Page 25 - PDZA Sustainable Aquarium Brochure

HEATING: A CARBON (AND ACIDIFICATION) STORY

What does this really mean for the environment? We asked Dr. Mike Marsolek, Ph.D. and Associate
What if we were to calculate the impact of the Professor, and Dr. Philip Thompson, Ph.D. and
carbon footprint for the new aquarium and Director of the Center for Environmental Justice and
pretend we had a closed environment where a Sustainability, both from Seattle University, to provide
portion of the CO2 was transferred directly to the ocean acidification analysis. As such, we determined
volume of water associated with the exhibit tanks that the exhibit tanks would become acidic to the
in the facility? How much time would it take for point of being unhealthy (i.e. pH of 7.4 when oysters
the exhibit tanks to acidify in the baseline and have problems forming shells ) after 45 minutes of
[1]
proposed buildings? building operation. Now with the much lower carbon
footprint, the time for the aquarium’s exhibit tanks to
become acidic is 4.5 hours (see Figure 10).

While these seem like very short timeframes for
ocean acidification to occur in our exhibit tanks, we
need to remember that the oceans have a much
higher volume in comparison to the exhibit tanks.
Nevertheless, it is a compelling result and provides
further motivation for aquariums to reduce their
carbon footprint.

Figure 10—Building Carbon Footprint and Exhibit Tanks Acidification Timeline Diagram

[1] Kurihara, H., Kato, S., Ishimatsu, A., 2007. Effects of increased seawater pCO2 on early development of the oyster (Crassostrea gigas). Aquat. Biol. 1, 91–98.

CASE STUDY: THE PACIFIC SEAS AQUARIUM AT POINT DEFIANCE ZOO & AQUARIUM 25