Earth has breached a critical boundary for ocean acidification, with potentially grim effects for ocean ecosystems and human livelihoods

The Planetary Boundaries Science Lab at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) released a report in September that showed seven of the planet’s nine critical Earth system boundaries have been breached, including a new one this year: ocean...

We have now crossed seven out of nine planetary boundaries: climate change, biosphere integrity, novel entities, land system change, freshwater use, biogeochemical flow and, most recently, ocean acidification. — Last month, humanity crossed another planetary boundary: ocean acidification. A new...

Scientists call for renewed global effort to curb fossil fuels as seven of nine planetary boundaries now transgressed

Ocean Acidification has been added to the growing list of Planetary Boundaries now considered to be breached, bringing the running total to seven out of nine, with the finger of blame directed firmly at fossil fuel burning made worse by...

15.08.2025 – A new study maps the planetary boundary of “functional biosphere integrity” in spatial detail and over centuries. It finds that 60 percent of global land areas are now already outside the...

I've covered ocean acidification many years ago, when it was beginning to emerge as a threat to corals and other calcifying sea organisms, and I've written about the planetary boundary concept (most recently, when chemical pollution was found to have exceeded the boundary). Thus the new research suggesting that ocean adicification is also outside the planetary boundary (as the seventh of the nine parameters in the original planetary boundary paper) presented a good opportunity to visit both issues in one go. My feature is out now: **Oceans acidified beyond boundary** Current Biology Volume 35, Issue 15, 4 August 2025, Pages R739-R741 Restricted access to full text and PDF download (will become open access one year after publication) Magic link for free access (first seven weeks only) See also my new Mastodon thread where I will highlight all this year's CB features. My mastodon posts are also mirrored on Bluesky (starting 22.2.2025), but for this purpose I have to post them again, outside of the thread. (I think threads only transfer if the first post was transferred, so once I start a new thread it should work.) Last year's thread is here . The cover image is not really related to my article, but to me it also symbolises the interaction between the oceans and the atmosphere, because: "Bluebottles or man-o'-war, cnidarians in the genus Physalia, use a gas-filled float and sail to catch the wind and sail the ocean surface." Cover of Current Biology, vol. 35, issue 15, 2025.

Founded in 2005 as an Ohio-based environmental newspaper, EcoWatch is a digital platform dedicated to publishing quality, science-based content on environmental issues, causes, and solutions. A field of bleached Staghorn coral in a reef with a school of fish in...

The EU ombudsman has raised concerns about delays in regulating toxic chemicals — criticising the European Commission for its opaque decision-making process on approving or restricting hazardous subst...

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