Already now large quantities of water undersaturated in aragonite are upwelling close to the Pacific continental shelf area of North America, from Vancouver to Northern California. These continental shelves play an important role in marine ecosystems, since most marine organisms live or are spawned there. Other shelf areas may be experiencing similar effects.
At depths of 1000s of meters in the ocean, calcium carbonate shells begin to dissolve as increasing pressure and decreasing temperature shift the chemical equilibria controlling calcium carbonate precipitation. The depth at which this occurs is known as the carbonate compensation depth. Ocean acidification will increase such dissolution and shallow the carbonate compensation depth on timescales of tens to hundreds of years. Zones of downwelling are being affected first.
In the North Pacific and North Atlantic, saturation states are also decreasing (the depth of saturation is getting more shallow). Ocean acidification is progressing in the open ocean as the CO travels to deeper depth as a result of ocean mixing. In the open ocean, this causes carbonate compensation depths to become more shallow, meaning that dissolution of calcium carbonate will occur below those depths. In the North Pacific these carbonate saturations depths are shallowing at a rate of 1–2 m per year.
It is expected that ocean acidification in the future will lead to a significant decrease in the burial of carbonate sediments for several centuries, and even the dissolution of existing carbonate sediments.