Borrowing a phrase from NSIDC’s Dr. Mark Serreze, Phytoplankton are now apparently in a “Death Spiral”. See Death spiral of the oceans and the original press release about an article in Nature from a PhD candidate at Dalhousie University, which started all this. I’m a bit skeptical of the method which they describe in the PR here:
A simple tool known as a Secchi disk as been used by scientists since 1899 to determine the transparency of the world’s oceans. The Secchi disk is a round disk, about the size of a dinner plate, marked with a black and white alternating pattern. It’s attached to a long string of rope which researchers slowly lower into the water. The depth at which the pattern is no longer visible is recorded and scientists use the data to determine the amount of algae present in the water.
Hmmm. A Secchi disk is a proxy, not a direct measurement of phytoplankton. It measures turbidity, which can be due to quite a number of factors, including but not limited to Phytoplankton. While they claim to also do chlorophyll measurements, the accuracy of a SD measurements made by thousands of observers is the central question.
From the literature: The Secchi disk transparency measurement is perhaps one of the oldest and simplest of all measurements. But there is grave danger of errors in such measurements where a water telescope is not utilized, as well as in the presence of water color and inorganic turbidity (source: Vollenweider and Kerekes, 1982). I’ll have more on this later. – Anthony
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Phytoplankton need cap and trade
By Steve Goddard
Yesterday, Joe Romm reported :
Nature Stunner: “Global warming blamed for 40% decline in the ocean’s phytoplankton”
“Microscopic life crucial to the marine food chain is dying out. The consequences could be catastrophic.”
That sounds scary. Does it make any sense? Phytoplankton thrive everywhere on the planet from the Arctic to the tropics. One of the primary goals of this year’s Catlin expedition was to study the effect of increased CO2 on phytoplankton in the Arctic. They reported:
Uptake of CO2 by phytoplankton increases as ocean acidity increases
That sounds like good news for Joe! We also know that phytoplankton have been around for billions of years, surviving average global temperatures 10C higher and CO2 levels 20X higher than the present.
http://ff.org/centers/csspp/library/co2weekly/2005-08-18/dioxide.htm
Phytoplankton growth/reduction in the tropics correlates closely with ENSO. El Nñio causes populations to reduce, and La Niña causes the populations to increase.
During an El Niño year, warm waters from the Western Pacific Ocean spread out over much of the basin as upwelling subsides in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. Upwelling brings cool, nutrient-rich water from the deep ocean up to the surface. So, when upwelling weakens, phytoplankton do not get enough nutrients to maintain their growth. As a result, surface waters turn into “marine deserts” with unusually low populations of phytoplankton and other tiny organisms. With less food, fish cannot survive in the surface water, which then also deprives seabirds of food.
During La Niña conditions, the opposite effect occurs as the easterly trade winds pick up and upwelling intensifies, bringing nutrients to the surface waters, which fuels phytoplankton growth. Sometimes, the growth can take place quickly, developing into what scientists call phytoplankton “blooms.”
The phytoplankton must be loving life now!
The author of this study (Boris Worm) also reported last year “if fishing continued at the same rate, all the world’s seafood stocks would collapse by 2048”
So we know that phytoplankton have survived for billions of years in a vast range of climates, temperatures and CO2 levels. Apparently they have become very sensitive of late – perhaps from all the estrogens being dumped in the oceans? Or maybe they have been watching too much Oprah?
The standard cure for hyperventilation is to increase your CO2 levels by putting a bag over your head.
Phytoplankton, you need not panic
1 soft science study and the impulse reaction is to panic. They have no idea how to measure trends in plankton. None. It grows on CO2, water and nutrients. It creates O2 and material. Joe Romm fakes anxiety attacks. They have no idea if the water levels at which this grows has changed in temperature. I guarantee it takes more fear and drama than ever before to obtain funding.
Billion years is a long time. I’d guess that they’ve evolved to change their behavior/growth with subtle changes in solar activity, in anticipation of less food when it gets cloudy.
The death screams of a dying cult….
No doubt you are familiar with planktonic carbon-fixation paths, but let me remind you anyway. Most plants, phytoplankton included are C3, a process which is discriminatory against the heavier carbon isotopes, so a richly-fed ocean will tend to take up a slightly greater proportion of the light isotope 12C. C3 requires a good level of trace elements, including… zinc and chromium, IIRC, but don’t quote me on that… and without those trace elements the phytos which use C4 will begin to dominate. Indeed, certain flexible phytos will change in those circumstances to C4 from C3. C4 uses much more C13/14 than C3.
A starving, stratified ocean will thus move towards a metabolic pathway which pulls down more heavier isotopes of carbon and the atmosphere will be depleted of those isotopes. I have argued that this is the source of the light isotope atmospheric signal which we are pointing to as the anthropogenic signal.
I am unaware of studies which quantify DMS emissions from the various plankton species, although the C4, starved, types might well be short of the resources to make that notoriously cloud-facilitating chemical. However, reduced planktonic populations will certainly lead to reduced DMS emission. Fewer phytos, less DMS, fewer CCNs, fewer clouds which are not so reflective. Warming.
Incidentally, phyos have diatoms as their most ferocious competitor, a competitor limited by silica availability. Modern agriculture (from about 1750) has been throwing huge amounts of silica into the oceans. Diatoms are C4, which may explain why the ‘anthropogenic’ carbon isotope signal begins in the eighteenth century, long before our burning of fossil fuel can have had an effect.
So, it’s warming, it may even be anthropogenic, but it’s not only about CO2.
JF
“The scientific consensus is that we could not stop global warming at this point, even if we ceased all greenhouse gas production immediately”
What a relief.
Instead of food, should probably have written energy. The food seems to come with cold waters. They probably bloom when there is less sun, feeding off of stored nutrients and energy.
About 10 years ago, Trenberth was trying to link phytoplankton killing El Nino events with CO2, but I haven’t heard much about this recently.
1 way to catch either dishonest or deceptive claims is to expose contradiction. If all the fish are dying, that means more nutrients for plankton to grow on. Dead plant and animal life is a source of nutrients.
If the water warms .o8 degrees in 50 years,
that is so irrelevant because they say the temperature range at which it grows is vast.
There are several more contradictions.
Our experiment proves that fear of the death of plankton results in easy grant money.
If you hit up Big Oil and lay a little guilt trip on them, they will fund this.
Let us recall that Dr Worm is a scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, directed by Schellnhuber and Rahmstorf.
That ought to tell you everything.
latitude;
And what they do not say is that we could not accelerate it, even if we doubled CO2 production from here forward. CO2 is irrelevant, except that it may even be a cooling agent, since it takes ambient heat from all sources and dumps some of it as IR, thus increasing the radiative outflow of heat from the planet.
Julian Flood says:
July 30, 2010 at 12:38 pm
“Incidentally, phyos have diatoms as their most ferocious competitor, a competitor limited by silica availability. Modern agriculture (from about 1750) has been throwing huge amounts of silica into the oceans. Diatoms are C4, which may explain why the ‘anthropogenic’ carbon isotope signal begins in the eighteenth century, long before our burning of fossil fuel can have had an effect.”
Interesting theory, the “isotopic signature” of our CO2 emissions never smelled right to me, there are too many confounding factors and while plausible I think it suffers a bit too much from confirmation bias.
So, it’s warming, it may even be anthropogenic, but it’s not only about CO2.
First it was Hockey-Stick-gate, where the tree rings of one pine tree in the Yamal Penninsula “proved” runaway, Mann-made global warming. Then there was Sea-Level-Gate where one tidal gauge in Hong Kong Harbor mounted on sinking geology “proved” sea levels around the world were rising. This was followed by Hurricane-Gate, where the IPCC’s claims of more powerful and more frequent hurricanes were disproven by the rather stable world Accumulated Cyclone Energy data. Then there was Amazon-Rainforest-Gate where the IPCC based its predictions of a precipitation reduction on a WWF propaganda article, not peer-reviewed science. Then there was Africa-Gate, where predictions of drought were based on a claim from a Carbon-trading academic with unsupportable references. Then there was Glacier-Gate, where the threat of glaciers receding were based on two 11 year old magazine articles. Then there was Polar-Bear-Gate, where extinction was being projected, even though populations were increasing in warmer areas. Now photoplankton are entering a ‘death spiral’? Please spare me of this relentless, groundless, drivel masquerading as “science”.
As an avid fisherman I am always rooting for the phytoplankton. Increasing Bering Sea ice resulting in increase in fresh water when it melts has helped the phytoplankton growth. This has been good for the lowly krill which in turn has been good for the Sockeye the last few years. Take a look at this chart, it will blow your mind…..
http://www.fpc.org/adultsalmon/adultqueries/Adult_Query_Graph_Results.asp
Sockeye are krill eaters, I am a sockeye eater, hmmmm goood!
Yes, and I have learned fishes are already shrinking to half size.
Must come from the missing plankton. Terrible.
May have to order two of them in my beach restaurant for the next meal.
This is a stunning announcement by the Warming Alarmists Deputy Commandante of Phytoplanktonic Propaganda! I mean, really… don’t they get it. They lost.
No one is listening. No one cares. iPhone antennae are more important that Plytoplankton extinction. It is astonishing that announcements like this take a total suspension of reality to continue.
Another lie.
We can’t have 50 years of satellite reports since they have only offered some reports for 30 years.
First I will give them a chance to show us reports from 1960 pulled from satellites..
I do assume with the smoother, homogenizer etc. Jim Hansen at NASA could cook up numbers and fill in gaps.
Fwd from Dr. Ed Berry, of “ClimatePhysics.com”:
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Believers in global warming who believe they prove their belief true by denigrating and black-listing opposing scientists, would do well to hear this story.
In 1946, Frank Tashlin’s book and MGM record of “The Bear that wasn’t” began teaching a whole generation of kids about logic in a 10-minute story, enjoyed by all ages. We need this wisdom today.
(And while newer versions and movies have appeared since, none are as good as the original. Even Frank Tashlin said so. Download and hear the original recording here.)
The bear, who had hibernated all winter, woke up in the spring to find his forest gone and he was inside a factory. Neither the factory foreman nor the foreman’s bosses all the way up to the president would believe he was a bear. So the president took the bear to a zoo and asked the bears in the zoo,
“Is this a bear?”
And the bears in the zoo said,
“No, he isn’t a bear because if he were a bear he wouldn’t be outside the cage with you, he would be inside the cage with us.”
Then the president took the bear to a circus and asked the bears in the circus,
“Is this a bear?”
And the bears in the circus said,
“No, he isn’t a bear because if he were a bear he wouldn’t be sitting in a grandstand seat with you, he would be wearing a little hat with a ribbon on it, holding a balloon, and riding a bicycle with us.”
Today, we have global warming believers who denigrate and black list true scientists, thinking this proves their global warming hypothesis true. And these believers say,
“No, he is not a scientist because if he were a scientist he wouldn’t be telling you global warming is a fraud, he would be inside the circus with us, wearing a little dunce hat with a ribbon on it, holding a hot-air balloon, and riding the global warming bandwagon with us.”
The only thing you global warming believers have proved is: You are circus bears.
Edwin X Berry, PhD
Atmospheric Physicist
http://www.climatephysics.com
American Meteorological Society
Certified Consulting Meteorologist #180
American Physical Society
American Geophysical Union
In a recent essay, “Climate Change, Just What Is That Anyway?” I look at the term “Climate Change”, i.e. what does this term actually mean. From that essay:
“….Another perfectly good technical term redefined to mislead and misinform. I had been puzzling over this for some time but what prompted my inquire was a public affairs broadcaster on the CBC. The host was interviewing an oceanographer (from Delhousie U.) about the status of plankton populations in the worlds oceans, as measured by sieche disk measurements, since 1900 (2). The oceanographer was using the term in the technical not causative way, noting that his data suggested that plankton growth is less robust as water temperature rises and in some oceans, the North Atlantic for example, plankton populations had significantly declined since the 1950’s.
He was very careful not to attribute a cause to this correlation, i.e. explain why the water temperature was warmer or cooler then previous. Interesting his data shows that populations are increasing in the Indian Ocean. The impression left at the end of the interview was that AGW was driving this. Even though the researcher repeated several times, the oceanographers could not attribute cause and the driving forces or causes were highly complex and not known. He advised more study. That did not deter the journalist from badgering him to make some kind of climate change prediction. The best he would do is to note that the decline in plankton was undesirable, as it is the basis of the ocean food chain. She finally got him to admit that if we can do something about this temperature rise it would probably be desirable. He would not go further. Good for him. It is always the big “IF” isn’t it. The data the researchers were working with simply could not be used to draw firm conclusions about underlying causes and mechanisms related to ocean temperatures.”
It is not the objective presentation of data and results but the attribution of cause without knowledge that gives science and scientists a poor reputation.
The author of this study (Boris Worm)
Lol.
Sorry Boris.
Julian Flood
July 30, 2010 at 12:38 pm
Very interesting, thanks. So Tiny variations in TSI don’t eliminate the sun as the main driver of climate change after all?
Shocking! Who’d a thunk it?
An Old Fisherman recently said:
“Has anyone noticed the size of shrimp, crab legs, and fish these days? Shrimp used to be as big as my hand. Crab Legs (Alaskan) used to be as big as my arm. And fish, the kind that you used to be able to buy in the A&P, fish used to be as big as my leg.
“Now what do we have? Zilch! Nada! Nichts! Zero! They’re all gone! Shrimp are as big as a finger nail. Crab Legs are as big as a finger. And fish, they don’t even sell fish anymore; I haven’t seen one in years. These people have a point! We need to outlaw all fishing in the world’s oceans! NO FISHING WITHIN 20 MILES!! Heck, make it 100 MILES!
“And no more filthy beach front condos, vacation homes, roads, pools, shopping centers, hotels, motels, or golf courses, etc, too!
“And no more ocean vessels either! Not a one! Aircraft Carriers are OK, but none of that filthy commercial stuff!
“And no more transoceanic commercial air transport either! Use eMail or teleconferencing!
“You get the idea! We gotta get serious or we’re gonna kill off all the life in the oceans!
“Right? Right!”
PS: Seriously, we can certainly do better than we have till now. But I don’t think we need the EPA, the UN, or anyone else to tell us they’re shutting down the world’s oceans and starving a billion people to death.
Hmmm – I wonder how many$$$$ are available to find a cure for this study. Oops may have to redact this remark or perhaps look for some sort of trick !!
I’m afraid I may need to visit my opthamologist; this is such an eyeroller…
This has got to be a prime example of the quality of “science” that global warming grant monies can buy. Okay, I admit it, that’s just an assumption on my part – that this is an AGW funded study. In any case, this raises so many questions: (damn Nature paywall)
What criteria was used in evaluating the quality of measurements from the early years of the 110 year period that was looked at?
How many measurements were made over the course of 110 years? What were the ocean’s conditions of each meaurement site? Stormy with agitated sea? Calm sea under mild sunny conditions? And were the early measurements able to note upwelling conditions?
How much statistical in-filling was performed to make sure the study was (oh gawd, I’m gonna use that word) robust?
Okay, so the skeptic in me, bordering on the cynical, sees that this PhD candidate has a well-secured area of study mapped out for himself for the next few decades, as long as the grant monies keep on coming. After all, the world will want to know when the oceans’ ecosystems collapse and vast ocean deserts arise devoid of life, while sea levels rise by the meter to inundate coastlines …
Is it me or is the AGW mantra, since Climategate, taking on a tone of panic and desperation?
It’s a dillemma. Eating fish would be good for greenhouse gas emissions,
but is terrible for … fish. I am confused.
Can’t we ask these guys to provide a to-do-list for all aspects our life?
06/28/2010 – Reducing the consumption of meat and dairy products … could decrease global greenhouse gas emissions substantially. By 2055 the emissions … could be cut by more than eighty percent, researchers of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research find. The results of the modelling study have recently been published in the journal “Global Environmental Change”.
Brian H says:
July 30, 2010 at 1:01 pm
latitude;
And what they do not say is that we could not accelerate it, even if we doubled CO2 production from here forward
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Seems that way Brian. Every time CO2 levels have been high, the planet went into another ice age. Obviously CO2 does not have enough effect to keep the planet warm, no matter how high it is. In a sane world, people might be more worried about high CO2 levels causing an ice age.
So the take home message from this article in Nature, is that phyto is starving from lack of nutrients, dead zones are dead because of too much nutrients….
….so we need more dead zones or we’re all going to die.