US-Canada Great Lakes turning acidic: study seeks to establish details
- December 22, 2022
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
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US-Canada Great Lakes turning acidic: study seeks to establish details
Subject Geography
Context:
- Scientists are building a sensor network to detect the trends in the water chemistry of Lake Huron, one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the first step towards developing a system that would be capable of measuring the carbon dioxide and pH levels of the Great Lakes over several years.
Details:
- By 2100, even the Great Lakes — Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario — might approach acidity at around the same rate as the oceans.
Acidification of water bodies:
- Acidification of oceans or freshwater bodies takes place when excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere gets rapidly absorbed into them.
- Scientists initially believed this might be a good thing, as it leaves less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But in the past decade or so, it has been established that absorption of carbon dioxide leads to a lowering of the pH, which makes the water bodies more acidic.
- According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the US government, ocean water has become 30 per cent more acidic in the past 200 years.
Consequences of acidification:
- The five lakes would witness a pH decline of 0.29-0.49 pH units — meaning they would become more acidic — by 2100.
- Acidification may lead to a decrease in native biodiversity, create physiological challenges for organisms, and permanently alter the structure of the ecosystem.
- It would also severely impact the hundreds of wooden shipwrecks that are believed to be resting at the bottom of these lakes.
- As per research, their pH levels had declined three times faster in 35 years than in oceans since the Industrial Revolution. This may result in the loss of some species.
- As a result of the increase in acidity the ability of water fleas to defend themselves against predators was compromised.
About the Great Lakes:
- The Great Lakes are five interconnected bodies of water straddling the US-Canada border that drain into the Gulf of St Lawrence in the North Atlantic through the St Lawrence River.
- These five lakes form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total area and the second largest by total volume containing 21% of the world’s surface freshwater by volume.
- The US-Canada border passes through Lakes Superior, Huron, Erie, and Ontario while Lake Michigan lies entirely in the US.
- Lakes Michigan and Huron are sometimes considered as a single water body.
- Taken together, they are the world’s largest freshwater lake by surface area.
- By itself, Lake Huron is the world’s third-largest freshwater lake, after Lake Superior (one of the five lakes, and the world’s largest freshwater lake) and Lake Victoria.
Significance of the Great Lakes:
- The Great Lakes are believed to have been born some 20,000 years ago, when the Earth started to warm and water from melting glaciers filled the basins on its surface.
- They contain a fifth of the world’s total freshwater and are a crucial source of irrigation and transportation.
- They serve as the habitat for more than 3,500 species of plants and animals.