linguistic:voice_change, structural:scholar_edition
pH

The pH value at the surface of oceans (global mean surface pH) is currently approximately in the range of 8.05 to 8.08. This makes it slightly alkaline. The pH value at the surface used to be about 8.2 during the past 300 million years. However, between 1950 and 2020, the average pH of the ocean surface fell from approximately 8.15 to 8.05. Carbon dioxide emissions from human activities are the primary cause of this process called ocean acidification, with atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO) levels exceeding 410 ppm (in 2020). CO from the atmosphere is absorbed by the oceans. This produces carbonic acid (H CO) which dissociates into a bicarbonate ion (HCO − 3) and a hydrogen ion (H). The presence of free hydrogen ions (H) lowers the pH of the ocean.

There is a natural gradient of pH in the ocean which is related to the breakdown of organic matter in deep water which slowly lowers the pH with depth: The pH value of seawater is naturally as low as 7.8 in deep ocean waters as a result of degradation of organic matter there. It can be as high as 8.4 in surface waters in areas of high biological productivity.

The definition of global mean surface pH refers to the top layer of the water in the ocean, up to around 20 or 100 m depth. In comparison, the average depth of the ocean is about 4 km. The pH value at greater depths (more than 100 m) has not yet been affected by ocean acidification in the same way. There is a large body of deeper water where the natural gradient of pH from 8.2 to about 7.8 still exists and it will take a very long time to acidify these waters, and equally as long to recover from that acidification. But as the top layer of the ocean (the photic zone) is crucial for its marine productivity, any changes to the pH value and temperature of the top layer can have many knock-on effects, for example on marine life and ocean currents (see also effects of climate change on oceans).

The key issue in terms of the penetration of ocean acidification is the way the surface water mixes with deeper water or does not mix (a lack of mixing is called ocean stratification). This in turn depends on the water temperature and hence is different between the tropics and the polar regions (see ocean#Temperature).

The chemical properties of seawater complicate pH measurement, and several distinct pH scales exist in chemical oceanography. There is no universally accepted reference pH-scale for seawater and the difference between measurements based on multiple reference scales may be up to 0.14 units.