, 2009(Daniel and G. John, Jan/Feb, The Myth of the Autocratic Revival, Foreign Affairs, Online: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/63721/daniel-deudney-and-g-john-ikenberry/the-myth-of-the-autocratic-revival)

It is in combination with these factors that the regime divergence between autocracies and democracies will become increasingly dangerous. If all the states in the world were democracies, there would still be competition, but a world riven by a democratic-autocratic divergence promises to be even more conflictual. There are even signs of the emergence of an "autocrats international" in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, made up of China, Russia, and the poorer and weaker Central Asian dictatorships. Overall, the autocratic revivalists paint the picture of an international system marked by rising levels of conflict and competition, a picture quite unlike the "end of history" vision of growing convergence and cooperation. This bleak outlook is based on an exaggeration of recent developments and ignores powerful countervailing factors and forces. Indeed, contrary to what the revivalists describe, the most striking features of the contemporary international landscape are the intensification of economic globalization, thickening institutions, and shared problems of interdependence. The overall structure of the international system today is quite unlike that of the nineteenth century. Compared to older orders, the contemporary liberal-centered international order provides a set of constraints and opportunities of pushes and pulls that reduce the likelihood of severe conflict while creating strong imperatives for cooperative problem solving. Those invoking the nineteenth century as a model for the twenty-first also fail to acknowledge the extent to which war as a path to conflict resolution and great-power expansion has become largely obsolete. Most important, nuclear weapons have transformed great-power war from a routine feature of international politics into an exercise in national suicide. With all of the great powers possessing nuclear weapons and ample means to rapidly expand their deterrent forces, warfare among these states has truly become an option of last resort. The prospect of such great losses has instilled in the great powers a level of caution and restraint that effectively precludes major revisionist efforts. Furthermore, the diffusion of small arms and the near universality of nationalism have severely limited the ability of great powers to conquer and occupy territory inhabited by resisting populations (as Algeria, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and now Iraq have demonstrated). Unlike during the days of empire building in the nineteenth century, states today cannot translate great asymmetries of power into effective territorial control; at most, they can hope for loose hegemonic relationships that require them to give something in return. Also unlike in the nineteenth century, today the density of trade, investment, and production networks across international borders raises even more the costs of war. A Chinese invasion of Taiwan, to take one of the most plausible cases of a future interstate war, would pose for the Chinese communist regime daunting economic costs, both domestic and international. Taken together, these changes in the economy of violence mean that the international system is far more primed for peace than the autocratic revivalists acknowledge. The autocratic revival thesis neglects other key features of the international system as well. In the nineteenth century, rising states faced an international environment in which they could reasonably expect to translate their growing clout into geopolitical changes that would benefit themselves. But in the twenty-first century, the status quo is much more difficult to overturn. Simple comparisons between China and the United States with regard to aggregate economic size and capability do not reflect the fact that the United States does not stand alone but rather is the head of a coalition of liberal capitalist states in Europe and East Asia whose aggregate assets far exceed those of China or even of a coalition of autocratic states. Moreover, potentially revisionist autocratic states, most notably China and Russia, are already substantial players and stakeholders in an ensemble of global institutions that make up the status quo, not least the UN Security Council (in which they have permanent seats and veto power). Many other global institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, are configured in such a way that rising states can increase their voice only by buying into the institutions. The pathway to modernity for rising states is not outside and against the status quo but rather inside and through the flexible and accommodating institutions of the liberal international order. The fact that these autocracies are capitalist has profound implications for the nature of their international interests that point toward integration and accommodation in the future. The domestic viability of these regimes hinges on their ability to sustain high economic growth rates, which in turn is crucially dependent on international trade and investment; today's autocracies may be illiberal, but they remain fundamentally dependent on a liberal international capitalist system. It is not surprising that China made major domestic changes in order to join the WTO or that Russia is seeking to do so now. The dependence of autocratic capitalist states on foreign trade and investment means that they have a fundamental interest in maintaining an open, rulebased economic system. (Although these autocratic states do pursue bilateral trade and investment deals, particularly in energy and raw materials, this does not obviate their more basic dependence on and commitment to the WTO order.) In the case of China, because of its extensive dependence on industrial exports, the WTO may act as a vital bulwark against protectionist tendencies in importing states. Given their position in this system, which so serves their interests, the autocratic states are unlikely to become champions of an alternative global or regional economic order, let alone spoilers intent on seriously damaging the existing one. The prospects for revisionist behavior on the part of the capitalist autocracies are further reduced by the large and growing social networks across international borders. Not only have these states joined the world economy, but their people particularly upwardly mobile and educated elites have increasingly joined the world community. In large and growing numbers, citizens of autocratic capitalist states are participating in a sprawling array of transnational educational, business, and avocational networks. As individuals are socialized into the values and orientations of these networks, stark: "us versus them" cleavages become more difficult to generate and sustain. As the Harvard political scientist Alastair Iain Johnston has argued, China's ruling elite has also been socialized, as its foreign policy establishment has internalized the norms and practices of the international diplomatic community. China, far from cultivating causes for territorial dispute with its neighbors, has instead sought to resolve numerous historically inherited border conflicts, acting like a satisfied status quo state. These social and diplomatic processes and developments suggest that there are strong tendencies toward normalization operating here. Finally, there is an emerging set of global problems stemming from industrialism and economic globalization that will create common interests across states regardless of regime type. Autocratic China is as dependent on imported oil as are democratic Europe, India, Japan, and the United States, suggesting an alignment of interests against petroleum-exporting autocracies, such as Iran and Russia. These states share a common interest in price stability and supply security that could form the basis for a revitalization of the International Energy Agency, the consumer association created during the oil turmoil of the 1970s. The emergence of global warming and climate change as significant problems also suggests possibilities for alignments and cooperative ventures cutting across the autocratic-democratic divide. Like the United States, China is not only a major contributor to greenhouse gas accumulation but also likely to be a major victim of climate-induced desertification and coastal flooding. Its rapid industrialization and consequent pollution means that China, like other developed countries, will increasingly need to import technologies and innovative solutions for environmental management. Resource scarcity and environmental deterioration pose global threats that no state will be able to solve alone, thus placing a further premium on political integration and cooperative institution building. Analogies between the nineteenth century and the twenty-first are based on a severe mischaracterization of the actual conditions of the new era. The declining utility of war, the thickening of international transactions and institutions, and emerging resource and environmental interdependencies together undercut scenarios of international conflict and instability based on autocratic-democratic rivalry and autocratic revisionism. In fact, the conditions of the twenty-first century point to the renewed value of international integration and cooperation.

PlanPlan: The United States Federal Government should develop a national program office for monitoring ocean acidification.

Contention II: SolvencyA one-stop ocean acidification information office is necessary to mitigation and adaptation strategiesMorel et al, Committee on the development of an integrated science strategy for ocean acidification monitoring, research, and impact assessment, 2010 (Francois M.M. Morel, Chair, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey David Archer, University of Chicago, Illinois James P. Barry, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, California Garry D. Brewer, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut Jorge E. CORREDOR, University of Puerto Rico, Mayagez SCOTT C. Doney, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Massachusetts Victoria J. Fabby, California State University, San Marcos Gretchen E. Hofman, University of California, Santa Barbara Daniel S. Holland, Gulf of Maine Research Institute, Portland Joan A. Kelypas, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado Frank J. Millero, University of Miami, Florida Ulf Riebesell, Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences, Kiel, Germany, Ocean Acidification: A National Strategy to Meet the Challenges of a Changing Ocean)

The FOARAM Act calls for an Ocean Acidification Information Exchange to make information on ocean acidification developed through or utilized by the interagency ocean acidification program accessible through electronic means, including information which would be useful to policymakers, researchers, and other stakeholders in mitigating or adapting to the impacts of ocean acidification (P.L. 11111). The committee agrees that information exchange is an important priority for the pro gram. The Information Exchange proposed by the Act would go beyond chemical and biological measurements and also include syntheses and assessments that would be accessible to and understandable by managers, policy makers, and the general public (see section 6.3). It could also act as a conduit for twoway dialogue between stakeholders and scientists to ensure that decision support products are meeting needs of the stake holders. A onestop shop of ocean acidification information would be an extremely powerful tool, but would require resources and expertise, particularly in science communication, to perform effectively. The committee was asked to consider the appropriate balance among research, observations, modeling, and communication. While the appropriate balance of research, observing, and modeling activities will best be determined by the IWG and individual agencies relative to their missions, the committee would like to stress the importance of communication. To successfully engage stakeholders in a twoway dialogue, the National Ocean Acidification Program will require a mechanism for effectively communicating results of the research and receiving feedback and input from managers and others seeking decision support. Inadequate progress in communicating results and engaging stakeholders, largely due to the lack of a communication strategy, has been a criticism of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (National Research Council, 2007b). It will be important that the Ocean Acidification Information Exchange avoid a similar outcome. Both the EPOCA and OCB Program have webbased approaches for communicating science information on ocean acidification to the general public, and the National Program is encouraged to build on and learn from existing efforts in its development of an Ocean Acidifica tion Information Exchange.

Current monitoring networks are inadequate because they focus only on localized effects national coordination is keyNRC (National Research Council), 2010(National Research Council, Ocean Acidification: A National Strategy to Meet The Challenges of a Changing Ocean, Online: http://books.google.com/books?id=gVt0AAAAQBAJ&pg=PT17&lpg=PT17&dq=ocean+acidification+monitoring+current+techniques+insufficiency&source=bl&ots=WoOjp7Dtq4&sig=MX-o9hu3OPR5hJFD4jj14jP0OCI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=RVfQU_mIEYvgsATHmYHABw&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=ocean%20acidification%20monitoring%20current%20techniques%20insufficiency&f=false)

CONCLUSION: The existing observing networks are inadequate for the task of monitoring ocean acidification and its effects. However, these networks can be used as the backbone of a broader monitoring network. RECOMMENDATION: The National Ocean Acidification Program should review existing and emergent observing networks to identify existing measurements, chemical and biological, that could become part of a comprehensive ocean acidification observing network and to identify any critical spatial or temporal gaps in the current capacity to monitor ocean acidification. The Program should work to fill these gaps by ensuring that existing coastal and oceanic carbon observing sites adequately measure the seawater carbonate system and a range of bio logical parameters; identifying and leveraging other long-term ocean monitoring programs by adding relevant chemical and biological measurements at existing and new sites; adding additional time-series sites, repeat transects, and in situ sensors in key areas that are currently undersampled. These should be prioritized based on ecological and societal vulnerabilities; deploying and field testing new remote sensing and in situ technologies for observing ocean acidification and its impacts; and supporting the development and application of new data analysis and modeling techniques for integrating satellite, ship-based, and in situ observations. RECOMMENDATION: The National Ocean Acidification Program should plan for the long-term sustainability of an integrated ocean acidification observation network. Ocean acidification research is still in its infancy. A great deal of research has been conducted and new information gathered in the past several years, and it is clear from this research that ocean acidification may threaten marine ecosystems and the services they provide. However, much more information is needed in order to fully understand and address these changes. Most previous research on the biological effects of ocean acidification has dealt with acute responses in a few species, and very little is known about the impacts of acidification on many ecologically or economically important organisms, their populations, and communities; the effects on a variety of physiological and biogeochemical processes; and the capacity of organisms to adapt to projected changes in ocean chemistry (Boyd et al., 2008). There is a need for research that provides a mechanistic understanding of physiological effects, elucidates the acclimation and adaptation potential of organisms, and allows scaling up to ecosystem effects, taking into account the role and response of humans in those systems and how best to support decision making in affected systems. There is also a need to understand these effects in light of multiple and potentially compounding environmental stressors, such as increasing temperature, pollution, and overfishing. The committee identifies eight broad research areas that address these critical information gaps; detailed research recommendations on specific regions and topics are contained in other community-based reports (i.e., Raven et al., 2005; Kleypas et al., 2006; Fabry et al., 2008a; Orr et al., 2009; Joint et al., 2009). CONCLUSION: Present knowledge is insufficient to guide federal and state agencies in evaluating potential impacts for management purposes.

Plan is essential to international coordination on monitoring and acidification solutionsJewett et al., the first director of NOAA's Ocean Acidification Program, 2014(Elizabeth Jewett, Mary Boatman (BOEM), Phillip Taylor and Priscilla Viana (formerly with NSF), Todd Capson (formerly with DOS), Katherine Nixon (formerly with U.S. Navy) and Fredric Lipshultz (formerly with NASA), Strategic Plan for Federal Research and Monitoring of Ocean Acidification, Online: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/NSTC/iwg-oa_strategic_plan_march_2014.pdf)

Beyond linking to existing education and outreach initiatives, the National Ocean Acidification Program Office will have to forge new partnerships. The need for new partnerships will become clear after an assessment of current efforts has highlighted successful strategies and important gaps. New partnerships and initiatives will be streamlined with ongoing efforts as to avoid redundancy and will target education and outreach messages and key audiences where gaps have been identified. The National Ocean Acidification Program Office can play a pivotal role in uniting key partners by promoting working relationships between other National Science and Technology Council Interagency Working Groups such as the Interagency Working Group on Aquaculture, U.S. agencies, NGOs, academia, and private businesses throughout the world at ongoing and developing venues. New partnerships may take the form of public-private partnerships, which have proven successful at uniting public, private, and philanthropic partners to address complex, cross-cutting issues. International partnerships may form via new initiatives that address emerging cross-cutting issues while striving to promote sustainable development on bilateral, regional, and global levels. As previously mentioned, formal science and technology agreements can unite governments in research partnerships, which may serve education and outreach needs. Science and technology cooperation, in addition to grants for international cooperation, supports the establishment of science-based industries, encourages investment in national science infrastructure, education, and application of scientific standards, and it promotes international dialogue. Additionally, the National Ocean Acidification Program Office can form new international partnerships by leveraging existing relationships established through U.S. embassies, consulates, and missions. By building off of existing relationships, an international engagement strategy will have more relevant and achievable goals.

Absent the plan, agency overlap will prevent solutions to ocean acidificationEkstrom, Sea Grant California, 2008(Julia A. Ekstrom, Sea Grant California, Navigating Fragmented Ocean Law in the California Current: Tools to Identify and Measure Gaps and Overlaps for Ecosystem-Based Management, site: http://www.opc.ca.gov)

Despite institutional challenges, confronting ocean acidification is not a lost cause. To move forward, it is crucial to recognize that no institution can be created as if it exists or will exist in a vacuum. As such, we can work within the context of the existing governance by either proposing to modify what exists or to develop entirely new institutions. It is critical that a new institution be created as a productive partner in the existing web of institutions and not cause unintended interplay among overlapping jurisdictions (Ebbin 2002). Thus, baseline data about existing institutions provides policymakers and stakeholders with a blue print of the regulatory environment in regard to ocean acidification, so they can determine the most effective strategies toward realistic resolution of the issue. For example, there are numerous laws pertaining to the regulation of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, a causal factor in the problem of ocean acidification. Similarly, there are monitoring systems and regulations in place that pertain to pH balance of water. Although these laws were