There are several possible values of XXX. The most likely is the Maldives, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maldives. Note that the whole country is seeking a place to relocate in the event of sea level rising due to global warming. If global warming continues according to current projections, the entire country will be under water at some point in the next century.
Pretty much any coral atoll will do. Kiribati comes to mind for example. The problem with these examples is that coral atolls sink naturally, a coral atoll is what is left after the volcano it was around has finished sinking into the ocean. It has nothing whatsoever to do with rising sea levels. Everyone worldwide who is among the millions living on coral atolls today is facing "rising oceans" and salivating over possible global warming payouts from carbon tax funds. But their atolls are sinking regardless of whether carbon dioxide levels are creating warming. In fact, higher carbon dioxide levels being absorbed into the oceans (which is happening) create accelerated coral growth and offset some of the sinking effects. You might as well say that more carbon dioxide is needed as it can save these atolls. But in reality nothing can save them, all atolls sink. Building roads on them and driving to and fro is known to accelerate the sinking as well.
The fact that a coral atoll will sink naturally on its own in due time doesn't change the fact that a modest rise in sea level would sink lots of atolls all over the world.
About your carbon dioxide non-sequitur, as carbon dioxide gets absorbed in the ocean it forms carbonic acid, which changes ph levels. A relative modest change in ph level causes problems for animals that use calcium carbonate as a building material. (You cannot lay down calcium carbonate structures when the water is even slightly acidic.) A prime example is coral, and ocean acidification has already been blamed for large coral die-offs in the great barrier reef of Australia.
Therefore whether or not global warming is man-made, more carbon dioxide is the last thing that coral reefs need right now.
We know that the oceans are the largest global sinks for CO2. Not only carbonic acid is formed, you conveniently forget to mention that it disseminates as a combination of dissolved CO2, HCO3, CO3 and the H2CO3 you mention. The CO3, carbonate, is essential in the formation of coral atolls. Without carbon dioxide sinking and forming CO3, coral could not form. The relative mixture of what results depends on a number of factors of which ocean temperature is the primary one. The Orr article, which is the original source on acidification leading to coral loss, reports on a theoretical computer model about what might happen in the future and is not based on any actual observational data that this has happened to coral in the past or is happening now. Coral losses in the 1998 season were due to el niño conditions and are not related to acidification. Regarding computer models of global climate and global ecosystem interdynamics it is telling that none so far have succeeded in predicting anything beyond random chance. Because of this, it is not reasonable to assume that the computer model simulations that have yet to be compared against real life are the first ones that will finally be correct.
Let's see what happens with each of those reactions.
CO2 + H20 + CaCO3 yields Ca(HCO3)2 + energy. This reaction turns calcium carbonate into calcium bicarbonate, which is water soluble and floats off.
HC03 is unstable, and only exists in a stable form when combined with a metal ion. Such as happened above in a reaction that came out of destroying calcium carbonate.
C03 is unstable, and only exists in a stable form when combined with a metal ion. The supply of such metal ions at the present time is relatively stable and is uncorrelated with temperature.
And when you dissolve CO2 in H2O, there is an equilibrium balance between C02 + H2O and H2CO3.
So half the compounds you list don't exist on their own. And even high school chemistry is enough to tell you that adding CO2 to a marine environment with lots of CaCO3 is going to have an inevitable net effect of dissolving some of the CaCO3 that is there.
You'd have been better off falling back on the fact that the oceans are large, and that ph is locally more affected by ocean currents and upwelling from the deep ocean than it is by anything in the atmosphere. Because it is true that the yearly variation at any given location exceeds the total rise in the 20th century, and also exceeds the projected rise in the 21st century. (That said, the problem appears at the peaks, and high peaks can cause die-offs even though ph levels spend most of their time in a good range.)
I took that as an author's proofing note mistake. I often use XXX (highlighted in yellow so I can find them again) when I'm pursuing a chain of thought, am confident a specific example exists, but can't think of one right now.
Most recent example was a paper I was writing on purchasing brand over product - I wrote about "buying a 'Rolex' over a XXX", where XXX later became "an Oyster Perpetual Milgauss" - my guess is the author meant to replace XXX with some global-warming concerned island nation, but forgot.
I think the author is trying to remember the name of the island in Lost. The native people there, "The Others," do not fish either and in recent times have taken the idea of cargo cult to a new high, simulating nearly all aspects of the Dharma Initiative company.
> Did they just become inundated by the sea, perhaps living as the people of XXX live today, on a very low island in the middle of the sea, ....
There is a reference to an endnote at the end of the sentence, but the note talks about tidal waves, not this mysterious "XXX".
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