Written question asked by William Bain (Labour) on Tuesday, 21 June 2011, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 23 June 2011. It was answered by Lord Barker of Battle (Conservative) on Monday, 27 June 2011 on behalf of the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

Climate Change: Seas and Oceans

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (1) what recent assessment he has made of the potential effect of global warming on levels of sea and ocean acidification;

Answer: Measurements have shown that acidification of the world's oceans is occurring as a direct result of increased uptake of higher levels of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and scientists estimate that a 30% increase in ocean acidity has occurred since pre-industrial times. Ocean acidification is thus not a direct result of global warming. However, additionally as ocean temperature increases in response to climate change, its capacity to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere will be reduced slightly.DEFRA, DECC and the Natural Environment Research Council are jointly funding the five-year UK Ocean Acidification Research Programme to improve predictions of future changes in ocean chemistry and understand the impacts of ocean acidification on the marine environment and the consequences for society.The IPCC s Fourth Assessment Report (2007) and scientific research published since 2007 have concluded that global sea levels will likely rise by between 0.18 and 0.59 metres (relative to 1980-1999) by the end of this century as a result of global warming, but this estimate did not take account of the effect of ice melt in Greenland and Antarctica which were too uncertain.

Secondary information