The world’s marine ecosystems risk being severely damaged by ocean acidification unless there are dramatic cuts in CO2 emissions, warn scientists.
The researchers warn that ocean acidification, which they refer to as “the other CO2 problem”, could make most regions of the ocean inhospitable to coral reefs by 2050, if atmospheric CO2 levels continue to increase.
This does indeed sound alarming, until you consider that corals became common in the oceans during the Ordovician Era – nearly 500 million years ago – when atmospheric CO2 levels were about 10X greater than they are today. (One might also note in the graph below that there was an ice age during the late Ordovician and early Silurian with CO2 levels 10X higher than current levels, and the correlation between CO2 and temperature is essentially nil throughout the Phanerozoic.)
Perhaps corals are not so tough as they used to be? In 1954, the US detonated the world’s largest nuclear weapon at Bikini Island in the South Pacific. The bomb was equivalent to 30 billion pounds of TNT, vapourised three islands, and raised water temperatures to 55,000 degrees. Yet half a century of rising CO2 later, the corals at Bikini are thriving. Another drop in pH of 0.075 will likely have less impact on the corals than a thermonuclear blast. The corals might even survive a rise in ocean temperatures of half a degree, since they flourished at times when the earth’s temperature was 10C higher than the present.
Steven Goddard (11:49:13) :says,
Allen,
The saturation point of CaCO3 (which controls the ability of sea creatures to precipitate aragonite shells) is a chemical property and has nothing to do with biology. You aren’t being so clever as you think you are.
A good explanation of how buffering works in the ocean from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification
Leaving aside direct biological effects, it is expected that ocean acidification in the future will lead to a significant decrease in the burial of carbonate sediments for several centuries, and even the dissolution of existing carbonate sediments.[28] This will cause an elevation of ocean alkalinity, leading to the enhancement of the ocean as a reservoir for CO2 with moderate (and potentially beneficial) implications for climate change as more CO2 leaves the atmosphere for the ocean.[29]
Looking at the link you have provided in context, what it says is in the first paragraph of the section on future impacts is:
“Although the natural absorption of CO2 by the world’s oceans helps mitigate the climatic effects of anthropogenic emissions of CO2, it is believed that the resulting decrease in pH will have negative consequences, primarily for oceanic calcifying organisms. These use the calcite or aragonite polymorphs of calcium carbonate to construct cell coverings or skeletons. Calcifiers span the food chain from autotrophs to heterotrophs and include organisms such as coccolithophores, corals, foraminifera, echinoderms, crustaceans and molluscs. ”
So the first step is acidification and killing off certain types of organisms.
After all this is accomplished a slower process the dissolution of CaO3 sediments will reverse the process of acidification.
So in the long run we have a silver lining. How long will this take? I think the answer is thousands of years based on what I have read of this.
Do you really believe we should regard acidification as no problem, because the problem will be reversed at some later time thousands of years later, or are you just trying to put one over on us?
Robert S (11:03:35) :
Do you think “acidification” means “to make more acidic”? If so, is a ph of 8 acidic or not? Is 8 more acidic than 9? Does a drop from 9 to 8 signify an increase in *acidity*?
“No, that’s not what it means. Acidification is the process of becoming acidic. And no, that does not mean it actually has to become acidic.”
The authors who coined “acidification” to refer to a minor change in base ph *in* the Nature article used “becoming more acidic” to refer to this process of “acidification”. You claim acidificatiion does not mean it doesn’t actually have to become acidic. So either you or the AGW crowd has a problem, or “becoming more acidic” can actually not mean acidic, but rather a base value moving toward an acid.
Or maybe you will claim that “becoming acidic” is the same thing as “more acidic”?
Do a google search and show me one reputable definition or example of a change of alkalinity referred to as “more acidic”. Excuding of course the hundreds of thousand of AGW articles that do just that, including the original Nature article reposted below.
http://antalya.uab.es/icta/activitats/doc_seminaris_06_07/Seminaris_Master/2007_02_05_Caldeira_and_Wickett_2003.pdf
“When carbon dioxide dissolves in the ocean it
lowers the pH, making the ocean more acidic.”
Best quote of the thread:
E.M.Smith (01:51:05)
Frankly, all I see so far is yet another research area dancing in the error bands of measurement.
—–
Mary Hinge (06:23:05) :
“All a question of time scales, the immediate time frame, for instance the human life span) diversity will be greatly reduced. In the longer time frame, (100,000’s of years ) then you’re right. care to wait that long?”
But the time scales you are referring to depend on other scales such as the rise in global temperature which is turning out to be not nearly as much nor as rapid as originally projected. The problem is that many scientists have based their conclusions in their peer-reviewed papers on the original assumptions as put forth by the IPPC. In fact, in many cases, the entire reason for the research is to determine what would happen if those projections come to pass.
I think if you look at several peer-reviewed papers, you’ll see the ‘consistent withs’ and all the ‘ifs’ that lead to the conclusions when the researchers actually do due diligence.
The rhetoric in the media and on many blogs, however, is much different. The ‘alarmists’ take the conclusions at face value omitting the ‘ifs’ from their statements. The conclusions are given far more certainty than the research does. And when we find peer-reviewed papers that are not so honest in outlining the uncertainties it’s a bad mark against not only the researcher but the entire peer-review process as well.
There are many hypotheticals and uncertainties we are all dealing with here and the minimum we should all expect from every participant is to admit to them.
Alan Wilkinson (12:57:13) :
I repeat, the only way CO2 can cause a reduction in carbonate is by carbonate being taken out of the water – eg by creation of MORE shells, coral, fishbone etc.
The rest of the blather above is just that – total ignorance of basic solution chemistry.
Here Here! (Hear hear?!)
I though about responding to it (the ‘blather’) but, frankly, was overwhelmed by the brokenness in their postings and just didn’t feel ready to start into it. I like teaching chemistry, but … The idea of equilibrium equations seems lost on them. And thinking about bringing up all the other ions in the ocean; that you needed to consider their chemistry as well for a real equilibrium solution… Decided it was better to just pass by quietly and hope it isn’t contagious…
When you have 500 Billion Tons of reduced metal on the surface of the ocean floor you will not be dealing with an acid condition any time soon. The ocean is deeply stabilized at a mild alkaline condition.
E.M.Smith (15:10:14) :
“Oh Drat! I’m being forced into an “Appeal to Authority” argument…. I hate appeal to authority… but for things that require a shared standard, like word definitions, we do need some sort of shared authority. Sigh.”
I say go straight to the source or origin, if possible, of a word usage, and interpret meaning in context, rather than resorting to putting words in people’s mouths. A word can be used anyway a person wants, as long as the meaning is defined and adhered to. And that is what I did, to the authors that coined “ocean acidification”. They refer to it as “When carbon dioxide dissolves in the ocean it lowers the pH, making the ocean more acidic.”
So now we have to determine what they meant by “more acidic”, and it is inferred clearly from the above quote; adding CO2 to the ocean makes the ocean “more acidic”. Yet their own “scenario” shows that the ocean ph has not, and will not reduce to an actual value below 7 until sometime around 2250 AD.
So they are predicting real acidic ocean conditions in the future, as “in the process of becoming acidic” definition of acidification.
Yet they use the term “more acidic” to explain current changes in ocean ph, as another definition of acidification.
In other words, they refer to what they think will happen in a couple hundred years, to what is happening today. More than bold and enabling. And wrong. Predicting and knowing are different things. It’s pure propaganda.
Bruce Cobb (12:05:51) got it:
“So, if you cool water down the process would be called freezing, or if you warm it, boiling? Or, when I heat my house to keep the vicious arctic cold away, I am actually burning it? I think I see now. So, this is why, in AGWer land, a .7C rise in temp over the course of a century is described as a planet that is on fire. It is all becoming extraordinarily clear now.”
Alan, you have cheered me up enough that I think I will add a pitch to the game…
Alan Wilkinson (17:08:36) :
So by this logic, it is not possible to have fresh water muscles, clams, etc. since fresh water is not even remotely near saturated with calcium and carbonate… I’ll have to tell my buddies to stop using fresh water clams for catfish bait since they don’t exist. Oh, and tell the folks in the Great Lakes that zebra muscles are no longer a problem… (Yes, it’s that darned non-peer reviewed existence proof thing again; too bad you can’t make it go away…)
This is a misrepresentation of the basic chemistry.
There are two aqueous dissociation constants involved:
(1) H2CO3 ← K1 → H+ & HCO3- ← K2 → 2H+ & CO3–
as well as the solubility reaction involving Henry’s Law at the surface:
(2) H20 + CO2 ← Ks → H2CO3
Adding more CO2 to the sea whether by increasing atmospheric CO2 or by cooling the water which modifies Ks can only drive equation 1 to the right, increasing the amount of CO3– in the water.
And what does the intermediary HCO3- and the CO3- do?
From: http://oceanacidification.wordpress.com/2008/08/05/coral-calcification-responds-to-seawater-acidification-a-working-hypothesis-towards-a-physiological-mechanism/
“Coral nubbins were incubated for 8 days at three different pH (7.6, 8.0, and 8.2). To differentiate between the effects of the various components of the carbonate chemistry (pH, CO32−, HCO3−, CO2, Ω), tanks were also maintained under similar pH, but with 2-mM HCO3− added to the seawater. The addition of 2-mM bicarbonate significantly increased the photosynthesis in S. pistillata, suggesting carbon-limited conditions. ”
So what does that mean? It means that more HCO3- (bicarbonate ion) makes coral happier and gets them growing faster because they are no longer ‘carbon-limited’. Think about it… I’ll wait …
Now if you start taking the HCO3- out of the middle, both the CO3– and the H2CO3 will be trying to ‘fill in the middle’. The bottom line is that coral growth is ‘carbon limited’ to what washes up from the bottom (ancient CO3– side) or what comes from the air via dissolved CO2.
And that is why the aquarium with added CO2 and happy corals speaks more volumes than all the Revenge of the Peers ever will.
So this is the best some of you have got? You wish to challenge the definition of ‘acidification’? Do you really wonder why so many would be inclined to dismiss your actions as nothing more than propagandising after that? Truly, very deeply feeble and pathetic, if that is what you choose to emphasise in your commentary! Call it de-alkalinasation if you prefer, I couldn’t care less! For goodness sakes, try to talk about the science rather than pursuing these silly point-scoring ventures – you just make yourselves seem ridiculous and petty (which does rather suit my POV, I have to say – by all means make yourselves seem ridiculous and petty!).
“I recommend reading a bit about the geological history of corals and evolution of today’s coral species…”
It should be noted that one of the references here is to a Ken Anthony, research fellow at University Queensland. Anthony is the beneficiary of some $15 million dollars in research grants from NOAA, Packard Foundation, Australian government and ARC. Anthony describes his own work as: “A large part of my work is based on experimental analyses coupled with the development of mathematical models.”
As even the lay person is coming to understand, the ability of the computer models to approach a margin of accuracy in eco-systems and climate prediction is doubtful. Given the (unwritten) intent of the massive funding to establish an AGW link to ocean acidification – the entire body of work remains suspect.
Eric (07:35:24) :
Alan wilkinson said
“This is a misrepresentation of the basic chemistry.
One result of the release of hydrogen ions is that they combine with any carbonate ions in the water to form bicarbonate:
This removes carbonate ions from the water, making it more difficult for organisms to form the CaCO3 they need for their shells.
And this is the broken bit. As noted in my prior posting a real world lab test with growing corals found that they wanted more bicarbonate… That the process drives toward more bicarbonate is a good thing.
J Lo:
J Lo, no one is missing the “additional” right side of the equation, which proceeds in dynamic equilibrium with the left – which itself actually starts with:
CO2 + H2O = H2CO3….. then, etc..
If you add more CO2, more CO3 results by virtue of “mass action”. That’s why there are “equations” to begin with. On adding more CO2, the ratios involving the components of each side of the equation will remain the same, but the quantities/concentrations of each constituent will increase, including CO3.
This is simple inorganic chemistry 101. You simply can’t get less of the right side by adding more of the left side.
Dear Simon Evans
As I wrote to you personally plus your cohort Foinavon a little while back to point out the obvious, rapid ocean recirculation means that acidification or delakalinization is a completely busted flush.
And there has been no response then I have to presume that you can’t find a way to disagree with me but on the contrary like to argue for arguments sake. Not a new tactic and not an effective one but a tactic nonetheless.
I have to presume that you prefer to labor under misaprehension than to discover truth.
Good night old boy, sleep well.
During the deep past, the oceans were indeed very rich. What was the partial pressure of CO2 in those ancient times? Of course, much, much higher than it is (or ever could possibly be) today. The coming crisis is not one of too much CO2, it is one of too little. Terraforming is looking better and better all the time.
Bill D (13:21:02)
Bill,
Yes, we do seem to be on the same wavelength! I enjoy your posts; I must say there are an awful lot of thick-headed and opinionated contributors to this site.
My background is in hydrology and water quality; I have collaborated over the years with a research group at Lake Tahoe (I am a “visiting scholar” at U.C. Davis, but make my living as a consultant). I had a paper in Climatic Change a couple of yrs ago on “The Warming of Lake Tahoe” which showed that increasing thermal stability is a major impact of the long-term warming trend (you can download a copy at http://www.hydroikos.com). I have a follow-up paper in review at the same journal on regional trends, impacts and drivers of climate change in the Tahoe basin. And we have some interesting on-going research on the effects of climate change on the Lake.
I would love to hear more about your work on climate change and deep lakes. You should have come to the Chapman Conf. at Tahoe last spring, on “Lakes and Reservoirs as sentinels of climate change”.
We should continue this conversation “off-line”. My e-mail is: coats(at)hydroikos.com
Bob Coats
HasItBeen4YearsYet said:
Perhaps your sarcasm detectors are not working, or perhaps you are simply enabling those species of coral to pop into existence now that they have been vouchsafed by peer-reviewed papers.
Simon Evans (16:54:23) :
“So this is the best some of you have got? You wish to challenge the definition of ‘acidification’? Do you really wonder why so many would be inclined to dismiss your actions as nothing more than propagandising after that? Truly, very deeply feeble and pathetic, if that is what you choose to emphasise in your commentary! Call it de-alkalinasation if you prefer, I couldn’t care less! For goodness sakes, try to talk about the science rather than pursuing these silly point-scoring ventures – you just make yourselves seem ridiculous and petty”
100% innuendo, ad hominem and baseless opinion. Should have been moderated IMO.
AGW propaganda seems to be a rather frequent consideration in the skeptical crowd, and I see no reason why reasoned arguments to show the existence of propaganda should be considered silly, ridiculous, petty, feeble or pathetic.
“(which does rather suit my POV, I have to say – by all means make yourselves seem ridiculous and petty!).”
Whats this, some kind of hopeful self-fulfilling prophecy about your intimations that these claims of propaganda are propaganda themselves?
LOL.
E.M.Smith (16:59:35) said
Alan wilkinson said
“This is a misrepresentation of the basic chemistry.
One result of the release of hydrogen ions is that they combine with any carbonate ions in the water to form bicarbonate:
This removes carbonate ions from the water, making it more difficult for organisms to form the CaCO3 they need for their shells.”
And this is the broken bit. As noted in my prior posting a real world lab test with growing corals found that they wanted more bicarbonate… That the process drives toward more bicarbonate is a good thing.
So explain why the following scientists found that more CO2 hurts corals:
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/666546/growing_acidity_of_oceans_may_kill_corals/index.html
“Growing Acidity of Oceans May Kill Corals
By Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post Staff Writer
“… Scientists have conducted a few ocean acidification experiments in recent years. All have shown that adding carbon dioxide to the water slows corals’ growth rate and can dissolve pteropods’ shells.
Langdon, who conducted an experiment between 1996 and 2003 in Columbia University’s Biosphere 2 lab in Tucson, concluded that corals grew half as fast in aquariums when exposed to the level of carbon dioxide projected to exist by 2050. Coupled with the warmer sea temperatures that climate change produces, Langdon said, corals may not survive by the end of the century.
“It’s going to be on a global scale and it’s also chronic,” Langdon said of ocean acidification. “Twenty-four/seven, it’s going to be stressing these organisms. . . . These organisms probably don’t have the adaptive ability to respond to this new onslaught.”
Stanford University marine biologist Robert B. Dunbar has studied the effect of increased carbon dioxide on coral reefs in Israel and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. “What we found in Israel was the community is dissolving,” Dunbar said.
Caldeira has mapped out where corals exist today and the pH levels of the water in which they thrive; by the end of the century, no seawater will be as alkaline as where they live now. If carbon dioxide emissions continue at their current levels, he said, “It’s say goodbye’ to coral reefs.”
These people are genuine researchers not hobbyists. They have subjected their publications to peer review. I doubt that your experiments have been done as carefully.
It has been shown pretty conclusively that atmospheric and oceanic CO2 don’t harm coral, but rather, that CO2 spurs coral growth.
And the oceans are not warming nearly enough to heat coral the several degrees necessary to kill it. It is arguable whether the oceans are warming at all.
So “coral bleaching,” as another AGW argument, fails.
It’s unfortunate that this must be repeated so often: it is not the responsibility of skeptics to prove that AGW exists or doesn’t exist. It is the responsibility of AGW proponents to show conclusively that the climate and ocean are behaving unnaturally, and as a direct result of human activity; specifically, due to the emission of carbon dioxide.
So far, the AGW hypothesis has failed completely. The climate is well within its normal, natural historical parameters. CO2 is rising while the planet is cooling, thus falsifying the AGW/CO2 hypothesis [and don’t show us your always-inaccurate models, they don’t prove anything; they can’t even model today’s climate when all historical climate data is programmed in].
Complaining about which term to use for ocean pH is just an impotent fallback position when the AGW/coral argument fails.
Simon Evans (13:56:27) :
Hmm. Just possibly. As a matter of fact, though, which anyone can follow up, the Wiki quotation Steven Goddard made makes a total hash of representing the papers it references.
Fair enough. Then might I suggest a bit more attack the message and a bit less attack the messenger? (And if it really bugs you, get on Wiki and ‘clean up’ the hash!)
You’ve said things such as,
“One also has to wonder how they measured the pH of the ocean to 4 decimal places in 1751, since the idea of pH wasn’t introduced until 1909.”
before, referring to how measurements such as pH can be recorded for an era preceding the invention of such concepts.
Just so you know, there are ways to measure pH, temperature, carbon levels, etc. for earlier periods in time based on the soil cores, ice cores, fossil samples, and other pertinent geological data that is of that time.
Bob Coats,
Perhaps you can enlighten some of us “thick headed” people about how shellfish flourished in the ocean when CO2 levels were greater than 4,000 PPM. Reading through some of the theoretical scientific literature, what actually happened should have been impossible.
Also, if you have links to any raw ocean pH data over the last few decades that would be much appreciated.
@Glenn Skankey (16:03:31) :
“The authors who coined “acidification” to refer to a minor change in base ph *in* the Nature article used “becoming more acidic” to refer to this process of “acidification”.”
THE OPERATIONAL TERM THERE IS “COINED,” MEANING THAT’S A TERM WHOSE USAGE THEY INVENTED BECAUSE THAT IS NOT THE WAY IT WAS USED IN THE PAST, AND THEY DID THAT IN ORDER TO DECEIVE.
ALSO, JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE ELSE USES THE INCORRECT TERMINOLOGY DOESN’T MAKE IT RIGHT, EVEN IF IT’S FROM THE PROPAGANDISTS AT “NATURE.”
SOMETIHNG CAN NOT BECOME “MORE ACIDIC” UNLESS IT ALREADY IS ACIDIC TO BEGIN WITH, PERIOD.
Do these studies of ocean ph actually detect and measure acids, or is CO2 and carbonic acid just assumed to be the reason for changes in ph?
The latest study by Wootton in Washington State was published by PNAS, and I only have access to the abstract. The reason why I wonder about this is that the area studied has suffered much pollution, runoff, waste, oil and such, and all contain various acids, and it looks to me, acidic in general. There are many articles on this pollution, and it appears that the Canadian city of Victoria continues to dump millions of liters of untreated sewage into the Straits there.
http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/sanjuans/isj/news/20129379.html
“Now, everyday, 120 million liters of raw sewage and toxic chemicals are dumped into our shared waters, creating pollution hazards for human and marine health,” the letter notes.
For those of you who won’t accept something because it doesn’t appear in a refereed journal, Frank J. Tipler has a word for you…
Peer review ain’t what it’s cracked up to be, and frequently a lot less.
Ellie in Belfast (15:44:29) : Actually, biology can influence precipitation significantly. Most people are thinking of bulk solution chemistry, but biological surfaces have big influences at on local solution chemistry at the molecular level.
The also have active transport processes. One extreme example is how salt is handled. Some fish (and even some non-fish like the Iguana of Easter Island) can excrete salt.
In humans it is widely known that when lost at sea you will die if you drink salt water (due to the inability of your kidneys to excrete a stronger salt concentration than sea water). Less widely known is that you can take a ‘sea water enema’ and survive. The colon has active transport of water (to solidify feces) and can extract fresh water from sea water. I know of at least one scandinavian family lost at sea that survived using this trick.
If CO2 in the atmosphere is complicated, there are probably two orders of magnitude of additional complications in the ocean when you add chemistry and biology to the mix.
A point I was wandering around earlier that you have made far more eloquently. h/t
envirochiq,
Are you suggesting that there is a way to use proxies to measure the average worldwide ocean pH from the year 1751 to four digit precision? I’m keen to hear about how such wondrous magic can be performed.