The heartbreak of Emiliania huxleyi

“Weasel words”….now THAT is worth the price of admission. Excellent!

Excellent! Less loss of CO2. Thanks, Emili!

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification
the ocean pH will only reach 7.824 by the year 2100. This is still in the basic part and not in the acidic part. Then how can ocean water become “more acidic” if it was never acidic to begin with? Technically, I know what they are saying, but “less basic” would be more accurate. However that apparently does not sound scary enough nor does it evoke images of acid rain and dead fish.

This process is so clear even the doziest schlub can see it.
Create some random story which involves
1. Your particular area of research interest
2. A construction of points which implies some kind of eco-problem looming
3. Some uncertainties which require further research
4. Add in that new magic ingredient “Climate Change!!”
and you will have the perfect funding application.
I wonder whether there are any branches of science which don’t try and crowbar AGW into their funding requests.

Man oh man, I’m SO glad Earth has maintained an absolutley constant temperature over all the globe–regardless of height of mountain or depth of sea, polar clime or equatorial jungle.
Maybe that’s what causes “rotten ice”–it lasts just as long in the Sahara as it does in the Arctic as it does in the… Wait, are they intimating temperature is the same everywhere? They can’t be saying even the slightest itsy bitsy variation would upset the ecological balance past some tipping point beyond which there’s no return!
/sarc

Why the hell do they always want to store carbon for eternity? Once it is all stored that will be the end of all life on earth (at least life that depends on oxygen).

This one cracks me up.
Guess now we have to have combinations of problems to create real big problems. Love what if’s.
What if I put myself in a tank with high levels of CO2 and Ammonia? Pretty sure I am not going to grow very well either.
As a reef keeper for over 30 years I have just a little bit of experience with the balancing act of carbonates and calcium as well as the aquatic nitrogen cycle.
Lets stick with their premise for a sec that we are suffering from Global Warming. As the oceans warm we will get off gassing of CO2. Most skeptics “I think” are pretty sure a big part of the increase in CO2 is this off gassing from the oceans. As the CO2 levels of the ocean drop the PH will increase. This part is just from warming of the oceans. Lets add to this the huge amount of dissolved carbonates (buffering) the oceans have. Now lets include all the calcium carbonates from all the worlds sands and reefs ” old dead sections” . If the huge buffering capacity of the ocean gets a bit low we now have calcium carbonates that will dissolve and again provided buffering to the ocean water. So basically we will have to add so much acid to the water that we dissolve all the coral reefs and sands across the vast oceans to deplete the oceans ability to buffer itself. Not Gonna Happen… Well what if we get hit by a giant comet of CO2? Guess it could happen then but who would really care.

Firstly

Dissolved inorganic carbon has a nutrient-like vertical profile due to uptake by phytoplankton. Concentrations are lowest in the Atlantic, where deep water sinks into the ocean depth, and higher in the deep waters of the Pacific as POC (Particulate Organic Carbon)sinks into the deep-sea and is remineralized to DIC (data). The titration alkalinity values increase as deep water flows along the conveyor. The increase in TAlk is driven, primarily, by dissolution of calcium carbonate shells sinking through the water column. The changes in TCO2 and TAlk drive large changes in the concentrations of (CO2), (HCO3-) and (CO32-), which are all chemical species of inorganic carbon.

Secondly, I’ll see the Stillman study and raise it with the following…
Feng et al (2008)

In a somewhat similar study, Feng et al. (2008) grew the marine coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi — which they isolated from the Sargasso Sea — by semi-continuous culture methods at two different (low, high) light intensities (50 and 400 µmol photons/m2/sec), two different (low, high) temperatures (20 and 24°C), and two different (low, high) CO2 concentrations (375 and 750 ppm); and in doing so, they found that in the low-light environment, the chlorophyll a-normalized photosynthetic rates of the coccolithophores in all four temperature/CO2 treatments attained maximum values at an irradiance of approximately 200 µmol photons/m2/sec, where the maximum rate was lowest in the low-temperature, low-CO2 or ambient treatment, but was significantly increased by 55% by elevated temperature alone and by 95% by elevated CO2 alone, while in the high-temperature, high-CO2 or greenhouse treatment it was increased by 150% relative to the ambient treatment.

And Halloran et al. (2008) at the same link

Working with the same sediment core, Halloran et al. (2008) analyzed the size distribution of CaCO3 particles in the less-than-10-µm sediment fraction over the past quarter-century. This work revealed, as they describe it, “a changing particle volume since the late 20th century consistent with an increase in the mass of coccoliths produced by the larger coccolithophore species,” leading them to conclude that “in the real ocean the larger coccolithophore species increase their calcification in response to anthropogenic CO2 release [italics added],” contrary to what typically occurs in the lifeless “virtual ocean” of theoreticians who see bad consequences in nearly everything that could possibly be related to the historical rise in the air’s CO2 concentration. In addition, the four researchers state that this positive calcification response “could be attributed to an alleviation of CO2 limitation in species that partly rely on the diffusive supply of dissolved carbon dioxide for photosynthesis, as demonstrated by a rise in photosynthetic efficiency with increasing carbon dioxide in cultures of E. huxleyi (Rost et al., 2003).”

There is no shortage of studies that reach the opposite conclusions to that of Stillman. One just needs to go to the CO2Science web site and punch in the term Emiliania huxleyi into their search facility and spend the next few hours reading and making up ones own mind.
p.s. these critters we are talking about release Dimethylsulfides into the atmosphere, the very stuff that helps in cloud formation.
So a warming world with more sunshine hours and CO2 increases the phytoplankton cycle which increases the cloud formation nuclei.
Sounds like more of natures negative feedback to me.

Anthony says this:
another indication that nature is such a poor engineer that phytoplankton can’t adapt to a small change in ocean pH.
The article actually says this:
They will survive just fine, but their biology will be different as a result.”
The article is actually about how the balance between cell proteins and shell are affected by the carbon and nitrogen nutrient levels.
Higher CO2 levels will produce less fixed carbon that will become sediment.
In short the article is not about the survival of the plant. And the increased protein levels suggested by the research makes it a better food source in the food chain but it will upset the environments carbon budget.

It strikes me that “science by press release” is becoming “science for press release” and all the sloppy thinking that it contains.
Just look at how the very sloppy reasoning has crept into science by constant references to the oceans becoming more acidic. They’d have to be acidic before they can become more acidic. Of course, it just wouldn’t carry the degree of panic desired to be precise and say that the oceans are becoming less alkaline. Heck, it almost sounds benign to say that the oceans, through increased absorption of carbon dioxide, are being neutralized and are becoming less alkaline.
Come to think of it, speaking of the pH of the oceans sounds as silly as speaking of an imaginary global temperature.

One of the main problems that I have in the way that scientific results are communicated these days is the phenomenon of publication by press release. Usually, there is only a hint of what the study actually found since the work has to be condensed, and since this is a press release, some popular spin is attached to the work. What is most annoying is that usually the manuscript is behind a paywall (the evil empires of Wiley et al.) and is thus not accessible for the general public to read. Even more annoying in this case is the absence of a link to the paper: I had to go searching the journal’s web site and to find it. Moreover, given the proliferation of specialized journals, I would suspect that academics in modest sized institutions would not have immediate access. I only wish the general biology community would embrace something like the arXiv in which preprints and working papers could be deposited and accessed. All that being said, there is no way for me to intelligently comment on the results of the paper.
A quick perusal of Google Scholar (the best way to find non-paywalled versions of articles) did provide some context. From a quick reading, a long standing question has been what limits the growth of these phytoplankton in high nutrient – low chlorophyll regions of the ocean. The leading suspect has been iron limitation. This reasoning follows from the observation that ammonia concentrations in HNLC regions are relatively low and thus confer an additional burden (increased requirement of reducing power) to the cells. In the absence of ammonia, cells have to reduce nitrates and nitrites to ammonia in order to assimilate nitrogen. Since Fe is used as a cofactor in the enzymes that reduce nitrates and nitrites to ammonia, the thought was that Fe-limitation limited nitrogen assimilation in high nitrate/low ammonia environments. There appears to have been much work on the physiology surrounding Fe availability and nitrogen assimilation. Unfortunately, the physiology of Emiliania huxleyi is complicated (I don’t know of any organism that has a simple physiology) and the mechanisms that determine growth rate and other physiological phenomena are poorly understood. Compounding this is the use of different isolates from different global locations that under similar conditions have a two-fold difference in maximal growth rates.
It is within this context that the quote,
“Metabolizing nitrogen as ammonium versus nitrates requires different biochemical constituents that impact how well the cells make their coccoliths.”
struck me as odd. All microbes that I am aware of prefer ammonia as their source of nitrogen. Only under severe ammonia limitation will cells turn to other pathways to assimilate nitrogen from the environment. The basic pathway is NOx –> NH3 –> glutamine –> glutamate –> amino acid, nucleotides, etc. Having ammonia present usually results in the genes for Nitrate/Nitrite reduction being turned off. Indeed, it appears that growth rate is faster when ammonia is present, and faster growing cells have an increased cell volume. In bacteria, cell volume increases as the growth rate increases for the simple fact that faster growth requires more biosynthetic machinery (think ribosomes) to make more cellular constituents (and more synthetic machinery) and cell volume has to increase to fit the extra machinery.
Reading beyond the press release and abstract, I suspect that increasing nutrient availability in the form of CO2 and NH3 leads to an increased growth rate and larger cell volume. Given our lack of understanding of this cell’s physiology and our even poorer understanding of the nutrient cycles in the ocean, I would hesitate to speculate on the consequences of increased pCO2 in the oceans. Even more tenuous is the common speculation of altered nitrogen source availability.
I would like to end by emphasizing that I fully support funding for modest research projects such as these. Gaining a better understanding of ocean nutrient cycles is an important intellectual pursuit (How does that work?) along with many other scientific endeavors. What gets lost in the din of the climate debates are the practical, closer to home applications of such basic research, for example the food web and fisheries.

If someone wonders where all the chalk deposits (like the white cliffs of Dover and much of the underground of southern England and West France) all over the world are coming from: The same coccolith species that, according to this study, will suffer from higher CO2. They did deposit it millions of years ago during the Cretaceous (what is in a name!), when global temperatures (warm poles, no ice at all) were much higher than now and CO2 levels 10-12 times higher. The coccoliths deposited layer by layer, hundreds meter thick at last. That is one of the reasons why CO2 levels are much lower today, as much is stored in these layers and not directly available for the atmosphere and plants… See:
http://www.noc.soton.ac.uk/soes/staff/tt/eh/

And what are the consequences if this is true? If the phytoplankton absorb less CO2, that means that if there is more CO2 and we have less CO2 absorbed, right? That means that once there is enough CO2, it will never be removed from the atmosphere, but will persist forever. However, we <have had much more CO2 in the past, and then we had less CO2, how, exactly, did that happen? And how many days ago was it that we saw “At the end of the last Ice Age, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rose rapidly as the planet warmed; scientists have long hypothesized that the source was CO2 released from the deep ocean. But a new study using detailed radiocarbon dating of foraminifera found in a sediment core from the Gorda Ridge off Oregon reveals that the Northeast Pacific was not an important reservoir of carbon during glacial times. Sooo, there was less CO2 in the air during the ice age, yet we see that big bunches of carbon were not stored by these plankton in the deep ocean, and now we are told that greater amounts of CO2 will cause less to be stored. Fill me in here, which is it, lesser or greater amounts of CO2 that cause less CO2 to be stored down there? This study has been falsified before it was ever even published.
And exactly what do they mean by “high ammonium levels” anyway? Exactly how high, is that high even possible, is it high enough to kill all the fish? What did they do, dump in a bottle of cleaner?
Therefore this study is merely being made to support the consensus and therefore receive the approval and cash of their superiors. In other words, they are gutless cowards who could never stand up for the truth if they somehow managed to stumble across it, scientists in name only, with only the high moral fiber necessary to do anything anyone wants if it gets them the loot. They deserve nothing but to be laughed out of the company of scientists, scorned by all who see them, and are fit only for menial labor (under direct and constant supervision). And meanwhile, all the “scientists” who end their study that shows that, say, another mini ice age is coming, but who then add the provision “but this does not invalidate global warming, of course”, should be laughed at as the cowards they are. If they cannot stand up for the truth, then they should not be allowed to claim the title “scientist” at all.

Please can someone explain what this article has to do with Cornwall?
No mention of it that I can find but map at top of article is definitely the south west corner of England.

This is for James Sexton and several of the other commentators here:
First direct evidence of ocean acidification
Now, about the inorganic and organic carbon nomenclature. Inorganic carbon in the ocean is defined as calcium carbonate in all its forms. Organic carbon is the “soft” carbon that makes up the bodies of phytoplankton and zooplankton and all the other organisms made primarily of carbon, which with the exception of some siliceous phytoplankton (diatoms) and even some weirder strontianites, is pretty much most of it. Obviously diatoms have organic carbon in them too, I’m just pointing out that there are other hard minerals floating in the sea besides CaCO3. If you have quibbles about the terminology, take it up with the oceanographers!

Oakden Wolf (@oakden_wolf) says:
October 15, 2011 at 12:02 am
This is for James Sexton and several of the other commentators here:
First direct evidence of ocean acidification
A PH shift of .0017. Only in the upper levels where biological activity alone could easily explain this tiny difference. From personal observations for 30 years. A healthy tank can have a PH swing from 7.9 to 8.6 from morning to evening with just photosynthesis.
I know there are some nice toys to make readings but I am willing to bet almost anything that the error range of the sensor used is close to the stated change.
Were the reading taken at the same time of the day?
If the waters are warming they will off gas CO2… Less CO2 higher PH. So they need to make up their minds. Either its getting warmer or CO2 is increasing. You really can’t have it both ways.
To make the claim that man made CO2 is alone responsible is laughable and the explanation of how to asses the man made portion seems just a bit weak.

Which came first; the CO2 chicken, or the Emiliania huxleyi egg?
[snip – the video adds nothing ~jove, Mod]

No may be’s, if’s or could be’s with the following research:
http://www.antarctica.gov.au/about-antarctica/fact-files/climate-change/ocean-acidification-and-the-southern-ocean
They say in the Southern Ocean and other open-ocean ecosystems, calcifying organisms WILL be affected by “acidification”.
They also say that “Even if all carbon emissions stopped today, we are committed to a further drop of 0.1—0.2 pH units and it will take thousands of years for the oceans to recover. However, action now can prevent conditions, that are corrosive to calcifying organisms, from becoming more widespread.”
Wonder what that action is? But guess what? More Southern Ocean research is very important.

Oakden Wolf’s ref:

Seawater in a vast and deep section of the northeastern Pacific Ocean shows signs of increased acidity brought on by manmade carbon dioxide in the atmosphere–a phenomenon that carries with it far-reaching ecological effects–reports a team of researchers led by a University of South Florida College of Marine Science chemist.

(facepalm three times)
(1) Oceans maintain overall constant acidity (tending towards alkalinity) because they always have supplies of CaCO3 to call on
(2) our emissions are an order of magnitude or two less than the annual CO2 turnover via (a) oceans and (b) plants, so both of those can swallow our emissions easily
(3) these people are ignoring all that geology tells us
How can these people call themselves scientists? They are simply jumping on a bandwagon that is destroying Science, not building it up.
We still need a wiki that can take us straight back to the true basics of Science in a way that is both easy to understand, backed by good references, and armed with checkable answers to “debunks”. Too much for me, but that doesn’t stop it being needed.

Oakden Wolf says:
October 15, 2011 at 12:02 am
Using pH-sensitive dyes that turn from purple to yellow in more acidic waters, the scientists were able to track changes produced by 15 years of CO2 uptake near the ocean’s surface, Byrne said. In deeper waters, down to about half a mile, both anthropogenic and naturally occurring changes in CO2 and pH were seen. In the very deepest waters, no significant pH changes were seen.
Another joke ‘scientific’ paper?

Oakden Wolf (@oakden_wolf) says:
October 15, 2011 at 12:02 am
Thank you for your link 🙂
Do you think that “Baselines” are important in science.?
Why “baselines” are Important in science
The Temperature of Cream that has not reached a freeze temperature [ THE “baseline” ] can not be measured as ICE CREAM. You are measuring “Creams” Temperature – NOT ICE CREAMS Temperature..
It’s called a ‘baseline’.
“Seawater” pH is limited to the range 7.5 to 8.4. and stably constrained.
A 7.0 pH is a “neutral”.
THE “baseline” is below 7.0 for Acid.
A pH of below 7.0 is not measuring “Seawater” – NOW you are measuring ACID.
Without Acid being present [ Below 7.0 pH ] You can not measure MORE Acidification.
Oceans are alkaline and becoming slightly less alkaline -THAT is what is being measured.
“Ocean Acidification” is a PR term meant to illicit fear. When “scientists use this term they are ignoring the “baseline”- and using erroneous terminology to arouse “feelings”.

No matter what the subject, whether it’s biology, physics, chemistry, whatever, you apparently know enough about it to pour scorn on research that somehow offends you.

Verity Jones: “Has anyone found a link to the actual paper/abstract in the journal yet? I was unable to, but would like to read the actual abstract to see what is published and what is ‘press release speak’ to make it exciting. ”
Here is the abstract: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2011.02575.x/abstract
The uncertainities of the paper are well stated in the abstract.
E.g. “Additional experiments conducted under lower nutrient conditions are needed prior to extrapolating our findings to the global oceans”

I think that we all know by now that the oceans are not acid, they are alkaline. They have always been alkaline, even in the distant past when CO2 levels were 20 times higher than they are today. It was at that time, 400 million years ago, when CO2 levels were very high, that coral and shellfish were first created.
Any increased dissolution of CO2 in the ocean simply reduces this alkalinity slightly, and moves the seawater closer to neutrality, i.e. the water becomes less caustic.[corrosive] . So I am always suspicious of the motives of those who refer to a reduction in alkalinity as suggesting that the oceans are turning to acid.
Of course, I accept that a headline such as “Oceans Becoming Less Caustic” may not have the desired alarmist ring to it, but at least it has the merit of being true!
As Anthony points out at the beginning, this report if riddled with mays, mights and coulds. When I read a statement such as “this role may change as ocean water becomes warmer and more acidic”; I feel free to interpret this as “this role may be unaffected as ocean water becomes warmer and more acidic. Both statements are equivalent – and so what is the value of this report when nothing it says has any meaning?
I do like the bit about inorganic carbon though. I was always taught that the difference between inorganic and organic chemistry was that the latter was the study of compounds containing carbon. I believe this definition still holds today, but authors of this paper seem unaware of it.

One other little thing: they ran this test in the lab, over “200 generations.” Which means less than a year. If you’re going to test the adjustment of an organism to changing environments, you need a bit more time than that.
You also have to wonder what the adjustments were. Did they let the population stabilize for a couple of months, then slowly change over the course of the year, or did they increase the CO2 levels gradually over the course of time from a new population? Did they adjust the CO2 and nitrogen levels by small calibrated amounts, or did they “push” things to simulate the amount they expect in 100 years?

OT
I was looking at the magnetogram of the sun and sunspot 1312 in the upper right does not appear to e a Cycle 24 sunspot. it looks to me like the orientation is opposite of a cycle 24 sunspot (in the magnetogram white leads black, whereas all the rest in the upper hemisphere black leads white). Is this just an anomaly caused by a dying sunspot or is it a Cycle 25 sunspot?

Every year, the Barents Sea north of Norway experiences a huge plankton bloom turning the ocean color into various shades of aqua.
The plankton species causing it, Emiliana huxleyi.
This year was probably the biggest one seen and it lasted for months covering thousands of kilometres.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=51765

Clear-thinking skeptics — the heartbreak of psychiatrists.

coral reef gaps in the geological record take millions of years to occur, pity this point is missed by the alarmists

The mass of a single coccolith shell is so tiny and water so viscous that the sinking rate is very slow. More likely the CaCO3 gets to depth when copepods graze on the coccoliths and their fecal pellets sink. How that affects the dissolution of the carbonate needs to be considered. The system is vastly more complex than this simple lab experiment implies.

EPA’s CO2 Endangerment Finding is Endangered
By S. Fred Singer
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/10/epas_co2_endangerment_finding_is_endangered.html
But the global surface warming reported since 1979 is fake; it does not exist — as demonstrated by NIPCC in several other data sets: Atmospheric temperatures show no warming trend, as seen both by balloon-borne radiosondes and independent satellite observations. The reported warming of the sea surface can be traced to instrumental problems. And the available proxy data show no post-1979 warming.The reason for the reported surface warming, as reported by the IPCC, is still unclear. But it is likely due to a selection of weather stations that favors an increasing fraction of urban stations and airports, which show a local warming trend because of increasing air traffic.It will be interesting to see the reaction of IPCC scientists, once these data are fully published and accepted by the scientific community. It is unlikely, therefore, that the EPA’s TSD will stand. And without the TSD, the Endangerment Finding is toast – and so is regulation of carbon dioxide.

The reason for referring to the term ‘ocean acidification’ (even if there’s nothing solid to suggest it may even be happening) is simple: the alarmists want to scare the bejesus out of the young and ther gullible into thinking that future trips to the seaside could be ruined by their flesh falling from their bones.
Just watch the scare swing direction in 30 years’ time, when it’ll become ‘ocean bleaching’.

Oakden Wolf (@oakden_wolf) says:
October 15, 2011 at 12:02 am
This is for James Sexton and several of the other commentators here:
First direct evidence of ocean acidification
======================================================
That’s an interesting link. I always go to sleep too early…..A few things jump out at me.
1) There’s no link to any study….?
2) The drop they are so concerned about is change that is WNL
3) They only measured a thin area in the north Pacific. They don’t mention what state the oscillating cycles are in…. such as the PDO, the AO, and others. Were they in the same state?
4) “….in the spring of 2006 using state-of-the-art techniques developed at USF’s College of Marine Science. “…… that’s beautiful…. were the same state-of-art-techniques used in determining the pH in 1991? If not, ….. well it would open a whole host of questions and is probably best to toss and start a study using consistent techniques.
5) Even if the extreme extrapolation is correct,(a drop by 0.4) the oceans will still be base and not acidic.
These are just some of the most glaring issues that pop out at me, but then I haven’t finished my first cup of coffee, yet. Could you bring something a bit more substantial? After all, they concluded the observations in 2006. We’ve nothing more in 5 years?
As to those of us having a bit of fun with the vernacular…… its important to point out that words mean things. A bit of jesting to make that point isn’t harmful.

Scientific papers that have conclusions of what would happen due to Anthropogenic climate change, Are Not proof that Anthropogenic climate change is Actually happening.
The absence of any Super Accelerated Catastrophic Man Made Green House Warning Effect makes any research based on it Null and Void.
But group-think research and self evident circular reasoning being pushed under the guise of “Man Made Global Warming” can be scientifically proven with empirical evidence to be dumber than Stormtroopers as ‘savethesharks’ suggests.
In Fact, that research should be publicly funded and taught in schools around the globe.

“But this role may change as ocean water becomes warmer and more acidic, ” When I read that paragraph near the beginning of this article, I knew it was full of BS. Currently the oceans are alkali and as more CO2 is added to the oceans they become less alkali, not more acidic. The oceans are far from being acidic at this stage and probably won’t ever become acidic.

When I see the words ‘Ocean Acidification’ I assume they are not true scientists but people with an agenda, and whose work is most likely to be absolutely worthless.. The oceans are not acidic so can not become ‘more’ acidic, only less alkaline. ‘Acidic’ is a propaganda word aiming to give the less informed the impression that the oceans are acidic, and becoming more so, and that it is OUR fault.
I do not see any mention of the pH so it could hve been fizzy soda. It reminds me of a similar paper on abalones where the ‘scientists’ used the concentration of CO2 in air as the starting point of the CO2 concentration in the water, over four times the actual amount, rising to over eight times the actual amount of CO2 in the oceans. The fact that ANY abalones survived was a testament to their resilience and showing nature can cope with the most extreme changes, or idiotic scientists.
I did read that phytoplankton use bicarbonates rather than carbonates to form their skeleton so a reduction in alkalinity has been extremely beneficial and caused them to thrive, acting as a feedback loop to reduce CO2. I assume this is what they meant by ‘synergistic’. As this would be the ‘wrong’ result I suppose they increased the CO2 until abnormalities appeared. As the pH is not mentioned I do not know if this happened at levels which are in any way possible in the foreseeable furure, or even likely in the next billion years!

Can anyone comment on Emili’s role in the production and transport of sulfur through cloud seeding? Does Emili possibly play a significant role in conjunction with cosmic rays and cloud nucleation? Does more Emili = potentially more clouds = more cooling?
It is my understanding Emili is responsible for the entire ongoing replenishment of sulfur on land. I’d love to hear from someone more intelligent than me comment on this.

Obligatory pedantic nitpick: might effect coccolith development.
Should be “might affect coccolith development.”

REPLY: Obligatory rebuttal – take it up with the authors – Anthony

This theory should be easy to substantiate. If phytoplankton growth is inhibited by higher temperatures, then phytoplankton blooms obviously will not occur in summer.

So what did these researchers have to say about all the competing gobblers of organinc and inorganic carbon; that will take over the ocean when this little pest goes green side up and adopts room temperature.
Mother Gaia abhors a vaccuum, and she will find some other little monstres to fill the gap..

“”””” ANH says:
October 14, 2011 at 11:23 pm
Please can someone explain what this article has to do with Cornwall?
No mention of it that I can find but map at top of article is definitely the south west corner of England. “””””
It’s where the Pirates of Penzance hung out while they were going to St Ives. An ex of mine went to Penzance Grammar School.

Mike Jowsey says:
October 15, 2011 at 10:32 am
Obligatory pedantic nitpick: might effect coccolith development.
Should be “might affect coccolith development.”
Actually, you appear to assume that the good researchers at SFSU did not mean what they wrote, even in a Freudian slippery way. As a verb, of course, effect means “to cause something to come to completion”. Some of the comments above validate this reading of the original.
Here is an example sentence that contrasts affect and effect as verbs:
Taken in isolation of other factors, and given enough of it, CO2 might, speculatively, on some theoretical grounds, as proven by climate models designed to prove just that, affect climate by effecting a concomitant rise in atmospheric temperature.

J Calvert N says:
October 15, 2011 at 5:08 am
There doesn’t seem to be any mention calcium in the article (although some commenters have mentioned it). Did the experimenters ensure there was enough calcium available for the phytoplankton to use-up in the conversion of CO2 to calcium carbonate?
———-
I suspect the answer to this question is already known.
I suspect the answer is weathering of continental rocks.

For Jeff D, and James Sexton:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2009GL040999.shtml
Global ocean acidification is a prominent, inexorable change associated with rising levels of atmospheric CO2. Here we present the first basin-wide direct observations of recently declining pH, along with estimates of anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic contributions to that signal. Along 152°W in the North Pacific Ocean (22–56°N), pH changes between 1991 and 2006 were essentially zero below about 800 m depth. However, in the upper 500 m, significant pH changes, as large as −0.06, were observed. Anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic contributions over the upper 800 m are estimated to be of similar magnitude. In the surface mixed layer (depths to ∼100 m), the extent of pH change is consistent with that expected under conditions of seawater/atmosphere equilibration, with an average rate of change of −0.0017/yr. Future mixed layer changes can be expected to closely mirror changes in atmospheric CO2, with surface seawater pH continuing to fall as atmospheric CO2 rises.
I clicked on the full text PDF link and it worked. Apparently you can make single copies for personal use.
I took a look through it and biological activity is accounted for (paragraph 16, “respiration”). Also, they cross check the pH change with changes in total alkalinity and total CO2.
Since it’s available online, review it yourself. Send the authors a copy of your review for their comments.

Lucy Skywalker wrote:
(1) Oceans maintain overall constant acidity (tending towards alkalinity) because they always have supplies of CaCO3 to call on
(2) our emissions are an order of magnitude or two less than the annual CO2 turnover via (a) oceans and (b) plants, so both of those can swallow our emissions easily
(3) these people are ignoring all that geology tells us
By the way, these people call themselves scientists because they’ve been doing this for 30 or 40 years and have advanced degrees, research grants, published papers, etc., which is what scientists do.
Regarding comment (1), not sure what you mean. Seawater is a pH buffered system due to the carbonate-bicarbonate equilibria.
Regarding (2), the turnover rate may be larger, but the upward pressure on CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere is due to anthropogenic emissions.
Regarding (3), what does geology tell us?

Jeff D says:
October 14, 2011 at 10:55 pm
Ammonia does not last very long in the oceans. Even in a closed system such as a reef tank ammonia is metabolized so fast as to be almost unmeasurable. I am unsure as to how they anticipate high ammonia levels to even exist.
———–
The key phrase here is “closed system”. If there was no soluble nitrogen in seawater there would be no plant growth at all.
What I missed from the article is where the increased ammonium is coming from. I probably need to read it again and track down the original paper.

I’m pretty sure that Landsat was not able to show phytoplankton blooms, let alone identify them as to species.

Geoff Sherrington says
——–
I was taught that adding ammonia (though this release spoke of ammonium, an ion) to water makes it more alkaline, contra to CO2 making it less alkaline, all other things being equal.
——–
That’s true, but ammonium is an weak acid. It’s the acid used in dry cells.

Legatus says
Therefore this study is merely being made to support the consensus and therefore receive the approval and cash of their superiors.
———
So the story of what happens to organisms and how they respond to CO2 is complex and has many moving parts and is confusing to superficial consideration. There is lots of confusing evidence and resolving what appears to be paradoxes is hard work.
Rather than accept this you make up some story that has the useful property of being evidence free.

LazyTeenager says:
October 15, 2011 at 7:41 pm
James Sexton says:
October 14, 2011 at 9:24 pm
Only to echo the other commentators…….first, it isn’t shown the oceans are becoming less base. ———
It’s been measured directly in other research and it’s being dictated by the increase in atmospheric CO2, also measured. The chemistry of seawater is well understood and once you know the composition the effect of CO2 changes can be calculated.
=========================================================
Not if you’re referring to the paper offered by Oakden. The whole paper was comparing two different data sets and guestimating different variables to make the conditions the same. Try again sparky. You got any other evidence of measured changes in the pH of the oceans?
But, noting your expertise in seawater chemistry, what is meant by sea water being in equilibrium with the atmosphere?
I do love it when a group of people invent their own code words.

From the Words Actually Mean Something” file:
Mike Jowsey says:
October 15, 2011 at 10:32 am
Obligatory pedantic nitpick: might effect coccolith development.
Should be “might affect coccolith development.”
REPLY: Obligatory rebuttal – take it up with the authors – Anthony
Maybe yes, maybe no. Might effect coccolith development means whatever they were talking about might initiate or facilitate coccolith development, which is different from Might affect coccolith development which means whatever they were talking about might impact coccolith development. Question is, do the authors know which they meant?
One of the great burdens of modern science is the decline in knowledge and facility of language, especially English. People think and express in the language they are most comfortable with, basing their thought processes on the depth and understanding of the vocabulary and idioms of their chosen language. Language skills have declined dramatically in learned circles over the last 50 years, partly as a sop to multiculturalism, and partly due to massive failures in primary education. Do many scientists today, literally, know what they are talking about?
The frivolous use of jargon in science has always been, and continues to be, a pox on understanding. Jargon terms ,like umpteen definitions of “organic”, serve only to obfusticate truth. In too many cases, the jargon is created to support the hypothesis by nuance, rather than fact. As we try to remind authors of posts here, science authors need to define their acronyms and jargonology going into their writings, so that the rest of us may know what the heck you’re talking about. Otherwise the reader is left to assume, the consequences of which are self-evident….

Lazy teenager could teach most of you a little chemistry.
Acidity and alkalinity are two different ways of describing the same thing. In aqueos solutions like seawater, the product of the hydronium ion concentration and the hydroxyl ion concentration is a temperature dependent constant. If you know the acidity, then you know the alkalinity.
Acidity is also the measure of the negative log ot the hydronium ion concentration, so alot of you are saying there is no hydronium ion concentration until pH is below 7, utter bollocks I say.
To be an acid, you do not need to have a proton to donate, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_acids_and_bases
Also look here for the reason the term acid does not require that pH be below 7 or any other level.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid%E2%80%93base_reaction
thanks

Can anyone point to an ocean with seawater at a pH of 7.0? Or lower?

I think someone already mentioned the answer to this but
“Can anyone point to an ocean with seawater at a pH of 7.0? Or lower?”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrothermal_vent
Seawater pH as low as 2.8

bob droege says:
October 16, 2011 at 8:25 pm
[ ” Question: A pH of 7.5 to 8.5 is what? Alkaline or acid?
0.00001 mMolar acid and 0.001 mMolar alkaline, you see the point that it is both.’ ]
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I believe you missed a few 0’s?
Neutral water [ de-ionized ] @ 7.0 pH = 0.0000001 M H?
Which indeed makes it a very weak acid or very weak alkaline.
But we aren’t measuring the titration of the pH or it’s base 7.0 pH neutral.
We are measuring seawaters alkaline – BY pH..
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bob droege says:
October 16, 2011 at 8:25 pm
Question: What is the pH for neutral water? Is it 7.0 pH?
Yes, neutral cold water has a pH of about 7,
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Actually, I wouldn’t consider temperatures of 25 °C (77 °F) cold?
Isn’t that the specs for measuring neutral pH?
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bob droege says:
October 16, 2011 at 8:25 pm
[” but neutral boiling water has a pH of about 6.
Is boiling water acid because it has a pH of less than 7 even when it is neutral? “]
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No,
But we are not measuring alkalinity of seawater at boiling – nor are we measuring seawater that is neutral.
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Question: When [ at what baseline ] does seawater become acidity [ acid ]? Is it below 7.0 pH?
bob droege says:
October 16, 2011 at 8:25 pm
[” Depends on what you mean by acid, or what you do with it. If you dissolve NH3 gas into it, it acts as the acid in an acid-base reaction.”]
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Sorry, but the question was: When [ at what baseline ] does seawater become acidity [ acid ]? Is it below 7.0 pH?
Not adding anything to it – just taking seawaters pH.measurement by international agreed scientific standards.
We are not playing in some lab here.
Adding to – exposing to temperature fluctuations – depth changes – even delaying time of administrating the pH test would invalidate / contaminate the sample(s) results,
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bob droege says:
October 16, 2011 at 8:30 pm
[” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrothermal_vent
Seawater pH as low as 2.8″]
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C’mon….[ you had me thinking you were a chemist – until this bit of logic ]
.”Seawater” just because it is in the sea – doesn’t mean you are measuring seawater. By your logic – I could be measuring the viscosity of “seawater” using an oil slick.
Sorry, with a pH of 2.8 you are measuring a fairly strong acid.- within AN ocean.
Definition of seawater agreed by international standards.
Ocean water has an excellent buffering system with the interaction of carbon dioxide and water so that it is generally always at a pH of 7.5 to 8.5
You are talking about a vent of hydrothermal activity in an ocean – not AN ocean.

Kim;)
Please,
Do you know what the prefix m means when used in the unit term Molar?
Secondly, the pH of neutral water is closest to 7 the colder the water is. I didn’t specify the temperature as 25 C, you are just trying to be pendantic here and failing.
you said “No,
But we are not measuring alkalinity of seawater at boiling – nor are we measuring seawater that is neutral.”
I was just providing an example of when neutral water has a pH other than about 7, I answered you question and now you change the question, saying we weren’t talking about boiling water. Fine.
You say “Question: When [ at what baseline ] does seawater become acidity [ acid ]? Is it below 7.0 pH?”
And again you misunderstand my response, I am saying the seawater is already acid as it already has a pH, which is a measure of acidity. Anything that has a pH has a concentration of the acid species [H3O+]. And you missed the part about acid base reactions, reactions involving two species, one an acid and one a base, and they react. The point was when you add ammonia to seawater, there is an acid base reaction, and in this case the seawater acts as the acid and the ammonia as the base. It is one way chemists use the term acid.
The problem is that you and most of the others on this blog can only see the word acid and assume that means something with a pH less than 7 and that is not how chemists use that term.
And last, something that has a pH of 2.8 is a weak acid, using the term fairly strong acid shows that you don’t understand acid base chemistry. Look up what a strong acid is, please.
There are only strong acids and weak acids.
Sorry, chem lecture is closed.

Phil. says:
October 17, 2011 at 10:01 am
[” It’s customary when cutting and pasting from another site to acknowledge the source,
http://www.marinebio.net/marinescience/02ocean/swcomposition.htm “]
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ABSOLUTELY! 🙂
You can tell by my post that I had meant to – in fact, I thought I had.
I apologize…

bob droege says:
October 17, 2011 at 6:59 am
Sorry, chem lecture is closed.
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ABSOLUTELY! 🙂
It closed – when you attempted this bit of logic [ “Seawater pH as low as 2.8”]…for the reasons I stated above.

kim;) said :

.”Seawater” just because it is in the sea – doesn’t mean you are measuring seawater. By your logic – I could be measuring the viscosity of “seawater” using an oil slick.
Sorry, with a pH of 2.8 you are measuring a fairly strong acid.- within AN ocean.
Definition of seawater agreed by international standards.
Ocean water has an excellent buffering system with the interaction of carbon dioxide and water so that it is generally always at a pH of 7.5 to 8.5

Kim;) would do well to listen to Lazyteenager, Phil, Bob Droege and others who have been trying to educate folk here about acid chemistry. Frankly, the ignorance of chemistry by most commenters on this post is starkly apparent (if not to themselves), and an indictment on the scientific education (or lack thereof) of the general lay public – in the US at least…
1) The unattributed quote that Kim;) posted is not a “definition of seawater agreed by international standards”. Such a definitionis better-discussed here.
2) Acidified seawater is simply that – acidified seawater.
I strongly urge folk to try this experiment. Given the apparent expertise that the majority of commenters here seem to perceive of themselves, I am sure that they have access to the appropriate instrumentation…
Take 200 millilitres of seawater. Take a straw. Take a deep breath, and blow into the seawater at a rate of around 6 litres of breath per minute. Take a moment to breathe whenever and as required.
After about a minute the seawater will have a pH around 7.5, and after 100 seconds the seawater will have a pH below neutral.
As kim;) seems to think that seawater is only seawater above pH 7.5, I would like to know if s/he believes that the seawater in the exercise above ceases to be seawater after one minute?
As kim;) believes that acidification only occurs below the arbitrary figure of 7 (deconstructed by others above, and in detail by Skeptical Science), I would like to know if s/he thinks that the process of acidification commences only after 100 seconds in the exercise above, in a solution that is apparently no longer seawater?

Bernard J. says:
October 18, 2011 at 5:08 am
A cute little experiment reminds me of the globe one Gore used for the boarathon.
I have some seawater you can blow on.. If you can blow on it for 100 seconds and the value drops more than .5 pH I will humbly apologize. Adding just table salt to water does not make seawater.
NSW ( Normal Sea Water ) has a dkh of 8 this is a measurement of alkalinity the buffering capacity of the water. Not to be confused with pH being alkaline or acidic. Not sure who came up with those names but he should be beat with a large stick. My tanks seawater runs 11-12 dkh.
It would take me a while to remember all the tanks I have set up. But lets take a look at the ones with a calcium reactor. This little device works like this:
There is a chamber that a slow flow of tank makes it way in and out. In this chamber is calcium carbonate ( crushed coral ). In the top of the chamber is an inlet for 100% CO2. CO2 is injected and mixes with the incoming tank water to create carbonic acid. The amount injected is hard to visualize but 10-20 bubbles a minute is a common amount in a well stocked tank. At the top of the chamber the pH is 6.0- 6.5. As the water that has now become acidic makes it way down the chamber the calcium carbonate is dissolved and breaks down into its component parts. While this is happening the pH of the water running threw the crush coral increases. For most tanks I have added this device to I shoot for an effluent output from the chamber of about 6.8 to 7.0. Doing this creates calcium, carbonates, and some other trace minerals that the corals need to thrive and grow.
So you say Jeff you must be crazy adding such an acidic flow of water into your delicate and expensive Reef Tank. Well the trick is circulation. It seems CO2 off gases incredibly fast even in a small enclosed system. As long a circulation is good a tank pH level of 8.3 is easy to maintain even with a constant source of CO2 and carbonic acid be added to the tank. It is all about the buffering capacity / alkalinity / and the air water interface that allows off gassing.
The ocean off gasses close to the same way, winds and waves keep the pH of the ocean stable. Ocean currents aka the big pump also keep the dissolved CO2 levels mixed. The oceans are well ventilated for the most part. With that being said temperature becomes the main controlling factor for the saturation of CO2 in the open ocean. This is not saying that the CO2 concentrations / pH levels are homogenous. Local variables do have an effect.
The one experiment I would like to see is a Reef Tank with normal levels of CO2 and another with levels doubled. What would the difference in coral growth be?
A comment on politically or scientifically correct. PH, pH who really freaking cares when used in the proper context.

bob droege says:
October 18, 2011 at 6:45 pm
[ “Kim;),
Surely you don’t think fresh water and de-ionized are the same?” ]
Did I say so? 😉
I noticed you didn’t give an answer to ether – or.
I find it amazing – that you are worried about terminology while insisting we are measuring oceans acidification. Ignoring the fact that there is a baseline between seawater.and weak acid creating a difference of approximately 100 fold.
” Weak acids like urine” averaged approximately at 6.0 pH [ 10 fold ]
“Pure” water being at 7.0 pH [ 1 fold ] –
“Seawater’ averaged approximately at 8.0 pH [ 1/10 fold ]
Basic pH chart here. http://www.apswater.com/article.asp?id=140&title=What_is_pH

Jeff D.

I have some seawater you can blow on.. If you can blow on it for 100 seconds and the value drops more than .5 pH I will humbly apologize. Adding just table salt to water does not make seawater.

I used real seawater from the region of the Tasman Sea/Southern Ocean interface. Given the speed and direction of the local currents, a week prior the sample was probably 250km away from the nearest land, coming in from Antarctica. The pH was measured with a pH meter that records pH to 2 decimal places, and saves to flash memory once per second.
The straw was one of those snazzy long bendy numbers that look like concertinas… With a decent amount of aerobic fitness blowing at the stated rate is not overly taxing.
I posted the results of the exercise elsewere about two months ago. I can post them here too, but I would encourage you to try the exercise yourself first, so that you have empirical experience with the process…
There are no tricks involved. The result is as I described. Seriously, try it yourself. I will happily accept your apology.
And for what it’s worth, I have maintained (and still maintain) marine aquaria for decades. These days I don’t bother with artificial salt, because I have the privilege of having at my disposal a flow-through system that ticks over at about 100k litres/day. So I know a little bit about seawater chemistry.
Kim;).
You’re rambling. Incoherently.

Bernard J;

it is generally always

means usually, but with some exceptions.
You’re the one with reading comprehension problems, or perhaps it’s selective reading with the aim of creating put-downs out of whole cloth. Pick one.

Brian H says:
October 19, 2011 at 9:04 am
Thank you 🙂

Sorry, accept not except in above post
[ ” This is the second time you’ve mentioned I failed to link…I provided an explanation and an apology. Are you anal retentive enough not to except either? ‘]…..should be This is the second time you’ve mentioned I failed to link…I provided an explanation and an apology. Are you anal retentive enough not to accept either.
My posts disappear on me.

Kim;) posted this
“Did I say so? 😉
I noticed you didn’t give an answer to ether – or.
I find it amazing – that you are worried about terminology while insisting we are measuring oceans acidification. Ignoring the fact that there is a baseline between seawater.and weak acid creating a difference of approximately 100 fold.
” Weak acids like urine” averaged approximately at 6.0 pH [ 10 fold ]
“Pure” water being at 7.0 pH [ 1 fold ] –
“Seawater’ averaged approximately at 8.0 pH [ 1/10 fold ]
Basic pH chart here. http://www.apswater.com/article.asp?id=140&title=What_is_pH ”
When put parentheses after a word(noun) it is commonly(usually) accepted (taken to mean) that the two(2) things are the same, so of course I think you said that deionized water and fresh water are the same thing.
And do you know what else you said?
You just said that seawater is 1/10 as acidic as “Pure water”
Which means that you agree with me that seawater is already acidic.
Now it is just a small logical step to consider if adding CO2 to seawater makes it more acidic.
There are also a bunch of errors on that site, the pH scale is only bounded by 0 to 14 by definition, concentrated hydrochloric acid has negative pH for example, HF or hydrofluoric acid is not a stong acid, although it is quite dangerous compared to the other strong acids, free hydrogen ions do not exist in aqueous solutions, but I do like how they the terms acidic/basic (alkaline) and acidity/basicness.
See what I did there?
You are coming around, you just like to argue.

stevo says:
October 15, 2011 at 4:01 am
No matter what the subject, whether it’s biology, physics, chemistry, whatever, you apparently know enough about it to pour scorn on research that somehow offends you.
_________________________________
It is more appropriate to say Anthony and others here can spot Propaganda masquerading as Science.
This press release stinks of propaganda and fear mongering.
I am a chemist and I with little knowledge of biology could easily set-up the laboratory experiments to “PROVE” the “hypothesis” Just leave the buffers found in the oceans out of the laboratory version of the sea water.

Gail Combs.
I’m curious as to whether you have performed the little chemistry exercise detailed above. What were your results?
I’m also curious about what sort of “chemist” you actually are, given your statement:

However the energy from the point of view of an atom of gas can be thought of as a “packet” Upon absorption it kicks the atom to a higher energy level. when the atom falls back to the original energy level the exact same amount of energy “packet” is emitted.

1) All significant atmospheric gases are molecular, not atomic.
2) Atomic gases do not absorb infrared radiation.
3) Absorption of IR photons increases the vibrational/rotational energy of the interatomic bonds of ‘greenhouse’ molecules – the atoms composing the molecule only “kick… to a higher energy level” where this extra bond energy is translated to molecular kinetic energy.
I don’t know any chemist that would explain IR absorption the way that you did.