From the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies James Cook University
“Evil twin” threatens world’s oceans, scientists warn
The rise in human emissions of carbon dioxide is driving fundamental and dangerous changes in the chemistry and ecosystems of the world’s oceans, international marine scientists warned today.
“Ocean conditions are already more extreme than those experienced by marine organisms and ecosystems for millions of years,” the researchers say in the latest issue of the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution (TREE).
“This emphasises the urgent need to adopt policies that drastically reduce CO2 emissions.”
Ocean acidification, which the researchers call the ‘evil twin of global warming’, is caused when the CO2 emitted by human activity, mainly burning fossil fuels, dissolves into the oceans. It is happening independently of, but in combination with, global warming.
“Evidence gathered by scientists around the world over the last few years suggests that ocean acidification could represent an equal – or perhaps even greater threat – to the biology of our planet than global warming,” co-author Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and The University of Queensland says.
More than 30% of the CO2 released from burning fossil fuels, cement production, deforestation and other human activities goes straight into the oceans, turning them gradually more acidic.
“The resulting acidification will impact many forms of sea life, especially organisms whose shells or skeletons are made from calcium carbonate, like corals and shellfish. It may interfere with the reproduction of plankton species which are a vital part of the food web on which fish and all other sea life depend,” he adds.
The scientists say there is now persuasive evidence that mass extinctions in past Earth history, like the “Great Dying” of 251 million years ago and another wipeout 55 million years ago, were accompanied by ocean acidification, which may have delivered the deathblow to many species that were unable to cope with it.
“These past periods can serve as great lessons of what we can expect in the future, if we continue to push the acidity the ocean even further” said lead author, Dr. Carles Pelejero, from ICREA and the Marine Science Institute of CSIC in Barcelona, Spain.
“Given the impacts we see in the fossil record, there is no question about the need to immediately reduce the rate at which we are emitting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,” he said further.
“Today, the surface waters of the oceans have already acidified by an average of 0.1 pH units from pre-industrial levels, and we are seeing signs of its impact even in the deep oceans”, said co-author Dr. Eva Calvo, from the Marine Science Institute of CSIC in Barcelona, Spain.
“Future acidification depends on how much CO2 humans emit from here on – but by the year 2100 various projections indicate that the oceans will have acidified by a further 0.3 to 0.4 pH units, which is more than many organisms like corals can stand”, Prof. Hoegh-Guldberg says.
“This will create conditions not seen on Earth for at least 40 million years”.
“These changes are taking place at rates as much as 100 times faster than they ever have over the last tens of millions of years” Prof. Hoegh-Guldberg says.
Under such circumstances “Conditions are likely to become very hostile for calcifying species in the north Atlantic and Pacific over the next decade and in the Southern Ocean over the next few decades,” the researchers warn.
Besides directly impacting on the fishing industry and its contribution to the human food supply at a time when global food demand is doubling, a major die-off in the oceans would affect birds and many land species and change the biology of Earth as a whole profoundly, Prof. Hoegh-Guldberg adds.
Palaeo-perspectives on ocean acidification by Carles Pelejero, Eva Calvo and Ove Hoegh-Guldberg is published in the latest issue of the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution (TREE), number 1232.
This site dealing with ocean acidification is well worth reading:
http://www.seafriends.org.nz/issues/global/acid.htm
These people are nothing if not relentless.
Same old trick. Acidification when they mean less alkaline. A drop of 0.1 ph (I think that is 8.2 to 8.1 ?) . My swimming pool is about 7.2 to 7.6 and remember this is a logarithmic scale and I still get the usual animals in it, like frogs. They like it so much that they mate in it.
There must have been huge extinctions in the oceans when the C02 was 20x higher in the geologic past. In fact, life must have evolved, not in the primoridial soup of the oceans, but on land and then crawled to the sea….to dissolve or evolve. They have it backwards. Shellfish came after fish.
I think Dumb and Dumberer would have been a better logo.
“Ocean acidification, which the researchers call the ‘evil twin of global warming’, is caused when the CO2 emitted by human activity, mainly burning fossil fuels, dissolves into the oceans. It is happening independently of, but in combination with, global warming.”
Makes one wonder how the ocean knows the CO2 is the evil CO2 from human activity as opposed to the regular non-evil CO2.
What utter rubbish! When the oceans already contain nearly two orders of magnitude more CO2 than the entire atmosphere, and when the first Earth Science experiment in grammar school is to blow through a straw into a glass of (hard) tapwater and watch the calcium carbonate precipitate out the excess CO2, and when the pH of the water in a tropical lagoon may vary three or more points over the course of a single day, how on earth could these so-called scientists be pushing this nonsense?
They are asserting bald faced lies. Why?
I find this highly unlikely. Marine hobbyist have been dosing their salt water tanks with CO2 for generations without any issues. Where do these guys come up with some of these alarmist predictions. 0.3pH units is nothing to coral or fish life. pH in a marine tank can swing more than that on a single day from lights on to lights off. I’m no marine biologist but was an active hobbyist for over 5 years.
Does not ‘evil twin of global warming’ imply that global warming is the good twin?
CO2 failed to warm the globe and it will fail to acidify the oceans. Increased CO2 enables the mechanisms which sequester CO2. This is a self-solving problem.
=======
They’re desperate, meanwhile…
Undersea volcano threatens southern Italy
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/6999229/undersea-volcano-threatens-southern-italy-report/
ROME (AFP) – Europe’s largest undersea volcano could disintegrate and unleash a tsunami that would engulf southern Italy “at any time”, a prominent vulcanologist warned in an interview published Monday.
The Marsili volcano, which is bursting with magma, has “fragile walls” that could collapse, Enzo Boschi told the leading daily Corriere della Sera.
“It could even happen tomorrow,” said Boschi, president of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV).
“Our latest research shows that the volcano is not structurally solid, its walls are fragile, the magma chamber is of sizeable dimensions,” he said. “All that tells us that the volcano is active and could begin erupting at any time.”
The event would result in “a strong tsunami that could strike the coasts of Campania, Calabria and Sicily,” Boschi said.
The undersea Marsili, 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) tall and located some 150 kilometres (90 miles) southwest of Naples, has not erupted since the start of recorded history.
It is 70 kilometres long and 30 kilometres wide, and its crater is some 450 metres below the surface of the Tyrrhenian Sea.
“A rupture of the walls would let loose millions of cubic metres of material capable of generating a very powerful wave,” Boschi said.
“While the indications that have been collected are precise, it is impossible to make predictions. The risk is real but hard to evaluate.”
I guess we’re supposed to believe that the oceans of the ancient Earth were acidic then?
I’m curious, how many fossil fueled generating plants were in use 40 million years ago?? How many SUVs?? Must have been Wooly Manmouth farts…….
pRadio
This article is obviously geared toward grant-begging. Ocean pH varies a lot, naturally. And because the oceans hold an enormous amount of carbon dioxide compared to the atmosphere, and since human CO2 contributions to the atmosphere are minuscule, ignorant statements like “…by the year 2100 various projections indicate that the oceans will have acidified by a further 0.3 to 0.4 pH units, which is more than many organisms like corals can stand” are pure fear-mongering. These folks just want to get on the grant gravy train.
Ocean pH constantly varies all over the map: click
That chart goes back 5,200 years – well before the first SUV was born.
What “crystal ball” are these people looking at? Perhaps they need to retake high school chemistry.
Monterey Bay pH hasn’t changed since they started taking measurements in 1996
http://sanctuarymonitoring.org/regional_docs/monitoring_projects/100240_167.pdf
“Given the impacts we see in the fossil record, there is no question about the need to immediately reduce the rate at which we are emitting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,”
What sort of science is this? That’s really just one of thew stupidist things I’ve read so far from the warmists.
We must “immediately reduce” carbon emissions, because the fossil record tells us that species have become extinct in the last few hundreds of millions of years.
They don’t seem to have a clue about CO2 chemistry in the oceans that contain so much sodium, calcium, magnesium, lithium, zinc and other basic elements. Sulfur dioxide was the most likely cause of past extinctions.
“These changes are taking place at rates as much as 100 times faster than they ever have over the last tens of millions of years” Prof. Hoegh-Guldberg says?
Go on then, tell us just how much faster it REALLY is changing! Somehow I don’t think I believe it. So an element really can emit & absorb the same gas at one & the same time! How much CO2 do they claim is emitted from the oceans into the atmosphere because of warming seas due to Global Warming? Last time I looked the so-called rate of “acidification” was so small that it would have taken over 3½ thousand years to reach pH neutral if ever!
Mark_K (08:47:58) :-)) Because manmade CO2 is a dirty black & ugly monster-like gas as we’ve seen on UK Govs highly accurate peer-reviewed science based adverts! Simples!
Yes but;
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V13/N9/EDIT.php
A good article with references worth looking up.
H2SO4 (sulfuric acid) forms in the atmosphere from SO3 from unscrubbed coal plant emissions and is responsible for acid rain.
China has a lot of unscrubbed coal plants. The US used to as well. I wonder whether this source of acidification is significant.
These sorts of scaremongering papers certainly don’t ever mention it.
The Cook University cooking the books again!
Most of these reefs did not exist, at least in their present locations, 15000 years ago. The area where they now exist was dry land before the great global warming that melted most of the ice cap and raised sea levels 300 ft. Like climate, ocean conditions are never static.
That short chap looks just like Danny de Vito. I could be wrong about that.
With all the limestone sitting in and around the world’s oceans, wouldn’t one think a little carbon dioxide wouldn’t make much difference ?
Didn’t Jane Lubchenko do an experiment to show that corals can grow in ordinary tap water, so long as you dye it blue and don’t chill it with dry ice ?
Have they any idea of the amount of acid dumped by the great smokers on the mid ocean ridges? They release water with a pH as low as 2.8 and still have abundant life around them.
Aren’t they neglecting the buffering action of dissolved bases in the sea water? As I understand it, correct me if I am wrong, if the water becomes more acid, some of the carbonic acid will decompose back to carbon dioxide and water, moving back towards the original balance. We are playing here with a complex soup, not a classroom experiment with distilled water. Can someone please paint a clearer picture than I can?
Absolute BS. Marine PH has NOT budged at all. These guys are either morons or more likely liars.
Absolute BS.
How can a very weak acid like carbonic acid (H2CO3) react with calcium carbonate (CaCO3), the stuff which corals etc. are mostly made off? It is just not chemically possible.
Also, if you do the maths: if all the carbon dioxide produced by man was absorbed by the oceans – which it isn’t, then it would take 50 years to increase the oceans’ CO2 content by one part per million.
Even our ’eminent climate scientists’ Patchi and Gore wouldn’t spout such garbage – or, silly me – would they?
Ocean acidification, if it occurs on a global basis, is caused by gigantic amounts of sulphuric acid laden volcanic ash from flow basalt lavas erupting over tens of thousands of years – in these instances, many thousands of square kilometres of the planet’s surface are buried under several kilometres of lava. Now that’s real climate change!
Like similar comments in earlier posts: ” I smell a big, fat, juicy grant.”
Ove has been predicting disaster for coral reefs for some years now due to mmgw and ocean acidity, particularly in the Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea. His predictions have been consistently wrong, the GBR is still thriving and the only reef in trouble is near Brisbane , where the sea/air temperatures are cooler.
The stupidy is stupefying
And there was me thinking that anthropogenic CO2 stayed in the atmosphere for hundreds of years.
These guys obviously didn’t get the memo from Yale Environment 360. They remain stuck in the old paradigm.
hunter (08:52:34) :
They are asserting bald faced lies. Why?
Because the global warming scare has stopped working and they need to wind up the next one in plenty of time. Why else?
Ed Murphy (08:57:07) :
They haven’t yet figured out how to blame volcanoes, earthquakes and asteroid impacts on human activity.
Give them time, and they’ll be wanting to sacrifice to the Gods. They’re just about halfway there in a natural progression. This is what happens when man trades the knowledge of how the world really works for shamanistic fearmongering. It’s all about control.
0.1 pH compared to a hundred years ago! I would seriously question any average pH reading that was +/- 0.1 taken today and the fact he concludes an ocean pH average in this range is about as suspect as an average global temperature. pH measurement is highly dependent on how much CO2 was driven off prior to measurement as well as a host of instrument and calibration variables. The pH can also change far more than this value as the result of the switch in the chemistry of photosynthesis between day and night Perhaps Dr. Cook should also look at EPAs range of “acceptable values” in the lab the certification process for pH.
It is relevant that Dr. Cook brings back the acidification issue– computer models proved the acid rain “crisis”. The models demanded we control SO2 to restore the pH of our rivers and lakes. We controlled SO2 however 20 years later there was no significant improvement in pH. Why? Because the models incorrectly assumed a titration process of acidity caused by acid rain when in reality the majority of the acid input was dissolved organic acids from biological processes. Ironically, the failure of pH improvement is now blamed on global warming speeding up these biological processes. The NAPAP report on acid rain actually said the acid rain theory was wrong– and for there efforts Dr Kulp was removed as the director and Ed Krug smeared and blacklisted by EPA. EPA also refused to release the NAPAP’s report until after Congress passed the acid rain legislation and Congress never asked for the report. Climate Change is Acid Rain Redux.
It is outrageous to compare the Permian extinction and the associated ocean acidification to anything happening now. The end of the Permian (his 251MYA reference) saw the largest flood basalt eruption in earth’s history spewing out material that covered some 2 million square kilometers. And along with it massive amounts of SO2 and H2S– the Permian most likely had far more to do with H2SO4 than CO2- and we are comparing loadings into the atmosphere that are orders of magnitude apart. Some “scientists” clearly have no shame.
Manufacture a threat. Then tax people that work to provide a solution.
Joe Romm was ranting on this some time back. He had some fat research that made the claims. For some strange reason, the article had nothing about the Ph of the ocean. When I asked what the ph factor was, the question was deleted.
Volcanoes. Limestone run off calciuum carbonate contact. There are many factors that can influence the alkaline ph factor.
Being or containing an acid; of a solution having an excess of hydrogen atoms (having a pH of less than 7) ”
As ocean temps rise, the oceans give off more CO2.
Like they say, the anti science mis informers have to write stufff for their adherents also.
Again we have projections so far in the future that there is no accountability. No present evidence, only conjecture of disaster.
hunter (08:52:34) :
They are asserting bald faced lies. Why?
The same reasons all the *other* politicians do — because they can.
As I understand it, the atmospheric CO2/ocean system is in equilibrium, and the CO2 is held in the water as bicarbonate, not carbonic acid. More CO2 in the ocean will INCREASDE pH, not reduce it. If the oceans, for some reason, DO get less alkaline, calcium carbonate will react & form bicarbonate, maintaining the equilibrrium. I’m certainly not an expert, but Dennis Nikols is right – they need to brush up on their chemistry.
“More than 30% of the CO2 released from burning fossil fuels, cement production, deforestation and other human activities goes straight into the oceans, turning them gradually more acidic.”
Oh yeah? Where do they get THAT little liestistic from? Are there signposts all over the place “This way to the ocean”?
stephen richards (08:41:22) :
Same old trick. Acidification when they mean less alkaline.
Yeah, it’s not a straight line, it’s more like a parabola, so getting less alkaline is not the same as getting more acidic. Go “below” 7 and the ratio reverses from that “above” 7.
What is interesting, or sad, is that the idiots, er, “scientists,” that keep saying “acidification” know that it is not true.
Mark
The ignorance of some of the commenters here is staggering. Increased acidification is a problem not to fish but to the tiny organisms that build calcium-based shells (and seqester CO2 in the process as the carbon in their shells sinks to the bottom when they die). As the acidification goes on, the ocean may lose some of its potential as a carbon sink. This has happened befoe in the distant past. You people ought to be ashamed of your knee-jerk groupthink.
“Ocean conditions are already more extreme than those experienced by marine organisms and ecosystems for millions of years,” What liars they are. They have no clue, this is opinion and speculation. Geocarb III shows this to be wrong.
““This will create conditions not seen on Earth for at least 40 million years”.” You’re kidding!
It is sad how little these people know about marine biology as well as the CO2 history in the atmosphere. CO2 was much higher even as recently as the 1940s.
““These changes are taking place at rates as much as 100 times faster than they ever have over the last tens of millions of years” Prof. Hoegh-Guldberg says.”
Very unlikely, but there is no way that this can be established – more opinion and speculation.
Marine organisms are much more tolerant of pH than these alarmists would like us to think. For the coralline ecosystems, CO2 is food for both photosynthesis and coral building. Any acidity from CO2 will have no effect on the solubility of calcium carbonate as a product of an equilibrium cannot affect its own equilibrium.
What these clowns ignore is that only an outside source of acidity, such as hydrochloric acid, can affect the extended equilibrium from CO2 to carbonic acid to carbonate to calcium carbonate. And seawater in the tropics is supersaturated with calcium carbonate, so additional CO2 will necessarily promote cementation/precipitation.
Also, the oceans have a historical pH range and they are still well within that range. I defy these alarmists to show the effects “even in the deep oceans” – there are too many other, larger factors. Furthermore, the oceans comprise a complex buffer system that will resist the changes they fantasize about.
Doing experiments on distilled water does not realistically emulate ocean water. And doing experiments on ocean water does not emulate ocean water with its organisms. Photosynthesis is an alkalizing process which can change the ocean’s pH by several units during a day. With this reality and more CO2, we can conclude two things” (1) most marine organisms can tolerate a surprisingly wide range of pH and (2) added CO2 makes them metabolically stronger and more tolerant of pH changes.
To claim that a 0.1 pH unit change has already caused detectable changes in the oceans’ marine life begs the question of how they separate the effects of such a small change in such a variable pH environment from the pH noise caused by all other processes, including living organisms, and also separating this small effect from all of the other parameters that have mostly greater effects. I find their conclusion entirely unacceptable.
This is like the concept of thirdhand smoke – the idea that coming home from having been in a room with smoke, i. e., smoke on your clothing, is enough to raise the risk of lung cancer in your children. There is no way that the effects of such a small, negligible factor can be separated from all of the other variables in human lives and activities.
The Cliffs of Dover were built by coral building during time with much higher CO2 than now.
This is another case of grasping at straws, trying to save the cap and trade/tax movement by finding another fear or disaster to promote.
Life is much more durable and adaptable – wait! – they left that part out. Organisms adapt! Of course, they say that these changes are occurring faster than ever to rule out adaption but CO2 rose faster in the 1930s and 1940s than it is today.
Their garbage never ends. We just have to keep spraying to cancel out the odor.
It’s DeVito not DaVito.
We are becoming more acidified from global warmers, our patience is about to blow out, baking soda (btw sodium bicarbonate) does not work anymore…The next global warmer I see……
Suggests, could and perhaps all in the same sentence. I suggest that this could, perhaps, be the most weasely statement seen in a while.
“Evidence gathered by scientists around the world over the last few years suggests that ocean acidification could represent an equal – or perhaps even greater threat – to the biology of our planet than global warming,” co-author Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and The University of Queensland says.
Amazing when they need it to justify a theory, the CAGW crowd claim that CO2 hangs around for centuries, while on the other hand they also claim that CO2 is building up in the Oceans and they claim “acification”.
Is it possible they could have it both ways?
Muratic acid, oxacilic acid or hydrochloric acid work to get the algae and moss off my boat’s bottom. If the oceans go all acidic, I won’t need to use acid.
Did I add to the ocean acidity when i rinsed off the acid and it went into the water?
We need to pin these people down. Every time I try, they back peddle and call it a scenario instead of a solid prediction.
My favorite Obama economist is named
Rosie Scenario PhD.
“CORAL-GATE”:
read:
http://hidethedecline.eu/pages/posts/corals-and-the-great-barrier-reef-43.php
K.R. Frank Lansner
Peter Miller (09:29:32) :
How can a very weak acid like carbonic acid (H2CO3) react with calcium carbonate (CaCO3), the stuff which corals etc. are mostly made off? It is just not chemically possible
IT DOES Baby
From the article: “Given the impacts we see in the fossil record, there is no question about the need to immediately reduce the rate at which we are emitting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,” he said further.
Circular reasoning at its best! [Or worst!].
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
But it does it with Calcium oxide.
“Evidence gathered by scientists around the world over the last few years suggests that ocean acidification could represent an equal – or perhaps even greater threat – to the biology of our planet than global warming,” co-author Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and The University of Queensland says.
Whoo hoo! 3 qualifiers and 2 get-out-of-jail free deflections in one sentence. Oh, and the second dash is in the wrong place, but the writer is probably to blame – he was distracted by trying to fit another ‘impact’ into the article. Words – they’re all you have. Learn to grammar better.
When your profession is threatened by the existence of informed lay persons, then those who feed at the public trough try to find another source for slops. Too many people know a significant amount about the atmosphere, so maybe fewer know anything about the ocean. Certainly, reading the post makes me think they’ve missed another target – too many people responded quickly with factual information. Oh well, they’ll keep trying.
If one removes all sentences containing the word ‘may,’ there isn’t much left.
I think that they realise the CO2 Global Warming is just about dead so they need something else to justify their Carbon Trading.
In a tour de force survey of the scientific literature to expose the scam that is the short “documentary “Acid Test” and the myth of “catastrophic ocean acidification”, Dr. Craig Idso’s not-so-easy read is here:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/acid_test.html
And then, much shorter read [two pages] by Dr. Isdo about the REAL causes of the demise of reefs around the world.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/commentaries_essays/coral_reefs.html
I think he made this one only two pages as if to say to the world and to the scientific community: DUH!
The new Evil Twin of CAGW, let’s call it CAOA [Catastrophic Anthropogenic Ocean Acidification] with their shared demonization of CO2, throw other legitimate environmental concerns, under the rickety, tye-dyed fume-belching VW bus.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Dollars to doughnuts we’ll be seeing headlines like “Ocean acidification is dissolving Arctic ice” in the near future…
You guys heard of the algal-biofuel peddling, ocean alkalanizer Brian Baird?
Funny that freshwater algae will ‘fix’ carbon, produce bio-jet fuels, qualify for carbon credits and save the globe from warming?
“These changes are taking place at rates as much as 100 times faster than they ever have over the last tens of millions of years” Prof. Hoegh-Guldberg says.
100 times faster. Exaggeration is a form of dishonesty. If someone meets this gent, ask him how he measured that before he made his claim.
If I may translate.
We marine scientists have noted just how much grant money can be attracted by promoting the AGW theory and we have also noted that the climate science community has become somewhat tainted with negative publicity and this has resulted in the AGW funding agencies looking around for another line attack promoting the AGW theory.
As marine scientists we are perfectly placed to take over some of the funding that our colleagues have been hogging for so long, our claims while utterly bogus in nature are happily so diverse and sound so superficially plausible that the AGW scare could be continued for long enough to enact the the true narrative.
Yours in anticipation of generous funding
The marine science community.
Does that sound like a reasonable translation?
Every study done in recent years shows no effect or a slight benefit for increased oceanic CO2, until it gets to levels far higher than we could push it.
“Lie” is unkind, but maybe not too strong a word for this.
“Frank Lansner (10:08:46) :
“CORAL-GATE”:
read:
http://hidethedecline.eu/pages/posts/corals-and-the-great-barrier-reef-43.php
K.R. Frank Lansner”
MODS! This deserves frontpage exposure!
It looks like business as usual over at the ARC Centre of Excellence in Coral Reef Studies. Here is what I wrote about one of their press releases in August.
http://www.anupchurchchrestomathy.com/2009/08/strong-meaningless-message.html
I wonder if this paper actually has some original research in it this time?
Marine biologists… the weirdest branch of Earth scientists. If you studied physical geography for a few years in university, you know what I’m talking about.
They are bound and determined to somehow keep some farce or the other going to justify grants and taxes. CO2, Methane, Ocean Acidification, Asteroids, Hemmoroids, Men from Mars, they’ll take anything they can and try and use it. They’re unconscionable.
Larus (09:58:15) :
The ignorance of some of the commenters here is staggering. Increased acidification is a problem not to fish but to the tiny organisms that build calcium-based shells (and seqester CO2 in the process as the carbon in their shells sinks to the bottom when they die).
Those tiny organisms that build their shells (and sequester CO2 in the process) *like* the additional “acid” — it allows them to take advantage of the additional calcium to build thicker shells.
As the acidification goes on, the ocean may lose some of its potential as a carbon sink. This has happened befoe in the distant past.
Did that happen *before* or *after* life got its start?
I wonder how the oceans and PH levels were affected by the glacial dam burst of Lake Agassiz about 10,000 years ago? The short version (best as I’ve read) was a lot of eastern Canada was under a fresh water lake behind a Glacial dam. When it burst, it took three days to empty and some guesstimates show upto a three meter sealevel rise from this event alone. I wonder what that did to the PH level??? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Agassiz
And we know sea life continued on….
It would be uncharitable to suggest that, with the AGW hypothesis crumbling, a fall back is needed to lobby for carbon taxes and research funding.
Charles Higley (09:59:14) :
Most eloquently said! Obviously from a specialist in the field. Thank you for that.
Also, let’s not let “them” forget what “they” just released last December!
http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=7545&tid=282&cid=63809&ct=162
Even then, though, the circular reasoning fallacy raises its ugly head again by this now all-too-common end-quote:
“The bottom line is that we really need to bring down CO2 levels in the atmosphere.”
Huh??
This is how “they” HAVE to end their news releases and articles because
they :
i) want to continue their funding lifeline and
ii) when confronted with study after study which shows evidence to the contrary, summoning the CO2 Demon at the end is their only way out.
We have hit a new low….
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Corals and other shellfish evolved during the Cambrian era, when atmospheric CO2 levels were 10-20X current values.
Thomas J. Arnold. (09:15:47) wrote: “Yes but;
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V13/N9/EDIT.php
A good article with references worth looking up.”
Thanks, I read the paper, takes about five to seven minutes.
Yes, the linked paper puts so-called ocean “acidification” in proper perspective.
And, what perspective is that?
The paper linked above does an excellent job of showing this is another warmist scaremongering exercise, and, yes, as others have pointed out, a financial grant begging exercise.
I recommend reading the linked paper:
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V13/N9/EDIT.php
Schwarzeneggar nope
Schwarzenegger yes
This whole argument on “acidification” is based on a theoretical pH of what the ocean’s pH was like 200+ years ago and model estimates of what the ocean’s pH will be in 100 years.
Meanwhile, natural pH variation is +/- 1 pH unit over very short periods of time and measurement precision is at best +/- 0.1 pH unit in this type of matrix and accuracy is +/- 0.2 pH unit.
There has been no observed change in pH and to claim there has is pure fiction. Further, as noted above, the argument is not consistent with other AGW claims and man’s CO2 contribution is so minor compared to natural CO2, as far as this question is concerned, as to be negligible.
What are we to do, cap all of those natural oceanic vents that in some cases pump out 100% liquid CO2?
Lubchenco has to be one of the most dishonest (or ignorant) politicized scientists. The term “acidification” was clearly chosen to invoke an emotional response.
I searched the March and April issues of TREE and I can’t find the paper. Does anybody know where to find it?
Does the paper say what the effects have been so far or just what could happen if things got worse? How did they measure pH in the pre-industrial era vs. now consistently? This smells like tree rings to me.
Does this make global warming the “good twin?” Just asking.
They don’t give up do they?
In Darwin we used to say Queenslanders called their beer “XXXX” -fourex- because they couldn’t spell beer!
They’re going to try to shift focus away from those things that the average person can see for themselves (weather patterns, temperatures) to those things that only Official IPCC-Approved Climate Scientists™ can measure and understand.
Anyone can look at historical temperature records and realize that AGW is nonsense, but, the oceans, man! That’s different! They’re dissolving because of CO2 pollution, man! And you can’t argue cuz you’re not an ocean scientist!
James Evans (09:10:24) : “We must ‘immediately reduce’ carbon emissions, because the fossil record tells us that species have become extinct in the last few hundreds of millions of years.”
SAVE THE COELACANTH! DEPOSIT MONEY TO MY BANK ACCOUNT BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!!!
[picture of cuddly-fuzzy coelacanth goes HERE.]
DonK31 (09:21:34) :
Most of these reefs did not exist, at least in their present locations, 15000 years ago. The area where they now exist was dry land before the great global warming that melted most of the ice cap and raised sea levels 300 ft. Like climate, ocean conditions are never static.
—————————————————-
Very good call.
You are spot-on, DonK
TerryS (09:35:23) :
And there was me thinking that anthropogenic CO2 stayed in the atmosphere for hundreds of years.
Let the contradictions begin.
Soon the body will attack itself.
Autoapocalypse syndrome!
I just wonder when was the Golden Age when CO2 levels and global temperatures were at their absolute optimum, life was sweet, the land was filled with milk and honey. Polar bears (not too many, not too few) frolicked gently in the not too warm Arctic..the oceans were of exactly the correct PH, the deserts greened just a little, the rain forest grew nicely, birds cheeped a bit……..and all was well in teh ebst of all possible worlds.
And then along came Man and ruined it all…..maybe it was eating that first apple that did it…or lighting that fire….and everything turned to Ashes…it was Original Sin writ large.
Or so the myth makers will have you believe. Funny how the same old stories keep cropping up in so many apparently dissociated places.
Still with the current trends and the failure of the belief in AGW, we can truly predict at least one positive benefit…the Downfall of Mann
PS If anyone has a date for the Golden Age, I’d love to know….cheers
Larus (09:58:15) : “You people ought to be ashamed of your knee-jerk groupthink.”
Pot Calling Kettle Blackimus Uniterruptus Maximus.
I have an assignment for you: Download, print, and read, from cover to cover the following.
The first one is a rather exhaustive SURVEY…not one study…..but survey of studies. I dare you. Read it cover to cover.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/acid_test.html
Then read this short two-pager as to what is really killing our reefs.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/commentaries_essays/coral_reefs.html
If you want to get concerned about real environmental problems that are vexing the oceans…..disastrous overfishing, wholesale species depletion of apex predators, massive fertilizer /pesticide runoff and coastal pollution, reef habitat destruction…the giant Pacific Trash Gyre…etc…then I am all ears.
But the CO2 ship is sinking fast…and you’d better abandon it while you have time!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Cap and trade vinegar now!
Tom Segalstad has some info on this;
http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/esef4.htm
Larus (09:58:15) :
You have truly displayed your ignorance for all to see. Some of use know a little bit more about the subject then the phony scientist who authored this piece of propaganda. Unlike them some of us have actually ran controlled experiments and taken real data. It is what used to be called science, but I am sure this is beyond you.
I see Jane Lubchenco’s “education” site has a version of this.
http://www.climatecentral.org/breaking
Study warns of ocean acidification effects
Published: March 30th, 2010
UPI – British researchers say ocean acidification, the result of increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, could significantly affect marine ecosystems. … Read More
Of course Jane is the one who said months ago that it is like “osteoperosis of the sea.”
Look at this
http://www.noaa.gov/video/administrator/acidification/index.html
It’s amazing
The Little chap still looks like Danny de Vito.
Must be something da matter with my eyes !
Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and The University of Queensland is not exactly reliable
“In 1999, Hoegh-Guldberg warned that the Great Barrier Reef was under pressure from global warming, and much of it had turned white.
In fact, he later admitted the reef had made a “surprising” recovery.
In 2006, he warned high temperatures meant “between 30 and 40 per cent of coral on Queensland’s great Barrier Reef could die within a month”.
In fact, he later admitted this bleaching had “a minimal impact”.
In 2007, he warned that temperature changes of the kind caused by global warming were again bleaching the reef.
In fact, the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network last week said there had been no big damage to the reef caused by climate change in the four years since its last report, and veteran diver Ben Cropp said this week that in 50 years he’d seen none at all.”
“The Ph of the ocean is 8.1 to 8.4 (depending who you listen to) Putting lots of CO2 into air & it being absorbed into the ocean will reduce the PH slightly over a 100 years but it will never reach neutral (PH of 7) let alone become acidic. (PH under 7) ”
With thanks to Professor Peter Ridd (marine scientist at James Cook University via Climate Sceptics in Oz
But wait! Do the Seven Seas really contain pure, distilled water? Isn’t there a lot of conjugated salt ions there, buffering out tiny amoutnts of CO2? There ought to be both Ca++ and Na+ and many other ions in the Sea.
CO2(aq) CO2
CO2(aq) + H20 H2CO3
H2CO3 H+ + HCO3-
HCO3- H+ + CO3–
CaCO3 Ca++ + CO3- –
CaHCO3 Na+ + CO3- – <-NaHCO3-
H2O H+ + OH-
We used to call it a carbonate buffer
If oceans get acidified it wouldn’t be due to large amounts of HCl and sulpur oxides, Such might for sure come from burning yuck, volcanoes and what not.
In general, CO2 levels have been decreasing through geologic time. See:
http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/climatechange2/07_1.shtml
Apparently ancient life (which was dominated by marine life) had no problems with substantially higher CO2 & presumably substantially lower pH’s.
Regardless of the validity of the author’s point, they come across as typical alarmists, which should be dismissed out of hand.
Hey AGW skeptics…no need to worry about ocean acidification…move on and celebrate how great Fox News is instead…
[snip – thanks, but let’s leave that OT note unmentioned for now -Anthony]
How come this bs is still on the table, because this has to be the easiest cheesiest bull snack to debunk ever, what with every ([‘]orific[e]) evidence being non-existent.
Like when was the last time it happened during our some four point five odd billion years due to either, and, or, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere or the oceans, or both at the same time?
See http://www.CO2web.info
Web-info about CO2 and the “Greenhouse Effect” Doom; by Tom V. Segalstad
DOWNLOAD my ESEF Vol. 1 Chapter (PDF approx. 200 kbytes):
Segalstad, T. V. 1996: The distribution of CO2 between atmosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere; minimal influence from anthropogenic CO2 on the global “Greenhouse Effect”. In Emsley, J. (Ed.): The Global Warming Debate. The Report of the European Science and Environment Forum. Bourne Press Ltd., Bournemouth, Dorset, U.K. (ISBN 0952773406), pp. 41-50.
DOWNLOAD my ESEF Vol 2 Chapter (PDF approx. 500 kbytes):
Segalstad, T. V. 1998: Carbon cycle modelling and the residence time of natural and anthropogenic atmospheric CO2: on the construction of the “Greenhouse Effect Global Warming” dogma. In Bate, R. (Ed.): Global warming: the continuing debate. ESEF, Cambridge, U.K. (ISBN 0952773422), pp. 184-219.
Segalstad cites Walker over the impact of stopping all photosynthesis (ie greater than all fossil fuels):
Walker, J.C.G. (1994): Global geochemical cycles of carbon. In: Tolbert, N.E. & Preiss,
J. (Eds.): Regulation of atmospheric CO2 and O2 by photosynthetic carbon metabolism. Oxford University Press, 75-89.
Segalstad Vol 1 p 4 states:
Despite all the doubts expressed above, the chemistry well known. The details get more complex, but the basic reaction is given by the equation
CaCO3+H2O+CO2Ca2+(aq)+2HCO32-(aq)
Increasing the amount of CO2 dissolved in the ocean will tend to push the equilibrium to the right, making it more difficult for organisms with calcareous structures to deposit calcite. Increase the CO2 concentration enough, and some species will not be able to survive. The ecosystem disruption at the Late Eocene Thermal Maximum is a good analogue for this.
These people have had ocean “acidification” in the bull pen warming up for a good while. I suspect that since their AGW gambit appears to be failing to inspire the required amount of hysteria, they will bring ocean “acidification” to the mound.
Under “Ocean Acidification” at Wikipedia, the claim is that “between 1741 and 1994 surface ocean pH is estimated to have decreased from approximately 8.179 to 8.104 (a change of -0.075). They were able to measure pH in 1741 to three decimal places? Measuring to three decimal places even today is a problem. A modern, carefully calibrated pH meter today, is capable of measuring to plus or minus 0.01 pH unit. And as I understand it, pH meters started to appear only in the 1930’s. Earlier titration methods are not likely to have been nearly as accurate as today’s meters.
I had an exchange with Joshua Halpern alias Eli Rabett back in December 2008. My comment was that “acidification” according to Merriam Webster means “to make acid” or “to convert into an acid.” I asked if he was really claiming that the oceans are being turned from alkaline to acidic? And exactly how was ocean pH being measured with the precision that is being implied in preindustrial times. The answer that I got was a contemptuous non-answer. I would be happy to send a copy of the exchange to anyone that is interested.
Prof. Bob Carter is based at James Cook, Uni., Townsville, N. Queensland. There must be some interesting chats in the coffee room!
Alan (10:29:43) :
Marine biologists have taken a page from wildlife biologists and evolutionary biologists. Once the Endangered Species Act was enacted, these scientist-entrepeneurs located obscure relatively unknown species, claimed that it was the sole known population, and that it would be extirpated by the proposed land use or development. These claims became the source of numerous research grants that often proved to be corrupt science, that is research was designed to prove their claims.
The first instance was the infamous snail darter a 3″ fish that stopped the TVA from building new power houses. Later work proved that the snail darter was everywhere, but no one have ever looked for them.
The northern spotted owl was the proxy used to shut down most of the logging in the Pacific Northwest. Recent research reveals that the spotted owl is being extirpated by the more aggressive barred owl who interbreeds and prays upon its smaller cousin.
Marine biologists are using the same tactics to save to protect marine habitat and fragile creatures that live there.
This is how the money changes hands.
Rainwater condensing from cloud formations dissolves CO2 to form weak carbonic acid, it always has and it always will. It has been responsible for stalactites and stalagmites in caves over thousands of years. Rainwater of course is initially pure water in which there are few ionic species; seawater however is quite different and contains many soluble anions and cations. Sodium and magnesium, which will form stable crystalline solid bicarbonates, are present in (as ions) abundance. Carbon dioxide in seawater yields salts such as sodium carbonate which is soluble in water and is hydrolysed in solution thus:
Na2CO3+H2O = NaHCO3+NaOH
and these solutions are in fact alkaline. For warmists to pronounce that the simple addition of carbonic acid or dissolution of CO2 in seawater will make it acidic is nonsense and they (the warmists) clearly do not understand the complex ionic system pertaining in the oceans. The capacity of seawater to buffer pH changes is well known and its pH always remains in the range 7.5 to 8.4 which is alkaline.
“This will create conditions not seen on Earth for at least 40 million years”.
I don’t think that there are any conditions today that have been seen more than 120 years ago. If there is anyone that has seen any conditions 40 million years ago, please raise your fossilized hand.
http://www.unisci.com/stories/20022/0613022.htm
Of Sunspots, Volcanic Eruptions And Climate Change
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~wsoon/GoldbergMay05-d/Summer_of_1816.pdf
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090501203430.htm
Ocean Acidification: Understanding How Mussels Have Adapted To Extremely Acidic Waters Near Underwater Volcanoes
There seems to be an absence of field work correlating rates of volcanic events and their magnitudes to solar flux and longterm climate patterns
http://www.unisci.com/stories/20022/0613022.htm
Of Sunspots, Volcanic Eruptions And Climate Change
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~wsoon/GoldbergMay05-d/Summer_of_1816.pdf
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090501203430.htm
Ocean Acidification: Understanding How Mussels Have Adapted To Extremely Acidic Waters Near Underwater Volcanoes
There seems to be an absence of field work correlating rates of volcanic events and their magnitudes to solar flux and longterm climate patterns
http://andyadkins.livejournal.com/tag/tweets just some thoughts
Well, the warming scare may be dying, but our Congress hasn’t gotten the message yet. Bipartisan Climate bill (free registration required to read this.)
‘We must act now’
‘The science is settled’
‘The debate is over’
Sounds familiar?
They should go read about Henrys Law, the sea cannot absorb additional co2 unless it cools down abit – of course then there are the millions of processes we dont understand or know about yet that need to be considered.
Of course rain is acidic naturally, should we stop the rain from falling? It might make the ocean more acidic?
Woods Hole Oceanographic institution did a recent study of increased CO2 and the effects on marine life. The their surprise many thrived with thicker shells and others shrugged it off unless levels became unrealistically high. The link is below:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091201182622.htm
Smokey- I like the term grant-begging, good one. Hope you don’t mind if I use it?
If ocean “acidification” is so easily knocked-down as the comments, here, have readily accomplished, what is its purpose?
Grant begging for sure, but also, it’s a drive-by “billboard” to keep those on the fence or in the warmist camp right where they are, and possibly to get reasonable skeptics to roll back on their heels, too (another charge to answer).
As to the reasonable skeptics — it won’t work.
As to the “billboard” tactic — knowledge is power — spreading the information which that knowledge rests on — is the task at hand for reasonable skeptics.
While the oceans are becoming more acidic they will have to pass PH neutral. How does that work?
The real threat to the oceans is runoff pollution, not CO2. Why don’t they spend more time working on the nitrate, phosphate, and heavy metal water pollution issues which are a much, much, (orders of magnitude) bigger issue for the oceans than a tiny 0.1 PH change.
In Sen. INHOFE’s EPW blog he describes how the AGW activists are working (noted by the EPA) to include ALL U.S. waters “acidification” to be used to make GHG arguments for Tax/Cap and Endangerment legislation:
March 29, 2010
Posted by: David Lungren David_Lungren@epw.senate.gov
EPW POLICY BEAT: PREEMPTION TIME
Preemption: it’s the issue everyone’s talking about. We see this as a welcome development, as policymakers are now asking: what is preemption? And if preemption is part of climate legislation, what, exactly, are we preempting?
To our minds, preemption means preventing the hijacking of environmental statutes either to force Congress’s hand to adopt cap-and-trade legislation or to achieve backdoor greenhouse gas regulations. These are statutes, of course, that were never designed nor intended to reduce greenhouse gases. Comprehensive preemption must also address state climate programs as well greenhouse gas “nuisance” lawsuits that benefit the green tort bar at the expense of jobs and consumers.
One important area of preemption is the Clean Air Act (CAA). The CAA was not designed to regulate greenhouse gases. But don’t take our word for it; ask Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.). “The Clean Air Act,” he said on December 7, “was not designed to regulate greenhouse gases, as the then-Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee I know what was intended when we wrote the legislation.” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) has launched an admirable effort to overturn EPA’s endangerment finding under the CAA. This is a badly needed first step.
Sen. Murkowski’s effort has sparked a broader discussion about extending preemption to other areas. Take the Clean Water Act (CWA) as Exhibit A. The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) sued EPA for the agency’s failure to address acidification caused by greenhouse gas emissions. And on March 10, the CBD got what it wanted: a legal settlement forcing EPA to begin a process that could lead to greenhouse gas controls under the CWA. According to Inside EPA, “Activists hope that by listing waters as impaired due to CO2 emissions, it will provide additional leverage to regulate the GHG under the Clean Water Act.” A “CBD source” also “hopes the guidance will ultimately lead” to the establishment of a Total Maximum Daily Load, or TMDL, requirements that will “require reductions in air emissions of CO2 — a novel use of the water act to cut CO2 emissions.”
The rest of the INHOFE EPW post:
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=ab4e9bea-802a-23ad-4ed4-6d2aa77de71e&Issue_id=
nc (11:54:29),
Be my guest.
Waaaaait a minute. I thought the pro AGW lobbyists always stated that the rise in global temp. was from a release of CO2 from the oceans after initial heating. There has been much, much larger proportions of CO2 at the end of the last ice age & it didn’t kill everything. Really, I think they just make it up as they go along. It’ll be in the next IPCC for sure, with red sirens, alarm bells, & big signs saying ‘the end is nigh!!!’ …. (from WWF & Greenpeace in the small print of course).
HereticFringe (12:08:39) wrote:
“The real threat to the oceans is runoff pollution, not CO2. Why don’t they spend more time working on the nitrate, phosphate, and heavy metal water pollution issues which are a much, much, (orders of magnitude) bigger issue for the oceans than a tiny 0.1 PH change.”
Yes, you are right.
While I don’t have an answer readily at hand, it seems that CO2 levels in the atmosphere (and in the oceans) are a distraction from the real environmental issues at hand (and they are numerous).
Those environmental issues would actually take sustained, tailored, specific steps to remedy and they can’t easily be “Enron’ed” into a trading scheme that enriches the “big guys” as would a cap-n-trade scheme (lots of new tax money to play with and power, too, for the politicians).
In a way, CO2 is a smokescreen which enables the “big guys” to look like they are “helping” the environment, when in reality all they want is a “wind fall” financial gain off the appearance of “helping” the environment.
The cynicism and arrogance is unbounded.
When the polar bears slide off their last remaining icebergs into the sea, they’re now going to die horribly by dissolving in the acid! (Cue pictures of cuddly polar bearcubs)……we must save them!! Send money NOW!!!!!!!
HereticFringe (12:08:39) :
“The real threat to the oceans is runoff pollution, not CO2. Why don’t they spend more time working on the nitrate, phosphate, and heavy metal water pollution issues…”
Absolutely. I don’t hear any AGW supporters fighting the corner for Polar Bears when it comes to mercury poisoning. And that is probably a greater threat to their existence than whether the freeze is a month late.
On the question of WHY?
A theory on motive behind the scam:
There’s more to climate fraud than just tax hikes
http://alethonews.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/theres-more-to-climate-fraud-than-just-tax-hikes/
http://www.americanthinker.com/%231%20CO2EarthHistory.gif
First corals appeared on Ordovician period, when the CO2 was 4-5000 ppm high. Are they absolutely insane?
Paddy (11:47:44) :
Don’t forget the Delta Smelt which is not even close to being endangered.
At present in the atmosphere there are 2,900 giga tonnes of CO2 and in the oceans more than 50 times this amount creating a massive imbalance.
Henry’s-law constant H for CO2-water solutions is 1.42×10^3 atm/mole fraction at 20 C. Using simple Henry’s-law solubilities (p=H*x), the oceans should hold only 30% of the 2,900 giga tonnes of the atmospheric CO2 at equilibrium, but the actual figure is >50times this amount. In fact, for an ideal vapour-liquid equilibrium system obeying Raoult’s law, an atmospheric pressure of 175 atmospheres would be required to contain this colossal amount (50*2,900=145,000 giga tonnes) of CO2 in the oceans. The majority share of CO2 is taken up by the oceans competing with the biosphere’s CO2 requirements for plant growth and food supply. Non-ideality accounts for its large solubility in water and clearly it is sequestered and fixed by chemical and biological reactions. They involve the formation of carbonate rocks and phytoplankton growth through photosynthesis. The reactions remove dissolved CO2 from the equilbrium equation, driving it to the right, thereby giving the oceans a near limitless ability to absorb CO2.
With the foregoing inmind, for warmists and these so-called scientists to say that a few ppm increase in atmospheric CO2 will cause dangerous acidification of the oceans is complete nonsense. There obviously is a warmist agenda here.
Larus (09:58:15) :
Having re-read the comments above yours, which surely are the reason for your inane, pointless, unfocussed and meaningless outburst, unless you have posted in the wrong thread, I see no mention by anyone, other than rbateman’s sarcasm (which was v funny) and Eddie’s anecdotal passing ref, of fish having a problem with “acidity”???
Shurely shome mistake?
Fred H. Haynie (09:10:30) :
They don’t seem to have a clue about CO2 chemistry in the oceans that contain so much sodium, calcium, magnesium, lithium, zinc and other basic elements. (…)
This is why I cringe when they state how the sodium content of something (like canned soup) has now been lowered by switching to “natural sea salt.” Dang it, I know what a salt is, and there are chemicals in that “natural” salt I may not want in my body, either at high levels or at all.
Sodium-reduction factoid: Apparently it is a big issue to have too much potassium intake, over-the-counter supplements in the US are limited to just 3% of the Daily Value, more than that requires a prescription. Common NaCl substitutes like “No Salt” and Morton’s “Salt Substitute” use potassium chloride, for a 1/4 teaspoon serving size they yield 19% (1.3g serving) and 17% (1.2g serving) DV respectively.
BTW, I’ve found a 1/4 tsp of those in some warm water is good for muscle cramps, can bring up the acid some though.
“Today, the surface waters of the oceans have already acidified by an average of 0.1 pH units from pre-industrial levels, and we are seeing signs of its impact even in the deep oceans”
If ocean pH can vary in a given spot, and over a single day, as much as 20 times the reported drop of 0.1 units since “pre-industrial times,” then:
1. How is it possible to measure the average pH of the oceans, globally, and all the way back to pre-industrial times, with an accuracy of 0.1 units? Where is the database for such measurements? What are they based on?
2. Assuming they could measure it, how can they tell such a small variation is the cause of all those things?
@ David L. Hagen (11:26:21) :”See http://www.CO2web.info
Web-info about CO2 and the “Greenhouse Effect” Doom; by Tom V. Segalstad”
That has got to be the most difficult-to-read paper I have ever come across. It reads like a Google translation from Norwegian! It appears to contain a lot of important information but judging by the sloppy English, I doubt it.
Aha! this explains the lack of fresh water shelled animals..Oh no wait.
Even a basic course in Ocean chemistry gives the lie to this rediculous claim.
If this is what the pseudo-science is resuced to it is sad indeed.
Ed Murphy (08:57:07) :
(…)
Undersea volcano threatens southern Italy
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/6999229/undersea-volcano-threatens-southern-italy-report/
(…)
There, see what happened The Mediterranean got acidified from the man-made CO2 and it weakened the volcano walls.
Send in the grant money! Prepare the legislation! We have concrete proof of an ecological catastrophe that needs to be averted right now. It is so urgent, first we will solve the problem, then the science can catch up and verify how large a problem it really was!
The implicit fallacy in all these horror tales of ocean’s “acidifying” is that the PH of seawater is accurately represented by a single value and has been relatively constant over time. The truth is that the PH varies dramatically over very short time spans, 0.2-0.3 based on TOD, over a full point annually, over 1.5 in less than a decade [Wootton, Pfister&Forester 2008 PNAS]. The average value also has, like virtually every natural phenomenon ever observed, its own pattern of cyclicity. The changes noted in PH in recent times may be an indication that something unusual is happening, but are at this point well within the bounds of natural variability.
I liked it better in the old days when the “precautionary principle” meant that, if you wanted to call yourself a scientist, you didn’t engage in wild leaps of logic far beyond the evidence you had at hand.
James F. Evans (11:57:32) :
“If ocean “acidification” is so easily knocked-down as the comments, here, have readily accomplished, what is its purpose?”
Availability Cascade—-simple marketing
R. Gates (11:21:22) : “Hey AGW skeptics…no need to worry about ocean acidification…”
Wow I can’t believe it. A sentence fragment authored by R. Gates that I actually agree with!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
The people producing this report clearly so not understand the complex chemistry of the ocean. There are many processes at work which keep the pH alkaline, even with the addition of extra CO2.
Of more concern to the effects human activity have on ocean life are the amount of noxious and other waste products produced by industry and agriculture. Why is action not being taken to solve this obvious problem?
Follow the money…
Philip T. Downman (11:18:44) :
But wait! Do the Seven Seas really contain pure, distilled water? Isn’t there a lot of conjugated salt ions there, buffering out tiny amoutnts of CO2?
There are *ladies* who read here, sirrah!
We’ve posted a number of times on this subject, linking to actual research. Multiple peer-researched studies indicate a far less alarmist, catastrophic outcome compared to this study.
The acidification postings:
http://www.c3headlines.com/are-oceans-becoming-acidic/
plus related coral reef postings,
http://www.c3headlines.com/are-coral-reefs-dying/
What we must remember about Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and The University of Queensland and his colleagues is that they have a very sweet gig going.
They get to play with boats, go scuba diving and snorkelling, stay on small islands, drink beer and have barbeques all at the expense of the Australian taxpayer while doing no real work.
It is apparent they will say anything to keep this sweet scam going.
The geoengineering solution, of course, is to add tons of Tums. In fact, the same ships adding all the tiny bubbles to the water to increase the albedo could also be dumping Tums in the water at the same time. Two climate birds with one stone. Think of the job creation, too.
Absolutely nowhere in the quoted text does it say exactly what happens to marine life with this pH change, nor does it quote any (non-corrupted) peer-reviewed reproducible experiments or empirical evidence of cause.
Sounds a lot like the regular AGW hoo-hah.
Typical of our new age scientists, they miss the obvious point that ocean acidification was the result of some catastrophic event and not the cause.
The 251 million years ago extinction is thought to have been an impact event but there is a strong case for a geothermal cause. It is thought to have occurred in the ocean where the highest level of extinctions occurred but terrestrial life suffered greatly.
The Paleocene/Eocene boundary, 55.8 million years ago also saw an extinction event that doesn’t appear to be related to the The K-T mass extinction. The Chicxulub Asteroid Impact happened in shallow water and close to land, It’s effect was different from the 251 million year and 55.8 million year extinctions perhaps because the ocean shock wave was shallow and much of the debris was ejected into the air. It still led to mass extinctions but the pattern was different, seemingly spread over land and ocean.
The Paleocene/Eocene boundary extinctions event, 55.8 million years ago is a very strange occurrence. It only lasted 20,000 years but seems to have been two events caused by the same phenomena and called Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum.
All things point to a massive sub oceananic erruption that blasted muck and filthy steam into the ocean and atmosphere. This may have led to lower troposphere warming but it was short lived as the crud soon rained out but led to turbid ocean surface water that blocked light from penetrating to at depth ocean life. It also increased ocean heat absorption at upper levels.
This along with settling particles over the dead ocean floor life systems, led to decay and carbon dioxide and methane production increased along with anoxic acidic conditions. As the water cleared, light could penetrate deeper and kelps and other sea flora began to redress the balance. Eventually the ocean recovered, carbon dioxide levels fell and the PH of the ocean and oxygen levels returned to normal for that era.
In Australia this whole issue is 110% politics there is absolutely no Science involved. My experience is that there are few scientist of any worth there. Usually the good ones go to the US and the lousy ones from the US go there. For example Tim Flannery (one who stayed, who is not a weathermen but I think a biologist) won Australian of the year for saying that Australia would dry up completely! Its been the wettest year in Qld for years all dams a 100% full LOL. Its basically full of EPA type scientist don’t believe the hype….
Whenever a “scientific” paper uses “suggests” in the first paragraph, I read no further and trash can it. It’s a simple test. Either they can prove it does, or shut up!
I know I’m probably a bit of a dunce for not understanding the fundamentals of C02 dissolving in the oceans but can someone please explain how the oceans can be both (a) Warming at supposedly alarming levels AND (b) absorbing more C02? When I did “O level” Chemistry 30 years ago I was taught that dissolved gasses are liberated by liquids as they are heated….surely for C02 to be absorbed by the oceans they must be cooling – or the oceans are warming and must be liberating C02…..My head hurts!
Steve Goddard
Juraj V
Corals and shellfish did indeed evolve – the opposite of extinction – and they thrived and spread widely, during the Cambrian-Ordovician, with atmospheric CO2 8-20 x higher than today.
‘Are these people utterly insane?’
They are utterly ignorant, utterly cynical and secure in their Australian tax-funded jobs.
This was entirely predictable. Once the wheels started coming of the CO2-AGW link, there had to be another hare running to keep the scam going. Saw this one coming, see my posts of just over a year ago, March 19, 2009:
This one is the introduction:
http://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/ocean-acidification-scam/
The sequel has more meat, and lots of references:
http://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/toxic-seawater-fraud/
The Royal Society published a position paper about this in 2005 “Ocean acidification due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide”, full of nonsense – as usual. Some points in error dealt with in the ‘toxic seawater fraud’ post.
MartinGAtkins (14:43:43) :
The Permian was most likely the basalt floods from the Siberian Traps
The science of marine biology is next in line to be marginalized by the (self snip) busybodies. Maybe the Marine Biologists will see what has happened to the credibility of Climatoologists, and nip this nonsense in the bud.
Naahhhhh…. the money’s too good… as long as it lasts.
Ove Hoegh-Guldberg hasn’t had a single one of his dire predictions come true.
I’m not about to start worrying about his latest.
I’m not going to comment on the subject of ocean acidifaction, except to say that outside of the cloistered world of WUWT is a pretty well accepted fact.
Reading down the comments absolutely no-one who reads this site apparently wants to believe it. Very few of you are scientists or really have any idea what you are talking about, yet you are all quite comfortable in confidently dismissing ocean acidification, siting for “proof” such things as the mating habits of frogs in your swimming pools!
Just when did America stop educating its population in science?
save the sharks said:
R. Gates (11:21:22) : “Hey AGW skeptics…no need to worry about ocean acidification…”
Wow I can’t believe it. A sentence fragment authored by R. Gates that I actually agree with!
______
But not the Fox New part? C’mon, isn’t this one big package deal?
“Robert T (15:50:07) : Your comment is awaiting moderation”
That was a waste of effort then…
Ocean acidification…ice caps melting…polar bears drowning…sea gulls with their beaks stuck in plastic…Obama’s Health care plan…
So many problems but so little tax money to go around!
But at least Fox News is up in viewersthip!
“Saaad (15:21:21) :
[…]
oceans can be both (a) Warming at supposedly alarming levels AND (b) absorbing more C02? When I did “O level” Chemistry 30 years ago I was taught […]”
Rising temperatures leads to a tendency to release CO2 but at the same time mankinds emissions increase the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere, creating a tendency to push more CO2 into the oceans. Looks like at the moment the net effect is absorption of atmospheric CO2 into the oceans. I am not a chemist though…
(Yawn) Wake me up when I can dip my cup in the ocean and pull out soda pop.
“i’m not going to comment on the subject of ocean acidifaction, except to say that outside of the cloistered world of WUWT is a pretty well accepted fact” -Robert T,
Yeah sure guy. “pretty well accepted,” Well that settles it then… huh”
Robbie, What is the ratio of human produced CO2 vs “natural” CO2 contributed to the oceans?
Robert T : All comments are moderated though I do agree with your comment in particular, that it “was a waste of effort”. Clearly, the basic Chemistry involved in dissolving CO2 into the Sea has not been your field of study.
Can I suggest a study of ‘Buffer solutions’ and what ‘Buffering ‘ means in chemistry when we are talking about attempting to acidify – or actually – render the sea less alkaline. Hint: the sea is a Buffer solution.
“Suggests, could and perhaps all in the same sentence. I suggest that this could, perhaps, be the most weasely statement seen in a while.”
Well it’s not quite the gem that my favorite vitamin advertisement (name redacted) is, but it’s close. Check out the weasel words in this advertising copy:
[Major vitamin brand product] is a complete multivitamin with more Calcium to promote strong bones, and more Vitamin D – which emerging research suggests may support breast health
Aren’t you just raring to go out and plunk down your hard-earned money on a product that has that much solid science behind it? Emerging research (meaning unconfirmed) suggests (vague) may (double vague) support (what does that mean, really?) breast health (another vague term). I laugh every time I hear it.
And this study should be taken the same way. There’s no way events hundreds of millions of years ago that took place in entirely different circumstances say anything about what we need to do “immediately” in terms of our present political/technological circumstances. They are reframing a fourth order conclusion as a piece of direct evidence from the fossil record. I suggest that may be a big mistake. Perhaps.
“Robert T (15:51:56) :
“Robert T (15:50:07) : Your comment is awaiting moderation”
That was a waste of effort then…”
Your effort to ignore all the links posted in this thread or your effort in smearing the commenters?
@george E. Smith
It is Danny DeVito. The film was “Twins” where Arnie and Danny turn out to be twins separated at birth. The obvious disparity in size is about as funny as the movie gets, unfortunately.
Are these “scientists” aware that only 3.27% of all CO2 put into the atmosphere is from man and the other 96.73% comes from the oceans, soils and vegetation?
Are these “scientists” aware that as the oceans warm from increased solar irradiance, they release CO2 out of solution into the atmosphere?
Are these “scientists” aware that the Citadel of CO2 measurement, the station at Mauna Loa, is measuring CO2 emitted by the Pacific Ocean and the world’s largest active volcano it sits on and not emissions from man?
Are these “scientists” aware that ice core data reveals CO2 increases happen about 800 years AFTER temperature increases?
Are these ‘scientists” aware that the 0.595C worldwide temperature decrease of the year 2008 singlehandedly wiped out all the supposed manmade CO2 global warming from mankind since 1780, the beginning of the Industrial Revolution?
Just how much longer do we have to listen to this drivel from these “scientists” about manmade global warming from CO2?
Robert T (15:51:56) :
“Robert T (15:50:07) :Your comment is awaiting moderation”
“That was a waste of effort then”
I see all of my comments await moderation before they appear.
Unlike RC and CP where hardcore censoring, editing and blocking is the norm for their “moderating”.
[Reply: Moderators have things they have to do too, besides moderating comments. Sometimes we have a life. We try not to leave comments in the queue for too long before they’re approved. Please keep in mind that this is volunteer work. ~dbstealey, mod.]
@Robert T
Well, a large number of comment actually have some science to back up their arguments, and many also have links to more information where science can be read and considered. Your comment has neither, and yet you are critical of the commenters here.
What is wrong with that picture?
back up what you have to say, and someone may listen (unlike the majority of blogs that believe in AGW) and reply in kind. If you will not, or cannot, then you are definitely wasting your time, and may as well not post.
Frankly the Troll Quality Index is dropping. By my measurements it has dropped by 0.01425% in the last week, which is faster then ever before. I see a strong correlation with CO2 levels, but more research grants are required.
Just call them enemy combatants and lock them up. Really. I mean, what is the uncertainty in a measurement or estimation of the oceans pH (today and the pre-industrial era when they did not have pH meters). It’s certainly much greater than that so called change of 0.1.
And as pointed out by another commenter, what must the pH have been when CO2 levels were 2000 ppm. How did life evolve from an acidified (less alkaline) ocean?
Richard Telford (11:35:09) : CaCO3+H2O+CO2Ca2+(aq)+2HCO32-(aq)
Richard is the above meant to represent the entire equilibrium equation or just the reactant portion?
I would understand:
CaCO3(s) –> Ca2+(aq) + CO32-(aq)
CO2(aq) + H20 –> H2C03(aq)
H2CO3(aq) H+(aq) +HC03-(aq)
_________________________________
CaCO3(s) + CO2(aq) + H20(l) Ca2+(aq) +CO32-(aq) + H+(aq) + HCO3-(aq)
If this is the equation you meant then additional CO2 could drive the equation to the right. But as listed elsewhere in the comments there are other buffering systems that would react to remove the H+(aq) and drive the reaction back to the left.
While this report may be drivel, based on ignorance and supposition, and then frothed up in to a Global Threat, I feel sure it will be quoted by politicians for years as ‘proof’, and that it will appear in IPCC AR5.
That seems to be what we have degenerated to.
chemman (17:02:13) :
chemman think before you post next time.
If the H+(aq) is removed by buffering systems it will drive the reaction to the right not left.
Justa Joe, DirkH, Jerome
You’re missing the point, Robert T is right. Only an initiated elite priesthood can understand and do science. The rest of us need to be good loyal subjects, believe and do what we are told, especially fear the fire and brimstone as instructed by these goodly shepherds of our souls. We must not doubt the holy relics they show us. Apparently they will soon go back to communicating science in Latin.
The good professor seems to have forgotten that the oceans already contain FIFTY times the tonnage of CO2 that the atmosphere does. If we put more CO2 into the atmosphere and it ALL goes into the oceans, the oceans will still contain about 50 times as much CO2 as the atmosphere. The change in pH would be unmeasurable.
Why are we paying for these idiots ???
The increase in real CO2 is supposed to be coming FROM the oceans if AGW is to be believed. Much greater than the meager input of humanity.
Surely that would DECREASE the acidity of the oceans.
I mistakenly thought that producing more scientists would in turn produce better science.
Instead we have bred a new class of taxpayer funded scam merchants.
One has to realise that this is an election year in Australia and both the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO have been no doubt pressured into making announcments with the usual claims about CO2 and climate change a few weeks ago (see kenskingdom site). They are of course funded by the Federal Govt.
Mr Rudd the prime minister is desperate to have his ETS scheme endorsed by the general public. So its all stops out. Now we have this lot as a follow up – its not suprising !!
With a ~ 105ppmv increase in atmospheric CO2 since 1850, all of anthropogenic origin (as indicated by the DELC13 isotope signature), there is an indicated, not confirmed, oceanic pH decrease of 0.1 pH unit. If we assume that the oceans have uptaken ~ 55% of all “anthropogenic” CO2 released since 1850, a 0.1 pH unit decrease corresponds to the “absorption” of ~130ppmv CO2, noting that the global oceanic pH decrease of 0.1 unit is questionable because of instrumental measuring and sampling inconsistencies since 1850.
However, it is not possible to conclude that a doubling of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmospher to 210ppmv will decrease the oceanic pH by another 0.1unit (i.e. to a pH of 7.9 to 8.0).
This is because the effectiveness of the aragonite-pCO2-pH or calcite-pCO2-pH buffers in shallow waters as a pH constraining mechanism depends on reactions kinetics. Equilibrium thermodynamic models indicate, but do not prove, of course, that these buffers will keep the pH with 0.1 of a unit of the current values, at least in shallow water environments where aragonite or calcite muds exist on the sea floor or as suspended solids in the water column.
It would therefore seem that the “ocean acidification” scenario is overstated at present, being uneccessarily alarmist in flavour.
The sea creatures they mention have a very short life cycle and will easily adapt to small changes in pH. Which these alarmist scientists neglect to mention.
The change in pH associated with the uptake of anthropogenic CO2 from the atmosphere is a very gradual process – the pH can be expected to change about 0.001 units per year, and “most sensors are not precise enough to measure a change” of this magnitude so we don’t really have the data records for most places to correlate to the observed biological changes.
The “natural variability of pH in a marine environment can be orders of magnitude larger than this” (perhaps 0.5 pH units across the seasonal cycle or 0.2 across a 24-hour period), depending on other biological, chemical and physical processes that are operating in the environment in question.
It is difficult to know what the effects of ocean acidification will be in the wild because many marine organisms are likely to be exposed to harmful conditions some of the time already, due to the strong natural variability in their environments. Given the ability of marine organisms to adapt to great changes in their environment, it is probable that short life cycle organisms will be able to adopt to minute changes in the environment.
🙂
Robert T (15:50:07) :
Just when did America stop educating its population in science?
I’d say it occurred at the point where the statist radicals, who are using this catastrophic climate diversion to propel their political agenda, assumed complete control of the American education system and proceeded to transform the role of teacher from one who’s purpose is to create the capacity for critical thought in students, to one whose primary role is indoctrinate those students in which politically correct notions they need to embrace. To teach not how to think, but what to think.
Unfortunately for the rest of us, they have been incredibly successful in those efforts, as evidenced by the enormous number of ignorant young dolts roaming the world willing to believe whatever they are told. As long as it comes from a politically acceptable source.
I dealt with this crap on WUWT a couple of days ago. I am growing weary of these persistent fools indeed!!!
Hey Robert T,
I think most readers here would like to engage you in a discussion of both sides of the issue that amounts to more than a one sided rant. However, I am pretty sure that in your case we can comfortably assume that our time would have been wasted since a man cannot be reasoned out of an opinion that he was not reasoned into!
Just another angle on the supposed probability of acidifying of oceans by the claimed increasing CO2 levels;
There are over 1.3 billion cubic kilometres of water in the global oceans. [ 1,300,000,000 cubic kiometres ]
Each of those cubic kilometres of sea water weigh somewhere about 1.1 billion tonnes.
The amount of anthrogenic CO2 released by mankind per year is about an “estimated” [?] 2.3 billion tonnes.
That mass of CO2 is approximately equal to the mass of about 2.3 cubic kilometres of sea water.
A mass of CO2 equal to about 2.3 cubic kilometres of water added to a mass of sea water of 1.3 billion cubic kilometres each year.
The above is completely simplistic but methinks we could be an awful long time getting those global oceans to change to acidic or to have any detectable change in Ph levels that could unequivocally be put down to increases in anthropogenic CO2 releases.
There will be of course all sorts of claims on CO2 just mixing in the top layers and numerous other side tracks and deviations that will be used in the attempts to frighten the herd as to the severity of the CO2 acidification of oceans.
The truth is that nobody really has much of a handle on the global CO2 sinks, where they actually are, how they operate, if and when they release CO2 back into the atmosphere and etc and etc.
For instance, nobody can tell accurately tell us just how much CO2 is used, absorbed, and possibly released by the great plant like algal masses of the relatively unexplored oceans, oceans that cover close to 80% of the planet’s surface.
There is as yet a lot of suggestions floating around on why the measured CO2 levels oscillate back and forth over the swing of the seasons.
It is put down to the plant growth in the northern spring but what about the far greater mass of ocean algae which also change with the seasons in the oceans.
Sadly for Australian’s, the once revered CSIRO has steadily become just another trend following, money grubbing, politically correct mouthpiece for the latest fashionable scare mongering about some looming disaster being promoted by the ethically and morally vacant environmental outfits.
Here it is again:
—————-
CATLIN SURVEY MISSION:
“Within only a few decades, an increase in ocean acidity may cause seawater to become corrosive to the shells, skeletons and armour-plating of many marine life forms, and could seriously undermine the growth of coral reefs.” [Catlin Survey]
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/Mission.aspx
Then they say on their FAQ page:
“Why is it called Ocean Acidification? The ocean is alkaline and model predictions suggest it will never become acidic.
Acidification refers to the process of the lowering of the ocean’s pH on the pH scale. If the ocean’s pH falls it is referred to as acidification regardless of whether the water remains alkaline i.e. above pH 7. [Catlin Survey]“
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/faq.aspx
While others say:
“In a striking finding that raises new questions about carbon dioxide’s (CO2) impact on marine life, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientists report that some shell-building creatures—such as crabs, shrimp and lobsters—unexpectedly build more shell when exposed to ocean acidification caused by elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2)” [Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution – December 1 2009]
“The oceans have an ‘acidity’ measured on a pH scale of around 8.0, a figure larger than neutral pH=7.0, which means that they are alkaline or basic.”
….
“One of the important variables in this chemical balance is carbon dioxide CO2. As CO2 dissolves in water, the water becomes mildly acidic (clean rain water has a pH=5.6), enough in fact to dissolve calcium from soils and to create dripstone formations inside caves while it evaporates. Intuitively one may think that a doubling in CO2 would result in a doubling of acidity but this is not the case as this graph shows. Without CO2, pure rain water would have a neutral pH of 7.0, and that is where the graph begins on left. Initially CO2 is very willing to dissolve, thereby rapidly acidifying the otherwise pure water, but eventually this slows down. [Dr J Floor Anthoni]“
http://www.seafriends.org.nz/issues/global/acid.htm
A doubling of CO2 from 380 ppmv to 760 ppmv (the 2 × CO2 scenario) increases the seawater acidity approximately 0.19 pH units across the same range of seawater temperature. In the latter case, the predicted increase in acidity results in a pH within the water-quality limits for seawater of 6.5 and 8.5 and a change in pH less than 0.20 pH units. [University of California]
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006…/2006GL026305.shtml
More:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;320/5874/336
http://www.co2science.org//articles/V12/N5/EDIT.php
Many commenter have questioned the ability to measure a change of PH with an accuracy of 0.1. In truth, this is pretty easy to do even with crude tests. As for determining the PH of an entire ocean, that too, is fairly easy, for any real scientist. I think other commenter’s have provided enough information on seawater chemistry to show why this is so. Sea water PH is incredibly stable. That is why this article is so infuriating for anyone who knows anything about the subject. It is so wrong that it has to be a deliberate lie, or the work of psychotics. Might as well claim that flying planes will cause the moon to crash into the earth.
Hang on just a minute. Quick seaches tell me the foolowing:
Total mass of atmosphere: 5 x 10^15 tonnes
Total mass of oceans: 1.35 x 10^18
OK, so that gives us a ration of 270 times the mass of oceans to the mass of air.
Now I’m not going to suggest that the number of molecules is the same as the mass, but with O = 16, C = 12, N =14 and H = 1 thrown in I have the average ocean molecule pegged at 18 and the average air molecule around 15. That is close enough for government work.
So I have say 250 atoms in the ocean for every 1 in the air.
We have added 1 molecule of CO2 for every 10,000 molecules of air, I believe. That would be the equivalent of one molecule for every 2,500,000 sea molecules, making it 0.4 parts per million, or 0.00004%.
So adding 0.00004% of CO2 by volume to the sea will increase the acidity by a measurable amount? I am not sure that is possible.
Of course, I may have most of that wrong.
I find it difficult to research the amount of CO2 in the sea, because every single link is banging on about AGW and almost completely ignoring the physics behind it all. What I have found suggests that the sea holds about 50% the amount of CO2 as the air. I am not sure if this is dissolved, but I think so.
If that is the case, the relative amount of CO2 ‘increase’ for the oceans should be 50 times less, in my book. That would make the ‘increase’ in CO2 in the oceans (assuming it all goes there eventually) minuscule.
I really cannot see how it can have any appreciable effect. I also am pretty certain that the other things that we do to the oceans, like dumping our chemical and organic waste into it, are far, far more important. I also think that these problems will be completely ignored by an ironic and misguided demonisation of CO2.
The really important thing you must do if you care about the environment is ignore AGW, it seems to me. It is the only way we will ever recover the mess we are making which is being hidden by a cloud of evil, nasty, ‘black’ CO2.
^^^ sorry not 50% of the amount of CO2 as the air,, “50 times”
JER0ME (18:35:10) :
Jerome, i found a good explanation here,
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2008/10/not-enough-co2-to-make-oceans-acidic-a-note-from-professor-plimer/
scroll down to this comment
Comment from: Ian Mott October 29th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
The argument of the Ocean Acidification crowd seems to be the assumption that it takes 400 years until the surface waters are replaced… and that seems to be a rather dary assumption. Arguing that this replacement takes 400 years they go on to argue that the surface waters will become more acidic quickly.
It’s grabbing for straws.
DesertYote (18:32:16) :
Many commenter have questioned the ability to measure a change of PH with an accuracy of 0.1. In truth, this is pretty easy to do even with crude tests. As for determining the PH of an entire ocean, that too, is fairly easy, for any real scientist. I think other commenter’s have provided enough information on seawater chemistry to show why this is so. Sea water PH is incredibly stable. That is why this article is so infuriating for anyone who knows anything about the subject. It is so wrong that it has to be a deliberate lie, or the work of psychotics. Might as well claim that flying planes will cause the moon to crash into the earth.
Sea water PH is incredibly stable? I wonder if you are aware of this work
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/48/18848.full.pdf+html
I would recommend you review figs. A and B on pg. 2. I would note that the experimental work for this paper was accomplished over just eight years and in an area of ocean not much larger than a hobby farm here in the Midwest. Though I can’t say for certain, I assume the authors didn’t choose the location because they expected it to be much less stable than the oceans of the world as a whole. This would indicate that it is much better than a coin flip that range of values for the entire ocean system would in fact be larger than the more than 1.5 range they observed in their work. I’ve also seen papers which suggest that the mean or average values of ocean PH are subject cyclic variations as well, though I don’t have the links to hand at the moment. But as the nun’s who shepherded my early education were want to say, you’ll learn more if you look it up yourself.
you guys can thank comcast for the lovely mispelling of DeVito’s name.
DesertYote (18:32:16) :
On rereading your post I think I may have incorrectly interpreted your words. I initially thought that your reference to an infuriating article was aimed at Anthony’s post not the underlying paper. Sorry
My glass of Coca-cola is getting too sweet now, because I’ve put one extra grain of sugar in it. And my cola is getting sweeter at an alarming rate, because the cola has not been sweetened at this rate since 3 months ago when the cola was manufactured. Very worrying.
JER0ME (18:35:10) “I also am pretty certain that the other things that we do to the oceans, like dumping our chemical and organic waste into it, are far, far more important. I also think that these problems will be completely ignored by an ironic and misguided demonisation of CO2.”
I could not agree more. Nice to hear other people banging this ALL-important drum. These two downloads will be of interest to you.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/acid_test.html
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/commentaries_essays/coral_reefs.html
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Must pop over and watch Jo Nova destroy this Antipodean twit!
Note – the authors of the study were not from JCU
Zoltan Beldi (17:26:06) :
I mistakenly thought that producing more scientists would in turn produce better science.
Instead we have bred a new class of taxpayer funded scam merchants.
Take heart — if they’d produced more *scientists*, you would probably have been correct.
As I am in my late 60’s my memory is not what it used to be, is this the eleventh or twelveth time the Great Barrier Reef is about to be destroyed since 1970?
old44 (00:42:37) :
As I am in my late 60’s my memory is not what it used to be, is this the eleventh or twelveth time the Great Barrier Reef is about to be destroyed since 1970?
*mumblety-mumble*
*removing right boot*
Twelve.
Mack @11:18:04 mentioned Professor Ove Hoegh-Gulberg has form for making outrageous claims in support of AGW. His predictions are subsequently found to have no basis in fact and fail to materialise. He does however have a strong following in sections of the MSM who like the shock value of his pronouncements. While they readily report his alarmist predictions they fail to report his failures. He is an embarrassment to Australia and I suspect to many of the faculty at James Cook which has a good scientific record.
oops–I meant to de-indent that 2nd paragraph.
If it hasn’t been mentioned before, for the real science, as best we understand it, and as reported here I think back in ’07, go to:
http://www.seafriends.org.nz/issues/global/acid.htm
Dr J Floor Anthoni has been studying the oceans for over 40 years and he concludes with this statement – “Dead planet thinking: most oceanographers, physicists, chemists treat the planet as a dead planet, where every force, every process can be described and captured in an equation, and then simulated by a computer. But life frustrates every attempt, as it corrupts equations, while also adapting to changing circumstances. Of all these, the sea is the worst with its unimaginable scale, complexity and influence. We may never be able to unravel the secrets of the sea.”
Polar bears, coral, cockroaches, alligators, microbes (the greatest mass of life on the planet) – – all acclimatize, adapt, change. Quite surprisingly sometimes to the Earth’s human population, as pointed out by the good Dr.
Dave Wendt (19:30:38) :
No problem. My post was about as clear as a springtime estuary. I don’t think I got close to expressing what I was trying to say. I’ve got Aspergers. I sometime have difficulty expressing what is in my head in proper sentences. Sometimes its like trying to untangle a train wreck. Last night was worse then normal and my room mates were distracting me on top of it. I should have never tried to post. BTW, my area of knowledge is Freshwater ecology, but I have also done a lot of work with estuaries. I really have never had an interest in marine ecology, though learning about it was kind of mandatory.
P.S. My use of the term “stable” is misleading. It often implies static which is not what I meant. I was actually alluding to all of the negative feedback mechanisms that control PH.
and here:
http://www.nov55.com/acd.html
When acid mine drainage (with heavy metals Fe, Zn,Cd etc) from Wheal Jane mine Cornwall discharged into the sea (Carrick Roads): the sea turned reddish brown. This was due to the sea’s alkaline Ph neutralising the acidic minewater ( dilute H2SO4) and precipitating the heavy metals as hydroxides. The water chemistry of effluent treatment is quite complex but a knowledge of the solubility of metal salts is invaluable. Least soluble are sulphides then hydroxides and carbonates particularly in alkaline solution. CO2 is sequestered as insoluble carbonate leading to huge quantities being absorbed in the oceans (far beyond its equilibrium solubilty).
It would not give me any confidence to employee someone that has been to a University that has such profound ignorance in the corridors of learning, a kindergarten perhaps in outer Mongolia were you can employee a 5 year old trainee, but Australia ?
@JER0ME (18:34:01) :
A very very simple and rough calculation can be done just to gain some broad perspective.
From the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, we get the following basic data:
“”Atmospheric CO2 concentrations rose from 288 ppmv in 1850 to 369.5 ppmv in 2000, for an increase of 81.5 ppmv, or 174 PgC. In other words, about 40% (174/441.5) of the additional carbon has remained in the atmosphere, while the remaining 60% has been transferred to the oceans and terrestrial biosphere.”
“The 369.5 ppmv of carbon in the atmosphere, in the form of CO2, translates into 787 PgC, of which 174 PgC has been added since 1850. From the second paragraph above, we see that 64% of that 174 PgC, or 111 PgC, can be attributed to fossil-fuel combustion. This represents about 14% (111/787) of the carbon in the atmosphere in the form of CO2.”
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/faq.html
==========
OK. So, 64% of 174 is 111 PgC accumulated in atmosphere from fossil fuel emissions since 1850.
Let’s assume for simplicity that the accumulated amount represents about half of the emitted amount, so that another 111 PgC have gone from the atmosphere to the terrestrial biosphere and the oceans.
Let’s assume that about half of that has gone to the terrestrial biosphere, and the other half to the oceans.
So we have added about 56 PgC since 1850 from fossil fuel emissions.
The oceans hold about 38,800 PgC.
So the added amount from fossil fuel emissions since 1850 is about 0.14% of carbon in the oceans.
So an increase 0.14% of carbon in the oceans is supposed to be having catastrophic effects. This sounds totally preposterous.
Shouldn’t this actually be called “debasing the ocean”?
DesertYote (09:05:15)
EPA states for a properly conducted pH test from a fresh calibration standard solution a precision of 0.1. So if a pH meter can read at 0.1 SHOULD be possible (a point below which EPA advises not to report) – a value that may be possible under perfect conditions. One should be very cautious as to making any claims about a change of 0.1 as meaningful in the real world. If you are a freshwater ecologist you will also realize the measured pH will vary by more then 0.1 units depending on whether the pH was measured in the field or the lab. You should also be aware that pH changes hourly for obvious reasons and that pH also changes with depth.
I am shocked that anyone could claim that pH at +/- 0.1 for the entire ocean is fairly simple- sure would like to see that sampling plan.
These people are just thick. Do the numbers, it’s no rocket science:
There is 0.4 gram CO2 per cm2 of the Earth’s surface. Since the beginning of the industrial age, 0.1 gram has been added to the about 0.3 then. It is estimated that
in fact the total amount of antropegenic CO2 added to the system since 1850 is 0.2 gram/cm2. Hence 0.1 gram has been dissolved in the oceans and absorbed by the biosphere.
There is 280 kilogram per cm2 on the planet. The mixing time in the ocean is 50-100 yr. That 0.1 gram has disolved in 280 liter water. Not only that, only about 3% goes into ionic form and has any effect on the PH, the rest is just dissolved, likeother gasses are dissolved.
Imagine this experiment: the absolute upper limit to the amount of antropogenic CO2 we can possibly produce is set by the oxigen content of the atmosphere: 220 gram per cm2. It would be a very unwise experiment and there’s not enough carbon on the planet to do it but let’s assume .. That would produce roughly 300 gram CO2 per cm2. 300 gram CO2 dissolved in 280 liter, 1gram per liter, doesn’t even make for a flat soda water, you wouldn’t notice it at all.
Any “scientist” peddling this sort of nonsense is beyond his/her sell-by date.
Wow….
Talk about grasping at straws… this article is more along the lines of “help I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”
CO2 and the redistribution of wealth liberals are going to explode… their lie has been exposed and now they are running in circles on how to get their control mechanism in place now that its been debunked….
Pat Moffitt (14:53:05) :
As I said before, my post was a bit mangy. I was not trying to saying that it is possible to quantify the PH of an ocean to 0.1 degree, though that is kind of what my post implies. I was saying that it is easy to measure PH to that accuracy. As for as what the EPA advises for standard practices, I am not impressed. It has to do more with the accuracy of the person doing the testing, then the actual ability to test. I can get +/- 0.02 in the range from 7.6 to about 8.5 and from 5.5 to 6.5, which are the ranges that I have worked with the most, with my trust Hatch and fresh reagents. But I have been doing this type of stuff since I was 10. And you are correct. PH measurements need to be taken when the sample is collected, though this is not as critical for samples with high alkalinity. As for variability, the last river that I was monitoring had a mid winter PH of 7.8 to 7.85 +/- 0.02 and a late summer PH of 8.4 +/- 0.02. That is a seasonal variation of 0.6 for a system that has far more susceptibility to external influences then an ocean.
DesertYote (09:05:15) :
(…) I’ve got Aspergers. (…) I should have never tried to post. (…)
Bull. You got any idea how many of us are out here in the real world, who never had the “benefit” of being officially diagnosed with this “recently discovered” condition, who have gone nearly our entire lives without having a name to identify whatever-it-is that we know exists that makes us different from other people? Who will never know the name? Who have come and gone before the name existed?
Yes, it makes us outsiders. We don’t automatically pick up on the rules of social interaction, we have to study and learn them. There are times when you just can’t communicate the big thoughts that make sense to you in ways that make sense to others. When you want to get away from the confusing people who don’t understand and be alone with the thoughts.
It’s not an affliction. It’s not a disability. It’s a variation in the species, a type of diversity that keeps it going. We’re outsiders, we’re resistant to group-think. When the mob forms and runs off, we wonder why. We seek out our own worlds to live in, where we can know all about them. We are the deep thinkers. We are philosophers, artists, craftsmen, mathematicians, scientists. We are explorers. The individual who went off deep into the unchartered wilderness alone, because they really couldn’t stand to be around other people.
You come here. You post. It’s practice. It don’t look so good later, you tried. You try, you determine something was wrong, guess what it was, try again. You troubleshoot, you learn. It won’t get better without learning, you won’t learn without trying. Keep trying.
It’s not a disability. Weakness breeds out. We keep popping up. Therefore it is a strength. Toughest part is, figuring out how you are strong.
“It’s not a disability. Weakness breeds out. We keep popping up. Therefore it is a strength.”
I guess all those people who keep getting born without working livers, eyes and brains are the strongest of us all.
kadaka (23:55:46) :
I meant to say that I should have never submitted that particular post. To much stuff was happening and I could not focus enough to compose my thoughts. I eventually got frustrated and so anxious to get dinner, that I just hit “Submit Comment”. BTW, I just learned about Aspergers four years ago. It sure explains a lot of things.
Prof. Hoegh-Guldberg has been totally debunked by Andrew Bolt on several occasions. His alarmist predictions of great barrier reef coral bleaching have been falsified by reality. You’d think such people, when confronted by their theories being falsified, would at least so sufficient humility to keep the mouth shut, and maybe listen to others. But not this guy.