Coastal Review Online   Global Warming's 'Evil Twin'  Topics:
Climate Change, Marine Science  By Pat Garber  OCRACOKE -- The
Ocracoke Working Watermen's Association on Jan. 19 will host a
training session for a project to monitor baby oysters, or spat.
Students and volunteers will be trained to collect and count
oyster offspring.  The project, sponsored by North Carolina Sea
Grant, is part of a larger effort to understand why North
Carolina's oyster population is in decline.  Meanwhile, on the
other side of the country, scientists have puzzled over why the
entire batch of 100 million free-swimming baby oysters at
Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery in coastal Oregon  have died.
The conclusion they reached is alarming, at the least. The
struggling larvae were unable to form their protective shells
because of highly acidic pH levels in the ocean. High acid
levels decrease carbonate ions needed for shell production.  The
acidity is the result of excessive carbon dioxide, or CO2, in
the ocean, absorbed from the Eart