No, the abbreviation of acidification is not AC/DC. Acidification stands for the process that our oceans turn more acid due to the absorption of CO2 from the atmosphere. This has several harmful consequences. Lower calcification, slower growth of corals and mollusks (oysters and mussels) for example, shall reduce biodiversity in the medium term of species with calcium-based skeletons. The UN highlights this in several reports, but action upon this evidence (Ifremer 2026) is slow or even absent. Besides the acidification, the oceans have increasing temperatures. Some researchers frame this process already as the “tropicalisation”, the warming of sea water and migration of fish according depending on their preferred or necessary temperatures of sea water. Some move to cooler water, other species move into or “invade” due to higher temperatures.
This can be observed and studied in citizen science projects across the globe and by tourists with a little interests in what is happening near the beaches. Just take a litmus-strip with you to test the basic or alkaline pH-value of the sea water in a glass of sea water. Then add a bit of soda water and test again. That’s a bit exaggerating, what acidification of oceans is about, but the underlying mechanisms is the same.
