DOE Report Misinformation: Ocean Acidification Is Not Ocean Neutralization
By Erika Pietrzak, September 25, 2025
The DOE’s 2025 report denied ocean acidification, but the science is undeniable. Rising CO₂ is making oceans more acidic, threatening coral reefs, marine life, and the millions who depend on them.
On July 23, 2025, the United States Department of Energy, under the Donald Trump administration, released its report entitled “A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate.” The report was riddled with inconsistencies to agreed conclusions made by international scientists and academics.
One of the report’s most dangerous falsehoods was the intentional downplay of ocean acidification, the steady decline in ocean pH caused by the absorption of excess carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. With deforestation reducing natural carbon sinks and fossil fuel usage driving emissions even higher, CO2 emissions are increasingly straining the ocean and its inhabitants. The ocean takes up over 40 percent of the anthropogenic CO2 emissions. When dissolved in seawater, CO2 forms carbonic acid, lowering pH and driving the ocean towards more acidic conditions.
The report’s claim that ocean acidification is not occurring is an outright lie and purposefully misleading. For centuries, ocean pH has been relatively stable over time, with a pre-industrial average of about 8.2 to 8.3. The DOE’s report states that the ocean’s pH has seen significant fluctuations over time, and the current acidification is nothing but another natural fluctuation. While there are no records of ocean pH before the early 20th century, corals provide a chance for scientists to determine previous pH levels based on their skeletal structure, similar to how ice cores reveal historic CO2 levels prior to records beginning. These reconstructions show that when large pH shifts did occur, they often coincided with mass extinction events.
By the end of the century, the ocean’s pH is expected to decrease another 0.4 units, “compared to the changes of only 0.2 pH units over glacial-interglacial cycle.” Such a decline would bring average ocean pH to a staggering 7.6, approaching the most acidic coastal waters ever recorded globally (as low as 7.4 off California in the mid-2010s). For context, the lowest global ocean average pH measured since 1680 was 7.7, which occurred only a few decades ago, in the 1970s.
Source: Nature.com
The ocean is, by definition, becoming more acidic as it moves down the pH scale (8.2 to 8.0). Though this change may not seem like a big deal to those unfamiliar with the fragility of ocean ecosystems, the change in pH that is occurring is impacting marine life in ways seen across the food chain. Shelled animals, like oysters and mussels, are one of the most vulnerable creatures and see their skeletal formation weakened because of the lack of ability for calcium carbonate to form with the decrease in carbonate ions. The animal must also use more energy to maintain healthy bodies due to the strain on their systems, decreasing their sizes and ability to fight disease. When acidity increases too much, it can even break down the already formed shells of animals. These animals are at the bottom of food chains, meaning the effects of ocean acidification may hit them harder at first; however, the impacts will quickly spread upward through the food web, ultimately affecting species such as fish, marine mammals, and seabirds.
This impact is also seen in coral reefs, which provide homes for many kinds of marine animals and are some of the most biodiverse ecosystems in the world. Although reefs make up less than half a percent of the sea floor, they are home to over a quarter of marine life. Hundreds of millions of people also depend on coral reef systems for food, jobs, and storm protection. The claim that these reefs are largely unaffected by these changes is blatantly false, as we have already seen with the massive destruction of several major coral reefs and 14 percent of the ocean’s reefs destroyed between 2009 and 2018 alone. Experts estimate that between 30 to 50 percent of the world’s coral reefs have been destroyed since the Anthropocene began, around 1950. Recent data show that 84 percent of coral reefs have been negatively impacted by heat stress and ocean acidification. The types of coral that have shown adaptability to pH changes will not be enough to save these ecosystems, especially when combined with a warming ocean. Some corals have shown signs of being able to bounce back from damage and artificial reefs are able to replicate these ecosystems to a degree. However, scientists warn that if we do not take drastic action, the damage to coral reefs will be irreversible.
Conversely to corals and calcified organisms, some types of algae boom as acidity increases. In the same time period that corals decreased 14 percent, global algae increased by 20 percent. Algal booms reduce the oxygen levels in the ocean, making it harder for organisms to survive, resulting in dead zones and mass displacement and they are now spreading across America’s coasts. This pattern aligns with the coral reef decline, as increased algae cover is a widely accepted sign of coral reef stress. The transition from coral-dominated to algae-dominated ecosystems “reduces the complex habitat that is essential to support high levels of biodiversity”.
Source: European Environmental Agency
Ocean acidification also significantly harms fish and other marine animals in profound ways. Higher acidity also causes decreased fertility rates for many marine species, threatening extinctions and further disrupting the food chain. As pH levels lower, marine life experiences extreme physiological stress, working harder to maintain body functions and “to excrete the excess acid out of its blood through its gills, kidneys and intestines.” This results in excess energy drain, which slows digestion, growth, and overall resilience. Research has documented striking species-specific effects. Clownfish no longer flee when exposed to predator noises. They are known to not flee when hearing threatening noises when in lower pH levels, despite their regular sensitivity to noisy predators. Cobia develop larger ear bones in lower pH levels, “which could affect their ability to navigate and avoid prey.” Smooth dogwood sharks “‘significantly avoided odor cues’ and less frequently ‘attacked’ the food source” in more acidic waters. Even dolphins are affected, with reduced hearing capacity in low pH conditions, which makes it harder for them to hunt, travel, and communicate.
Without healthy marine systems, food and reproduction will become scarcer, leaving species more vulnerable to predators and destabilizing the entire food chain. This cascading collapse would mean population losses across marine life and the destruction of entire ecosystems. The consequences extend far beyond the ocean: instability for the millions of Americans dependent on fisheries and coastal ecosystems for their livelihoods. This will also impact our coastlines as the loss of healthy coral and oyster reefs removes a vital natural protection from extreme weather events. The reduction in protection, combined with increasingly damaging extreme weather events, means a significant risk to the over 100 million Americans living by the coast.
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