The weight of time and tide will be combining to deliver about 30 years' worth of extra-CO2-laden water to the shores of the West Coast through at least the next 30 years, even if atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions were to cease today. Undaunted, California's Ocean Science Trust assembled 20 scientists to strategize on limiting, eliminating, and ameliorating the effects of increased acid levels and the loss of oxygen in ocean waters, including UCSB's Gretchen Hofmann.
The world's oceans absorb about a third of the atmospheric CO2 generated, according to the trust's April 2016 report . It takes 30-50 years for waters to dive down from the Japan coast and travel to the North American continent, where the deeper ocean upwelling is aided by winds that push surface waters away from the shore. The deeper waters contain less oxygen and more CO2 from the breakdown of organic matter, plus the CO2 from human activity; the study concludes that the West Coast will face the earliest and most severe changes from acidification and hypoxia.
Decreased oxygen in ocean water has yet to be addressed by the multitude of initiatives, remediations, restorations, and other water resource requirements of municipalities and state and federal agencies. Ocean acidification only began to be included over the past five years.