Research that had already been done suggests that if seawater carbon concentrations drop below a quarter of their normal levels, photosynthesis by marine plants and algae my be impacted, and that the upper pH (measure of acidity) limit for growth of seaweeds and seagrass is around 9. We have been releasing water at pH 9.5, but this is instantly diluted on entering the sea (information on dilution of the released water is linked earlier in page and linked here).
We ran experiments at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory to better understand how some marine plants and animals respond to low-carbon seawater. The short-term experiments (2-5 days) studied phytoplankton, zooplankton and blue mussels exposed to different concentrations of low-carbon seawater.
So far, our experiments suggest that if operating at large scales, the released low-carbon seawater would need to be diluted with normal seawater at a 1:1 ratio to avoid serious ecological impacts. More research is needed to help identify dilution thresholds and safe limits for other marine organisms. The Weymouth Facility could play a very important role here.
Links to the our research papers as they gets published:.
