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.
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Chris J, Mary H,
The hysterics round here are getting very annoying.
The HOTS graph which you pointed to has “calculated” and “measured” data smeared together. If you look at their actual measured data of seawater pH, there is no trend.
You can do this by going to to the HOTS data – http://hahana.soest.hawaii.edu/hot/hot-dogs/bextraction.html select pH and hit the “Sumbit Query” Button. Repeat, but this time select Station Kahe Pt. Again no trend. This is the second or third time I have explained this here, and if you had of taken the 20 seconds of effort required you would know this for yourself.
Before you start calling people liars or stupid, you might want to check your thought process.
Biologists are being told that global temperatures are rising rapidly and that the ocean is becoming acidic. Of course they are concerned. What I am trying to uncover is if the base information they are being given is correct. So far, the prognosis is the same old story for CO2. Lots of hysterics and very little actual data to support them.
Chris J,
“Typical aragonite might be on the order of ~0.1 mol % MgCO3, some SrCO3, other impurities, and the rest as CaCO3. Typical hi-Mg calcite might be 20 mol % MgCO3 and less than 80 mol % CaCO3 with very little SrCO3. These are chemically identical???? Are you serious???”
My bad, I didn’t realize you were referring to the completely different mineral called “typical aragonite”. Try adding a couple more question marks and see if you don’t attain enlightenment. I’ll help a little more:
“Typical” aragonite and calcite is CaCO3, which is called “calcium carbonate”.
Chris
“So sir, there’s your answer. The increase in temperature has had a small effect on CO2 solubility. The slight reduction of [CO2] caused by the temp increase is an order of magnitude smaller than the increase in [CO2] caused by the increase in pCO2. See, it’s quite simple, and not at all difficult to answer (provided one understands the chemistry, of course).”
So you agree, that these alarmists who constantly bang on about how the AGW warmed planet will cause the oceans to outgass CO2 and therefore add a significant positive feedback to atmospheric CO2 levels, are talking rubbish as the oceans will actually absorb more CO2 as concentrations increase and therefore the oceans need to be factored in as a negative feedback to increasing levels of CO2?
Please confirm that that is your position.
I need confirmation as I am fed up of alarmists trying to stir up panic on both sides of the issue, often in the same post!
Do the GCMs have the oceans as a negative parameter?
Alan
Chris J
I am a slow student and I am trying to follow the argument about the raw ph data.
The Aloha records show a starting ph of 7.575 on 4/16/92 and a ph of 7.972 on 12/21/7. The Kahe Pt shows 8.092 on 6/8/92 and 8.097 on 12/20/7. Both these locations show a HIGHER ph over 15 years. What is wrong with the data?
“You can do this by going to to the HOTS data – http://hahana.soest.hawaii.edu/hot/hot-dogs/bextraction.html select pH and hit the “Sumbit Query” Button. Repeat, but this time select Station Kahe Pt. Again no trend. This is the second or third time I have explained this here, and if you had of taken the 20 seconds of effort required you would know this for yourself.”
Don’t be too hard on Chris. He might be color blind, and didn’t see all the red ink on the left below his blue “trend line” and all the red ink above that line on the right of the chart.
Steven, have you considered that Hawaii seeps fresh water all over the place, under and around and over the ocean (not to mention the stuff that is in the runoff etc), and that ocean currents are complex and vary considerably? I wouldn’t be surprised that this data represents as much or more variability from these sources as does carbonic acid, if that varies much at all. Of course, there is the local condition of the volcano spewing out CO2 into unpredictable and unobservable wind patterns mixed with warmth and frequent rainfall. I’d be interested in data gathering methods and locations, among other things, to attempt to find out how and what data is actually collected and the quality of that data.
But my bigger question is whether seawater is or can be tested specifically for carbonic acid and other chemicals and gases. So far I’ve become frustrated trying to find the answer. There are many things that can affect water ph. I think this would be the acid test, so to speak. But perhaps the specific makeup of seawater is just too difficult or not possible to directly isolate and quantify.
@Glenn Skankey (15:08:36) :
“What trend line? You mean the “calculated” line mean?”
Talk about “massaging the data!” (depending on what they mean by “calculated”)
“Whaddya mean this square peg doesn’t fit? I’ll show ya. Where’s my data-hammer? ”
Hold on. This is odd. Have you looked at “pCO2 Comparison” at that link? I wonder how they get an inverse relationship between atmospheric [CO2] and it’s partial pressure at sea level?
Let’s see, higher conc., of CO2 gives lower pressure, and lower conc., give higher pressure….? You don’t suppose Maxwell’s demon is real, do you?!
@ur momisugly Steven Goddard (15:21:32)
btw, the 2nd half of my last comment was directed your way
Finally, here’s about as clear an overview of CO2 atmosphere/ocean interaction as you’re going to find.
Sorry, but after I entered that comment (16:26:15) I went back to the links above about that topic and realized some didn’t take you where I wanted, so… in order to (hopefully) minimize confusion, http://hahana.soest.hawaii.edu/hot/trends/trends.html“>this is the site to go to, from which to select “pCO2 Comparison”.
Glenn (15:32:47) :
Chris J,
“Typical aragonite might be on the order of ~0.1 mol % MgCO3, some SrCO3, other impurities, and the rest as CaCO3. Typical hi-Mg calcite might be 20 mol % MgCO3 and less than 80 mol % CaCO3 with very little SrCO3. These are chemically identical???? Are you serious???”
My bad, I didn’t realize you were referring to the completely different mineral called “typical aragonite”. Try adding a couple more question marks and see if you don’t attain enlightenment. I’ll help a little more:
“Typical” aragonite and calcite is CaCO3, which is called “calcium carbonate”.
And they have different crystal structures which causes the two minerals to have different properties, such as solubility, density etc. Calcite is the more stable form at atmospheric temperature and pressure.
In the context of this discussion different organisms produced different structures in their shells depending on the chemical environment, see below for example:
http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2008AM/finalprogram/abstract_150348.htm
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4067/is_200507/ai_n15348256
HasItBeen4YearsYet? (17:21:15) :
Finally, here’s about as clear an overview of CO2 atmosphere/ocean interaction as you’re going to find.
From a string theorist who has a limited knowledge of the subject!
Henry’s law only applies for solutions where the solvent does not react chemically with the gas being dissolved. A gas that does react with the solvent is carbon dioxide which reacts with water. He should have used Revelle factors.
foinavon:
[Yes, log 2 = .3. I’ve had this memorized for about 40 years, only because 20 is about the average/”normal” ratio of HCO3 to dissolved CO2 in blood.]
Certainly that’s what the Henderson Hasselbach equation might say in a vacuum: CO3 could be lower, given an unspecified drop in pH – that is, due to an unspecified addition of H.
But what happens when CO2 in particular is added to the solution is different. Given a resulting measured pH – from the addition of CO2 – all [base/acid] = [CO3/HCO3] has to do is to be in the right ratio to get the measured pH. So CO3 can indeed be increased. This is pretty obvious, right?
pH can also be calculated using [base/acid] = [HCO3/dissolved CO2].
Now, I personally saw HCO3 increase, virtually always – probably at least hundreds of times – in cases where increased amounts of CO2 were added to Human blood – while pH went down, as expected.
In cases of “CO2 retention” involving respiratory insufficiency where excess CO2 could not be “blown off”, measured pH decreased and measured HCO3 increased, just as the equations say it should.
Again, with the addition of CO2 to plasma/blood, measured HCO3 virtually always increased over “average” depending upon how much CO2 increased. It never decreased.
This increase makes more HCO3 available to then dissociate to H and CO3, resulting in at least some increase in CO3, just as in the Oceans.
The problem with the initial example is that in the Oceans all of the reactions are going on in a dynamic equilibrium, so they can’t simply be isolated into a theoretical H.H. equation where individual constituents are manipulated in isolation, to “prove”, for example, that if pH drops, CO3 must have dropped.
@ur momisugly Steven Goddard,
“Chris J, Mary H,
The hysterics round here are getting very annoying.
The HOTS graph which you pointed to has “calculated” and “measured” data smeared together. If you look at their actual measured data of seawater pH, there is no trend.”
Steven, I already explained the where these two different data sources come from. They are using different methodologies to measure different things. The graphic I linked to is for the Aloha station. They have a long-term dataset for a huge number of parameters, including DIC, TA, S, T, P, DIP, total silicate, etc. pH can be calculated from these data more accurately than it can be measured with the tools that were available when they started taking this data (namely electrodes). As above, the ‘calculated’ pH values are for the mixed depth using these data. This method remains at least tied for the most accurate way to determine seawater pH, and the data continue to the present. These data are available for the Aloha and Kahe stations.
After they had already started taking these data a new spectrophotometic method for seawater pH determination became available (Clayton and Byrne, 1992) using m-cresol purple, which proved to be highly accurate (much better than electrodes). Soon after that method became available they began taking another data set using this method at both stations. These two data sets measure slightly different water masses, but show the same trends (see below).
“You can do this by going to to the HOTS data – http://hahana.soest.hawaii.edu/hot/hot-dogs/bextraction.html select pH and hit the “Sumbit Query” Button. Repeat, but this time select Station Kahe Pt. Again no trend. This is the second or third time I have explained this here, and if you had of taken the 20 seconds of effort required you would know this for yourself.”
Steven, honestly I wish I could help, but I don’t know what is giving you trouble. I copied and plotted the pH data for both the Aloha and Kahe stations and surely enough, the trend in pH is down for both.
“Before you start calling people liars or stupid, you might want to check your thought process.”
To be fair, I never called anyone stupid. Perhaps I did jump the gun above and for that I apologize. It does seem you’re genuinely confused/having trouble.
“Biologists are being told that global temperatures are rising rapidly and that the ocean is becoming acidic. Of course they are concerned.”
Believe me, I know. I’m one of them: biominerlization and, secondarily, the effects of ocean acidification are my area of research. Ocean acidification is a difficult issue, and there is much left to learn, no question about it. However, spending time trying to undermine issues that were resolved long ago (i.e., dissolve CO2 into seawater and the pH and CO3= concentration drop like a rock) is simply unproductive. There are real issues that need to be tackled here, there are real questions remaining. I’d love to discuss those. It’s unfortunate no one else seems to care to.
“What I am trying to uncover is if the base information they are being given is correct. So far, the prognosis is the same old story for CO2. Lots of hysterics and very little actual data to support them.”
Steven, the data are right there for you. I’d be happy to try to help you trouble-shoot, and I’ve done my best to explain how those data were derived. There are areas where we do lack data, and more work needs to be done. Unfortunately we’re quibbling here over things that are old hat instead of discussing the actual unanswered questions in this field.
Best,
Chris
@ur momisugly Glenn,
“Chris J,
“Typical aragonite might be on the order of ~0.1 mol % MgCO3, some SrCO3, other impurities, and the rest as CaCO3. Typical hi-Mg calcite might be 20 mol % MgCO3 and less than 80 mol % CaCO3 with very little SrCO3. These are chemically identical???? Are you serious???”
My bad, I didn’t realize you were referring to the completely different mineral called “typical aragonite”. Try adding a couple more question marks and see if you don’t attain enlightenment. I’ll help a little more:
“Typical” aragonite and calcite is CaCO3, which is called “calcium carbonate”.”
The point I was making evidently did not come across. Calcite and aragonite are chemically different. Aragonite is mostly CaCO3, though there are impurities, while most calcite, especially hi-Mg calcite is significantly composed of MgCO3. Yes, they are both principally CaCO3, but a basketball court and a treehouse are both principally wood. There are very, very important differences related to the different chemical composition, as well as fundamental phyisical differences (due to distinct lattice structure) that imparts substantially different solubilites, stabilities, etc.
Chris
@ur momisugly Alan Millar,
“Chris
“So sir, there’s your answer. The increase in temperature has had a small effect on CO2 solubility. The slight reduction of [CO2] caused by the temp increase is an order of magnitude smaller than the increase in [CO2] caused by the increase in pCO2. See, it’s quite simple, and not at all difficult to answer (provided one understands the chemistry, of course).”
So you agree, that these alarmists who constantly bang on about how the AGW warmed planet will cause the oceans to outgass CO2 and therefore add a significant positive feedback to atmospheric CO2 levels, are talking rubbish as the oceans will actually absorb more CO2 as concentrations increase and therefore the oceans need to be factored in as a negative feedback to increasing levels of CO2?
Please confirm that that is your position.
I need confirmation as I am fed up of alarmists trying to stir up panic on both sides of the issue, often in the same post!
Do the GCMs have the oceans as a negative parameter?
Alan”
The oceans have absorbed much (a bit over 1/3) of the CO2 produced from burning fossil fuels. The oceanic mixed layer (~50 m) takes about a year or so to come to equilibrium with respect to DIC, and hence with [CO2]. Given measured fluxes of CO2 (depends heavily on wind, mixing) to the ocean from the atmosphere and the relatively fast equilibration of the mixed layer, the surface ocean (outside of areas of upwelling, of course) is usually pretty close to equilibrium with atmospheric CO2. Right now (can be seen in the HOT, BATS, etc. data) [CO2] in the surface mixed layers is usually only a few years ‘behind’ the rise in atmospheric CO2. Of course that’s expected since the CO2 is added to the atmosphere and has to diffuse to the ocean.
That surface water is eventually mixed down through the ocean though. The time needed to turn the ocean over is ~600 years, at present. Hence, some of the CO2 gets slowly buried in the deep ocean while most of it remains partitioned among the shallow ocean and atmosphere on short timescales.
Hence, the oceans definitely are absorbing and will continue to asorb CO2. The real problem, and I would guess the one that you allude to above (though I would be at all surprised the clueless going off half-cocked and declaring the ocean will become a CO2 source while we’re still emitting CO2), is that as the ocean warms it can hold less CO2. That means more CO2 stays in the atmosphere. The ocean won’t stop absorbing CO2, but it can slow down the rate of absorption (and in fact it has in the past couple of decades, relative to what it used to take up–it’s not 100% clear why though, to the best of my knowledge).
As long as we are emitting fossil fueld CO2 to the atmosphere the ocean will absorb at least some of it. However, once we stop emitting CO2 to that atmosphere (even if it is simply when we burn every bit of fossil fuel on the planet) the atmospheric concentration will begin to drop as CO2 is taken up by terrestrial plants, and through chemical weathering. Now we’ll see the reverse process playing out, where the ocean is a source of CO2 and terrestrial environments become the sink. Effectively what that shapes out to is that a quantity of CO2 equivalent to a portion of our CO2 emissions will be in the atmosphere/shallow ocean for a long, long time (hundreds of thousands of years+).
The ocean and the atmosphere are neigther sources nor sinks all the time, only in context.
As for GCMs, I’m a somewhere between a biologist, chemist and geologist in terms of my work, but a climatologist or computer programmer I am not. Yes, feedback loops between ocean and atmosphere like this are amongst the most fundamental parts of GCMs, from what I know, but you’d need to talk with someone that works with them for specifics.
Hope that helps,
Chris
Glenn (15:08:36) :
“Sir, you are flat-out lying. Go to the link (HOT data), select pH comparison–notice the trend line is sharply down:” http://hahana.soest.hawaii.edu/hot/trends/trends.html
I did. What trend line? You mean the “calculated” line mean? I don’t know what “calculated” means, but I suspect it is a prediction, like “acidification”.
Then I suggest you educate yourself about the measurement of the properties of sea water. The ‘calculated’ pH is determined from the measurement of total CO2 and total alkalinity of the sample, it’s a standard routine chemical method for determining the pH of sea water.
pH, alkalinity and total CO2 are inter-related so measure any two and you can calculate the third. This method is used to calculate in situ pH. Direct measurement of sample pH depends on the temperature and pressure at which the measurement is made. Measuring alkalinity and TCO2 allows the in situ pH to be calculated without that complication. (See for example: “Methods of Seawater Analysis”, Klaus Grasshoff, Manfred Ehrhardt, Klaus Kremling, Lief G. Anderson)
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/cdiac74/sop03.pdf
Chris J,
I have no idea why you are continuing to propagate this story. I explained the methodology, generated the raw HOTS data from their web site, and provided links to spreadsheets with the HOTS data for both Aloha and Kahe. I have calculated linear regressions for both trends as well as the standard deviations, and I have repeated this exercise several times using narrower depth profiles for both sites – and always see the same thing. There is no statistically significant downward trend in pH at either site. Certainly nothing within an order of magnitude of the 150% increase in acidity which the IPCC claims by the end of the century. And as Glenn pointed out, the Hawaii data is possibly influenced by freshwater flowing into the ocean.
The Monterey Bay data actually shows a minor trend towards higher pH.
Nobody so far has presented any raw data which corroborates the idea that the oceans are rapidly increasing in acidity.
To Chris J
You did not answer my question. The raw data source shows no real change in two locations over a 15 year time span.
You wrote “Steven, honestly I wish I could help, but I don’t know what is giving you trouble. I copied and plotted the pH data for both the Aloha and Kahe stations and surely enough, the trend in pH is down for both.” The site you used shows this data…
The Aloha records show a starting ph of 7.575 on 4/16/92 and a ph of 7.972 on 12/21/7. The Kahe Pt shows 8.092 on 6/8/92 and 8.097 on 12/20/7. Both these locations show a HIGHER ph over 15 years.
Why do you claim the data shows a downward trend?? Can you please post the data you used? Thanks in advance.
@ur momisugly J. Peden,
What’s the problem, I thought you were going to calculate the full carbonate parameters for standard sea water for us at different levels of pCO2, showing how to perform the calculations, no? You know, that calculation that, according to you, will produce an increase in CO3= concentration and a reduction in pH… Where are the calculations? Above you discuss an increase in HCO3- concentration upon the addition of CO2 (which absolutely does occur, as I said), now show us that CO3= increase you keep promising us. Give us the numbers–the concentrations.
Or, if you’d prefer, we could see how the calculation is performed, and you can see that in fact pH and CO3= drop like a rock with the addition of CO2.
Chris
Chris J,
Ok, although you messed up big time with claims about the chemical composition of aragonite and calcite, you have offered what apparently
looks like some knowledge of the ph graph, and I found this from prior posts of yours:
“pH was assessed using both spectophotometric methods with m-cresol purple (= ‘measured’) and in accordance with equilibria given measured values of TCO2 and TA (= ‘calculated’).”
“They have a long-term dataset for a huge number of parameters, including DIC, TA, S, T, P, DIP, total silicate, etc. pH can be calculated from these data more accurately than it can be measured with the tools that were available when they started taking this data (namely electrodes). As above, the ‘calculated’ pH values are for the mixed depth using these data.”
TCO2 is the total concentration of all forms of carbon dioxide including bicarbonate and carbonate as well as dissolved CO2? And TA is titration alkalinity, a quantity of hydrogen ions in moles?
And that a calculation using only these two measures results in the ph of a water sample?
Can you provide some evidence that what you say is true concerning “measured” and “calculated”?
http://hahana.soest.hawaii.edu/hot/protocols/chap23.html
“pH is measured electrochemically using a combination
electrode.”
“The pH of seawater samples is calculated using the
electrode slope and isoelectric point and sample temperature.”
Richard S Courtney (09:06:35) :
Foinavon:
I regret that I am getting tired with your obfuscations so I will address only one of your iterated assertions.
In response to my correctly disputing your assertion that CO2 is being “forced into the oceans” I correctly said:
“Rubbish! The “real world evidence” is that the oceans release an order of magnitude more CO2 than the anthropogenic emission each year and they take back almost all of it each year. At issue is why they don’t take back all of it.”
Nonsense! The mass of the atmosphere is ~5×10^18kg, the annual fluctuation of CO2 is ~4ppm so that gives an annual fluctuation of ~20 Gtonne. The annual emission of fossil fuel worldwide in 2004 was ~27 Gtonne, so for your ‘order of magnitude’ greater release of CO2 should result in an annual fluctuation of ~50ppm!
You replied:
“Really? Evidence please!”
I answer that there is far, far too much evidence for me to cite it all here. As summer temperture rises the oceans warm and emit CO2, and they take it back each winter. This is demonstrated, for example, by the Mauna Loa data which you cite. The seasonal variability of CO2 measured at Mauna Loa is an order of magnitude greater than either the anthropogenic emission each year and the net increase in atmospheic CO2 each year.
As demonstrated above this is wrong, your apology for misleading posts is awaited.
Phil,
“Then I suggest you educate yourself about the measurement of the properties of sea water. The ‘calculated’ pH is determined from the measurement of total CO2 and total alkalinity of the sample, it’s a standard routine chemical method for determining the pH of sea water.
pH, alkalinity and total CO2 are inter-related so measure any two and you can calculate the third.”
Thank you for the reference. I must study and cross reference this and your claims before coming to any conclusions. As I said before, I don’t remember much chemistry. This method though appears to be possibly close to what I have been searching for, a direct and dependable way of determing amounts of acid in seawater produced by CO2.
But I have other concerns about these graphs. It seems clear that the “measured” shows no downward trend. Yet these measured values are not plotted for the complete time series. The measured and calculated values are not even close to being the same. Some data points of each measurement at certain times are off by more than the total variation of either in the chart. See where I am having a problem? Without the full range of measured, no comparison at all can be made, only the calculated values show a trend. And it seems that measurements would be a lot easier and more likely to have been done and recorded than the “comparison” process of finding ph. If one took out the comparison data, and “filled in” or “adjusted” the missing measurement data, there would be no downward trend. One or the other isn’t reliable, and collection or data integrity is suspect.
http://hahana.soest.hawaii.edu/hot/trends/trends.html (ph comparison)
So then, just how much CO2 is necessary to drop seawater pH from 8.1 to say 7.1 and if an addition of CO2 supposedly causes pH to drop like a rock and just how long would this take?And this CO2 comes from the combustion of fossil fuels.
Chris J,
“The oceans have absorbed much (a bit over 1/3) of the CO2 produced from burning fossil fuels.”
Sorry, that quantification is somewhat speculative, since we are spending millions of dollars to find that out right now.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/14/nasa_oco_launch_site/
No, Chris, that’s what you demanded, in somewhat of a desperate fury, I might add. Not a good sign.
No, it’s not up to me to disprove the equations of basic inorganic chemistry, it’s up to those who claim the disproof. I’m willing to be corrected, just not by wish, “intuition”, or “counter-intuition”. Not to mention not by a phobic “fear of acid”.
Btw, where do you think CO3 comes from to begin with?