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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Steven Goddard (19:58:05) :
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.
The trend shown here is ~0.03 pH units in 20 years so over the next century we might expect ~0.15 pH units which gives ~150% increase in H+
http://hahana.soest.hawaii.edu/hot/trends/trends.html
Chris J,
“The point I was making evidently did not come across. Calcite and aragonite are chemically different.”
No, Chris, they are not. Pure calcite has the same chemical composition as pure aragonite. When mixed with impurities, they are not pure. But when you say “calcite”, you shouldn’t mean magnesium calcite. It isn’t hard to understand, or convey.
One of the problems I see for this discussion is that some bloggers think that the demonstration that a process occurs tells us something about its importance. For example, none of us who have documented the roles of terrestrial photosynthsis and respiration in the seasonal dynamics of atmopheric CO2 disagree that deep sea vents can release CO2. The question is how great is this flux relative to othere fluxes.
All sorts of scientists calculate “budgets” which are directly analogous to economic budgets. For example, if I pay $500 per month for my family’s food and $2.00 for chewing gum, I can probably ignore the chewing gum expense if I need to bring my budget into balance. Scientists need to know which fluxes (expenses and incomes) are important and also which are changing.
I published a
One important issue for bloggers here is that the fact that a process occurs does not say anything about its importance. Scientists of all kinds address this issue by developing budgets. Those of us who have documented that seasonal cycles in atmospheric CO2 are caused by seasonal changes in terrestrial photosynthesis and respiration do not dispute that deep sea vents release CO2. I am very aware of CO2 and methane release by wetlands, lakes and ponds ( There was an international conference on this topic last week at my institute in The Netherlands but not in my department). Conclusions about the importance of terrestrial photosynthesis, fossil fuel burning, burial in the oceans etc are based on measurements and calculations of these rates in comparison to other rates.
A scientific budget is directly analogous to a monetary budget. For example, if I spend $500 per month for my family’s food and an additional $1 on chewing gum, I do not need to be concerned about chewing gum if my budget needs to be balanced. I published a study on the phosphorus and carbon balance of Daphnia using radioactive C14 (carbon) and P32 (phosphorus) to help calculate the fluxes (DeMott et al. 1998, Limnology and Oceanography). If you want to criticize this example, you should be able to find a PDF by Googling. This study included some important and somewhat surprizing findings that have incorporated into models over the last 5 years or so. Thus, the citation record of my article shows that my study had a strong positive effect on the field. This study was not related to climate or to pollution (at least not directly) and is mainly applicable in basic understanding of seasonal and between-lake comparisons.
In making budgets, scientists are very concerned to evaluate the uncertainty in various estimates and measurements. It’s very easy for someone to say “these are only estimates” or “I don’t believe the numbers or statistics”. If you feel this way, you really need to go back and carefully analyze the original papers and their data sources and assumptions.
In general, if a paper published in a good journal states that estimates have a high certainty or probability , most scientists will assume that the authors, reviewers and editors have done their due diligence (and are not conspiring to mislead other scientists). This is why I place more credibility on the published scientific literature than on internet postings that have not been peer reviewed. This is also why using unpublished, unreviewed internet postings to attack the scientific literature does not have credibility. If something in one of my publications is mistaken or inaccurate, I expect to read about it in new scientific articles. Scientists are always eager to publish and finding a significant error in an earlier publication is a great reason for a new publication and further data collection to verify the error. Since scientists are also concerned about their reputations and credibility with other scientists, they are very cautious about what they publish. The idea more than a very small number of scientific publications are blatantly false or based on misunderstandings of basic principals has no credibility. The idea that new studies will clarify and modify the conclusions of earlier studies IS very true.
Chris J. has completely owned this thread. Thank you for trying to educate those (Mr. Goddard for example) who wish to deceive, manipulate, and generally misrepresent these processes and their associated evidence.
HasItBeen4YearsYet? (14:56:37) :
@Bill D (13:47:23)
“….they don’t disagree with what I have said about which rate dominate.”
A “net outgassing” means that the rate out is greater than the rate in, so yes they do.
4 years:
Perhaps this “net outgassing” only refers to the outgassing and not the global CO2 budget. That would be my interpredation to your quote.
The Oceans take up far more CO2 than they release. The contention is whether that uptake will be slowed as pH declines.
One important paper (Sabine et al. 2004 Science 305:367-371 estimates that the oceans have absorped almost 50% of the anthropogenic CO2 released since the beginning of the industrial revolution. The title is “The oceanic sink for antrhopogenic CO2.”
When talking about net changes, we need to be careful to understand whether the net is for a single process or the whole budget.
“There is uncertainty over whether the Chicxulub impact made much of an impact on the end-Cretaceous extinction/global warming/ocean anoxia/acidification. The evidence indicates that it predates the K/T boundary event by around 300,000 years.”
The Cretaceous–Tertiary boundary contain a concentration of iridium many times greater than normal (30 times and 130 times the usual background) have been found in sedimentary rocks all over the world. The event was catastrophic and more than enough to destroy the life cycle of the Dinosaurs.
Far from CO2 warming the planet, the event sent temperatures plummeting. Geological speaking the situation didn’t last long but it destroyed much of the flora and fauna, initially by fire but also by smothering and blocking the sun. This was confirmed by layers of ash at same at time of impact.
“In general many of the major extinction events in the deep past are associated with massive and prelonged tectonic events resulting in enhanced greenhouse warming, ocean anoxia (reduced pH…reduced oxygen).”
This is patently untrue. During the warmer periods of the earths history, life abounded when CO2 was at much higher levels than now. While it is probable that tectonics have played a part in some extinctions, sudden cooling and the rapid change in the ocean currents indicate that that was the cause of ocean anoxia. During these times coral still survived.
From the paper.
“Our record shows stable Late Cretaceous/ Early Tertiary background pCO(2) levels of 350-500 ppm by volume, but with a marked increase to at least 2,300 ppm by volume within 10,000 years.”
Funny how their records show this. The late Cretaceous/ Early Tertiary studies show the exact opposite. They were steady at just under 3000 ppm during Late Cretaceous/ Early Tertiary and only fell to 350-500 ppm in the late Tertiary.
http://tinyurl.com/d3uul3
Aragonite is a carbonate mineral, one of the two common, naturally occurring polymorphs of calcium carbonate, CaCO3. The other polymorph is the mineral calcite. Aragonite’s crystal lattice differs from that of calcite, resulting in a different crystal shape, an orthorhombic system with acicular crystals. Repeated twinning results in pseudo-hexagonal forms.
Looks like the trace inclusions do not determine the mineral definition, but the crystalline structure does. While I’ll grant there may be trivial differences in reactivity between the two structures; it sure looks like the bulk character is going to be pretty much the same; both being calcium carbonate…
I’m noticing a trend here. “Warmers” like to change definitions on the fly and make up new rules of how things work. They get cranky when folks want them to use the established ‘shared’ understandings. “Skeptics” like to adhere to established rules of operation, shared definitions, and get cranky when folks go changing definitions on the fly. Hmmm Not sure what to make of it…
I never called you a liar, stupid, or any combination of these two. You are however ignorant (in the nicest and most correct sense of the word) on the biology of corals and of evolutionary processes. This is alarming as it is the main premise in your argument. You cannot compare primive palaezoic corals from the complex and divergent corals of today. To say that because corals have survived higher CO2 levels in the distant geological past does not mean that symbiotic reef building corals will do so now. Remember that whilst increased temperatures and reduced pH may not kill them, the loss of fitness due to having to grow in sub-optimum conditions will result in increases in disease events ( Willis, B., Page, C and E. Dinsdale., 2004, Coral disease on the Great Barrier Reef, Coral Health and Disease, E. Rosenber and Y.
Loya, 69-104, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg), (Weil, E., 2004, Coral reef diseases in the wider Caribbean, Coral Health and Diseases, E. Rosenberg and Y. Loya, 35-68, Springer
Verlag, NY) ,(Sutherland, K.P., Porter, J.W., and Torres, C., 2004, Disease and immunity in Caribbean and Indo-Pacific zooxanthellate corals,
Marine ecology progress series, 273-302),( Jacobson, D.M., 2006, Fine Scale Temporal and Spatial Dynamics of a Marshall Islands Coral Disease Outbreak: Evidence for
Temperature Forcing, EOS, Transactions, American Geophysical Union36, suppl.)(,Bruno, J.F., Selig, E.R., Casey, K.S., Page, C.A., Willis, B.L., Harvell, C.D.,, 2007, Thermal Stress and Coral Cover as Drivers of
Coral Disease Outbreaks
Sweatman, H., and Melendy, A.M., PLoS Biol6, e124, )and the increase in growth of more adaptable species. This will reduce biodivirsity which is essential for global fish stocks as coral reefs are important natural hatcheries for many fish species .
The experts in this field agree that one third of reef building coral species are threatened with extinction. I am very sure they know a lot more about this subject than you do.
Phil:
I have made no “misleading posts”. I have only made factually accurate ones as anybody can check for themselves. If an apology is needed then it is from you for saying otherwise.
You say:
“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!”
Sorry, but No!
The Mauna Loa seasonal fluctuation is about 10 ppmv per year (not 4 ppm) see
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
And Mauna Loa is chosen as a sample site because its seasonal fluctuation is exceptionally low being less than half that elsewhere: e.g. the seasonal fluctuation is more than double that where measured in the Northern Hemisphere, e.g. at Alert, Estavan (both in Canada) and in the Shetland Islands (ref Keeling and Worf, ‘On Line Trends’ CDIAC.ORNL).
Your statement that “The annual emission of fossil fuel worldwide in 2004 was ~27 Gtonne” emphasises my repeated (above) statement that the anthropogenic emissions vary greatly from year-to-year.
As I said, “in some years almost all the anthropogenic emission seems to be sequestered and in other years almost none” (according to data from CDIAC.ORNL). And I have repeatedly pointed out that there are justifiable reasons for smoothing the annual emissions data with at most 3-year averageing but the IPCC uses 5-year averages because 2-yeaqr, 3-year and 4-year smoothings do not work.
Typically, according to the NASA estimate, the human emission is about 6.5 GtC/year: see
http://science.hq.nasa.gov/oceans/system/carbon.html
The accumulation rate of CO2 in the atmosphere is equal to almost half the human emission. The human emission is about 6.5 GtC/year but the accumulation rate is about 3 GtC/year. However, this does not mean that half the human emission accumulates in the atmosphere, as is often stated. The system does not ‘know’ where an emitted CO2 molecule originated and there are several CO2 flows in and out of the atmosphere that are much larger than the human emission. The total CO2 flow into the atmosphere is at least 156.5 GtC/year with 150 Gt of this being from natural origin and 6.5 Gt from human origin. So, on the average, about 2% of all emissions accumulate.
And the NASA estimate is that about 100 Gt of carbon are released to the air from the oceans and is sequestered by the oceans each year. This alone is a seasonal fluctuation that justifies my statement that the seasonal variation is an order of magnitude greater than the anthropogenic emission.
Furthermore, according to the NASA estimate, the carbon in the air is less than 2% of the carbon flowing between parts of the carbon cycle. And the recent increase to the carbon in the atmosphere is less than a third of that less than 2%.
The flows between deep ocean and ocean surface layers are completely unknown and it is not possible even to estimate them. All we know is that the air contains aboout 760 GtC, the ocean surface layer about 800 GtC, and the deep oceans about 38,000 GtC. The thermohaline circulation conveys the major flows between deep ocean and ocean surface layers.
NASA also provides an estimate that the carbon in the ground as fossil fuels is 5,000 GtC, and humans are transferring it to the carbon cycle at a rate of 6.5 GtC per year.
In other words, the annual flow of carbon into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels is less than 0.02% of the carbon flowing around the carbon cycle.
It is not obvious that so small an addition to the carbon cycle is certain to disrupt the system because no other activity in nature is so constant that it only varies by less than +/- 0.02% per year.
Richard
J. Peden (18:59:16) :
I don’t really see what you think is to be gained by attempting to extemporize away the laws of physics and physical inorganic chemistry!
Since chemical acid/base equilibria are solution phenomena, the notion of what might happen in a vacuum is meaningless.
Since the dissolution of CO2 results in the release of protons, and the pH drops, the ratio of CO3– to HCO3- decreases as we can establish easily both from theory and from experiment as described above [foinavon (02:43:33)].
Yes. That’s exactly what the analysis of the chemical equilibria and proton affinities of the species leads one to expect. It’s exactly what I described above [foinavon (02:43:33)]. If you add CO2 to blood the pH drops since hydrated CO2 is an acid (H2CO3 or carbonic acid). Since the pH of blood is higher than the pKa for dissociation of H2CO3 to HCO3- + H+, the concentration of bicarbonate will increase. Since the pH of blood is lower than the pKa for dissociation of HCO3- to CO3– + H+, and the dissociation of carbonic acid to bicarbonate releases a proton, the concentration of carbonate (CO3–) will decrease.
Surely by your own reasoning (add CO2 to blood…the pH goes down), it’s completely obvious that the carbonate concentration of blood will also decrease.
No. see [foinavon (02:43:33)]. Since the pH decreases, the equilbrium dissociation of bicarbonate (HCO3-) to carbonate (CO3–) is shifted in the direction of bicarbonate. The concentration of carbonate decreases. This can be calculated explicitly using the Henderson-Hasselbalch equation. The concentration of carbonate is already very low (especially in blood where the pKa of the bicarbonate-carbonate equilibrium is higher than in seawater), and the decrease in carbonate by the acid-induced shift towards bicarbonate considerably outweighs the tiny increase in carbonate that one might presume from application of mass-action notions without considering the effects of the protons on the position of the equilibria (see [foinavon (02:43:33)]).
Not true. The positions of each of the equilbria can be determined using the Henderson Hasselbalch equation just as can be done in blood. Knowing the total carbon content of the oceans or blood, the absolute concentrations of the species linked by the dissociation equilibria can be calculated knowing the pH and the various pKa’s.
Mary Hinge
“The experts in this field agree that one third of reef building coral species are threatened with extinction. I am very sure they know a lot more about this subject than you do.”
You miss the point! I’m sure the experts are correct to worry about that. It’s also fair to assume that it’s likely to be entirely man’s fault. I bet the majority of the people on this site are also worried about the coral too. However, just imagine that we thought it was one specific chemical that caused it, despite a multitude of other manmade chemicals being dumped in the sea, as well as raw sewage and physical damage from fishing vessels. Now assume we put all our efforts towards limiting the release of that particular chemical and did nothing about all the others. Now suppose we were wrong and the coral disappeared because we were just too dogmatic. Do you see now the real issue and why it’s important to be continue to investigate and get it right, regardless of our respective ideologies?
Not one of these experts has tied CO2 to coral extinction. If it’s not actually to blame then that will never be possible. Most experts say there are multiple factors involved. It’s simply fashionable to focus exclusively on blaming CO2 for everything nowadays – probably because it brings in funding rather more easily when you do so. But is it correct?
Despite the numerous derailing attempts here about carbonate chemistry, ancient history or cherry-picked papers using an assumption as a conclusion, there is still no definite link to CO2. Yet to suspect CO2 is entirely justified. The next step in the process though is to eliminate all other possibilities. I’ve mentioned twice now that Cuba’s pristine coral puts a great big hole in the CO2 “stress” theory and nobody has yet challenged that. Since you are good at citing papers, can you point me to one which has mentioned this conundrum? Or am I the first to do so?
Richard S Courtney (03:34:56)
That’s simply not true as simple inspection of the Mauna Loa data shows. Go to the NOAA Mauna Loa site (link just below) and inspect the seasonal fluctuation at Mauna Loa. Now scroll down a bit to view the seasonal fluctuation averaged over all of the sea surface sites. It’s very obvious that the amplitude of the seasonal fluctuation is is perhaps 20% higher than the fluctuation averaged over the sea surface sites:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
Why is the amplitude at Mauna Loa a bit larger? It’s because Mauna Loa is in the Northern hemisphere. The Northern hemisphere contains far more biomass than the Southern hemisphere since there is far more Northern hemisphere land mass than in the S hemisphere. The seasonal fluctuation in atmospheric CO2 concentration is the result of the seasonal plant growth cycles. As the carbon dioxide diffuses through the atmosphere, the seasonal fluctuations remain “sharpest” in the N. hemisphere atmosphere, and are “smoothed” somewhat as one moves to the S. hemisphere (and high latitudes of both hemispheres). Since many of the sea surface measuring stattions for CO2 are in the S. hemisphere, the global average is somewhat “smoothed” relative to Mauna Loa.
This is all very basic and well-characterized stuff Richard. Why the persistent attempt to convey notions that simply aren’t true?
Simon Evans (08:41:06) :
Graeme Rodaughan (07:58:45) :
In this forum – I also raise my hand and second Alan Millar’s request.
Alan Millar’s question was addressed as follows:
Perhaps some of our alarmist friends would like to explain.
I’m not an alarmist, so I wont be responding to that.
Fair enough – I’ll re-ask politely.
Is anyone able to explain how a warming ocean could absorb CO2 and become more acidic – given that warming oceans have a well known property of outgassing CO2? – Or is this simply a non-starter?
Thanks.
Whoops – Thanks Phil at Phil. (09:57:57) : For an answer.
(Will need to look up Revelle)
Whoops (take 2) and Foinavon, and Chris J.
Thanks for the effort guys… Much Appreciated.
Cheers G
MartinGAtkins (01:30:09)
Well yes, but the K/T boundary doesn’t correspond temporally with the Chicxulub impact crater (the latter is dated around 300,000 years too early). It’s not a big deal. However it’s considered that the K/T boundary is associated with another impact whose crater hasn’t been found.
see for example:
Keller G (2005) Impacts, volcanism and mass extinction: random coincidence or cause and effect? Austral. J. Earth Sci 52 725-757.
(I’ve reproduced the abstract below [***] )
The evidence indicates otherwise. The evidence supports major tectonic processes as underlying many of the major extinctions in earth’s history. These have been reviewed recently by Wignall and by Twitchett who both resent copious evidence for an association between major tectonic events and extinctions in the deep past:
Wignall P (2005) The link between large igneous province eruptions and mass extinctions Elements 1, 293-297
Abstract: “In the past 300 million years, there has been a near-perfect association between extinction events and the eruption of large igneous provinces, but proving the nature of the causal links is far from resolved. The associated environmental changes often include global warming and the development of widespread oxygen-poor conditions in the oceans. This implicates a role for volcanic CO2 emissions, but other perturbations of the global carbon cycle, such as release of methane from gas hydrate reservoirs or shut-down of photosynthesis in the oceans, are probably required to achieve severe green-house warming. The best links between extinction and eruption are seen in the interval from 300 to 150 Ma. With the exception of the Deccan Trap eruptions (65 Ma), the emplacement of younger volcanic provinces has been generally associated with significant environmental changes but little or no increase in extinction rates above background levels.”
R. J. Twitchett (2006) The palaeoclimatology, palaeoecology and palaeoenvironmental analysis of mass extinction events
Palaeogeog., Palaeoclimatol., Palaeoecol. 232, 190-213
Notice also that the “common-sense” notion of warm being “good” for the abundance and diversity of life is debatable to say the least!. See for example:
PJ Mayhew et al. (2007) A long-term association between global temperature and biodiversity, origination and extinction in the fossil record Proceedings of The Royal Society B 275, 47–53.
Abstract: “The past relationship between global temperature and levels of biological diversity is of increasing concern due to anthropogenic climate warming. However, no consistent link between these variables has yet been demonstrated. We analysed the fossil record for the last 520Myr against estimates of low latitude sea surface temperature for the same period. We found that global biodiversity (the richness of families and genera) is related to temperature and has been relatively low during warm ‘greenhouse’ phases, while during the same phases extinction and origination rates of taxonomic lineages have been relatively high. These findings are consistent for terrestrial and marine environments and are robust to a number of alternative assumptions and potential biases. Our results provide the first clear evidence that global climate may explain substantial variation in the fossil record in a simple and consistent manner. Our findings may have implications for extinction and biodiversity change under future climate warming.”
I’ll address the graph in your link in another post, since that very misleading sketch (which appears in the top “article” of this thread), is patently wrong…
—————————————-
[***]Abstract: “Large impacts are credited with the most devastating mass extinctions in Earth’s history and the Cretaceous – Tertiary (K/T) boundary impact is the strongest and sole direct support for this view. A review of the five largest Phanerozoic mass extinctions provides no support that impacts with craters up to 180 km in diameter caused significant species extinctions. This includes the 170 km-diameter Chicxulub impact crater regarded as 0.3 million years older than the K/T mass extinction. A second, larger impact event may have been the ultimate cause of this mass extinction, as suggested by a global iridium anomaly at the K/T boundary, but no crater has been found to date. The current crater database suggests that multiple impacts, for example comet showers, were the norm, rather than the exception, during the Late Eocene, K/T transition, latest Triassic and the Devonian-Carboniferous transition, but did not cause significant species extinctions. Whether multiple impacts substantially contributed to greenhouse worming and associated environmental stresses is yet to be demonstrated. From the current database, it must be concluded that no known Phanerozoic impacts, including the Chicxulub impact (but excluding the K/T impact) caused mass extinctions or even significant. species extinctions. The K/T mass extinction may have been caused by the coincidence of a very large impact ( > 250 km) upon a highly stressed biotic environment as a result of volcanism. The consistent association of large magmatic provinces (large igneous provinces and continental flood-basalt provinces) with all but one (end-Ordovician) of the five major Phanerozoic mass extinctions suggests that volcanism played a major role. Faunal and geochemical evidence from the end-Permian, end-Devonian, end-Cretaceous and Triassic/Jurassic transition suggests that the biotic stress was due to a lethal combination of tectonically induced hydrothermal and volcanic processes, leading to eutrophication in the oceans, global warming, sea-level transgression and ocean anoxia. It must be concluded that major magmatic events and their long-term environmental consequences are major contributors, though not the sole causes of mass extinctions. Sudden mass extinctions, such as at the K/T boundary, may require the coincidence of major volcanism and a very large Impact.”
Mary Hinge,
No one disagrees that coral reefs are under stress. Here is an excellent GIS site which I have already discussed, and maps out the threats for every reef in the world.
http://reefgis.reefbase.org/default.aspx?wms=RGWRR&bbox=-30,-193.324022346369,330,193.324022346369&layers=Coral%20Reefs,Countries,Mangroves,Country%20Borders,Coastlines,ThreatExploitation,
with the primary threats being exploitation, coastal development, overfishing and inland pollution.
The claim that I am disputing is that increasing atmospheric CO2 will lead to lower pH and thus undersaturated carbonate, which will make it impossible for CaCO3 shells to be excreted. The same mechanism which has been present in shellfish and corals for at least 500 million years – when CO2 levels were an order of magnitude higher than now.
It is wonderful that you are concerned about the corals. I am too.
E M Smith,
You are correct, the proponents of AGW believe we live on an unstable earth, on which any change, no matter how small, inevitably becomes a cascade event with a catastrophic outcome. I like to read the science/environment articles at physorg, and it seems that every study or paper cited contains the word “alarming” uttered by either the researchers or the publishers.
This crying of “WOLF, WOLF” increasingly and incessantly over every issue that has research money attached to it, has become painfully obvious even to the non-scientist.
Mike Bryant
Now i know that bleaching is nothing to do with acidification and bleaching is the wrong term anyway because coral is naturally white – the colors are from parasites. But here’s something quite interesting:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/07/0725_coralbleaching.html
/quote
Is Bleaching Coral’s Way of Making the Best of a Bad Situation?
For an organism that can’t move, coral turns out to be pretty nimble.
Coral has a critical partnership with certain algae that absorb sunlight and convert it to energy needed to feed the complex array of life found in a reef ecosystem. The loss of these algae, a common consequence of pollution or climate change, leaves a reef “bleached” and unable to produce energy from sunlight.
Coral bleaching has increased widely in recent decades. Because it often precedes coral death and the loss of the reef itself, conservationists are naturally concerned that many of the world’s reefs are in trouble.
But new findings suggest that when coral is threatened, bleaching may be part of the solution.
It now appears that coral colonies, when confronted with dramatic environmental changes, may purge themselves of existing algae to make room for other algae more capable of thriving in the challenging conditions. Bleaching, then, may not signify coral’s imminent demise, but its ability to tough out new conditions.
In one set of experiments, marine scientist Andrew C. Baker of the New York Aquarium found that corals that undergo bleaching after being exposed to sudden environmental change are more—not less—likely to survive in the long run.
“This counters conventional wisdom that bleaching is detrimental from all perspectives,” Baker said. ”
Many Threats
Although many corals look bony and durable, reefs are highly fragile ecosystems, sensitive to human disturbance and environmental stress. Coral reefs all around the world are threatened by water pollution, soil erosion, fertilizers, fishing with explosives, careless diving, and other assaults.
Rising global air and water temperatures are another threat. Although warm tropical waters are ideal for reef development, excessively high sea temperatures can harm or kill algae.
Global warming may accelerate the melting of polar ice caps, causing sea levels to rise. Sunlight doesn’t penetrate deep water, so reefs—and their algae—may be deprived of a critical source of energy.
“The frequency of coral bleaching will increase dramatically during this century as a result of increased global warming,” said Malcolm McCulloch, a geochemist at Australian National University in Canberra.
Recent studies by McCulloch and Baker offer hope that imperiled corals are flexible enough to survive.
In Edinburgh, McCulloch drew on geological records to demonstrate the resilience of coral during periods of significant climate change over the past 500,000 years. According to his data, eras of warm global temperatures—when sea levels rose by as much as 18 feet (6 meters) above today’s level—were periods in which reefs flourished rather than suffered.
Explaining the results, McCulloch said rising sea levels provide “space for corals to grow, and warmer ocean temperatures allow expansion of reefs to sub-tropical regions.”
Future warming won’t necessarily spell the end of reefs, but “it’s all a matter of timing,” he said. “[Reefs] could do well in a warmer world—as long as the rate of warming is no faster than they can cope with, and assuming that our pollution doesn’t kill them off first.”
The experiments by Baker, reported in the June 14 issue of the journal Nature, also suggest that coral is remarkably adaptable, thanks in part to its cunning use of algae.
Baker transplanted dozens of coral colonies in the San Blas archipelago of Panama to depths that were shallower or deeper than those in which the corals had naturally developed. The study was designed to simulate the environmental change that stationary reefs would be exposed to as a result of rising or falling sea levels.
Coral colonies at different depths host different types of algae. So Baker monitored the transplanted corals to see whether their algae would survive at the new depths, and whether the coral colonies themselves would ultimately live or die.
The colonies that shed their original algae, he found, were able to attract different species of algae that were more suited to living at the new depths. Of the 11 coral colonies that experienced significant bleaching, none died during a 12-month follow-up period. In comparison, seven colonies that had kept their original algae species after being transplanted eventually died.
Artificially changing the depth at which a coral colony lives is one thing. But it remains unclear whether the adaptive process of bleaching will be enough to save coral reefs bombarded with pollution or slowly roasting in ever-warming waters.
At an international conference last month in Edinburgh, Scotland, McCulloch noted that the total area of Earth’s coral reefs has shrunk by 30 percent in the past three decades. The Caribbean, for example, has lost as much as 90 percent of its reefs.
McCulloch said: “We should be refocusing our efforts to reduce the effects of direct human-caused stresses on reefs, rather than be too sidetracked by coral bleaching.”
/endquote
Now when I ignore the boilerplate global warming hysteria inserted by the editor, I take home these messages:
1. Warmth in the past actually led to more growth of coral. Warmer sub-tropical oceans encourage coral growth where it didn’t exist previously. This should counteract any “stress” caused by rising temperatures elsewhere.
2. Coral bleaching is not a trigger of a die-off, it is self-protection against another problem.
3. The main reason for die-offs is therefore most likely to be other, more direct, human pollution.
4. While the rate of sea temperature growth affects the speed of adaptability of the coral, sudden natural warmings, eg in el niño years, demonstrably cause more bleaching than any underlying warming.
So the figures say that It is incredibly obvious that coral die-offs are directly related to human settlements, tourism and pollution. The science says warmer temperatures just redistribute coral, that bleaching is a self-protection and ENSO causes more temperature stress than any anthropogenic warming. Why then do we focus so much on an assumed CO2-related stress that doesn’t seem to have any foundation whatsoever?
Phil,
Several things are wrong with your last post. The link you posted, which has already been discussed at length – http://hahana.soest.hawaii.edu/hot/trends/trends.html – is a mixture of measured and calculated data. They provide no explanation of how they calculated data during years when there was no measurement. If you look just at their actual measured data in red (which is all that I am willing to work with,) there is no statistically significant trend. You can download all of their measured data for both of their measurement locations as I have explained and have provided spreadsheets of here.
Secondly, your calculation of what a 150% increase in H+ would comprise of is incorrect. A 150% increase is a ratio of 2.5/1 and log10(2.5) = 0.4 – not 0.15 as you stated.
Bill D:
You say:
“A scientific budget is directly analogous to a monetary budget. For example, if I spend $500 per month for my family’s food and an additional $1 on chewing gum, I do not need to be concerned about chewing gum if my budget needs to be balanced.”
Oh yes you do if you want the balance to be accurate to $1 per month.
And the balance achieved by a budget of flows of CO2 in and out of the air needs to be accurate to better than 3 GtC of carbon per year if it is to determine the cause of the annual increase of about 3 GtC in the air per year.
Also, if your bank account is being depleted (or added to) by fraud (i.e. an unknown sink or source) then your budget may balance but your accountancy would be wrong unless the fraud were detected and accounted. The balance could be achieved by assuming an incorrect magnitude of an inadequately quantified input or output.
So, the estimation of your budget requires quantitative knowledge of each and all incomes and expenditures for it to be right. Unfortunately, most of the CO2 emissions to the air and sequestrations of CO2 from the air are not quantified to a degree that permits a budget with sufficient accuracy to calculate the effect of the (relatively small) anthropogenic emission.
Simply, the variations in the total natural emission each year and the total natural sequestration each year are not known. And it is a mathematical fact that the resultant variation of two added variables tells nothing about how either is varying. So, any achieved balance when they are accounted is – and can only be – a function of the assumptions concerning magnitudes of the components of the total natural emission and the total natural sequestration. Furthermore, this problem is not resolved by averaging over a number of years because the variation may be persistent (e.g. a change to ocean surface layer pH induced by upwelling from deep ocean that results in altered equilbrium concentrations between air and ocean).
Of course, some of the individual components of an atmospheric carbon budget may be measured but most are merely guesstimates.
The known facts of the matter are:
1.
The increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration each year is much less than the natural variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration within each year.
2.
The increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration over each year is the residual of the natural variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration within each year.
3.
The anthropogenic emission of CO2 each year is much less than the natural variation within each year.
4.
The change to the 12C:13C isotope ratio of atmospheric CO2 is in the direction expected if the recent increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration were caused by the anthropogenic emission of CO2.
But if the ratio changes then there is a 50:50 chance that it will change in that direction or the other.
5.
The magnitude of the change to the 12C:13C isotope ratio of atmospheric CO2 is much smaller than expected if the recent increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration were caused by the anthropogenic emission of CO2.
6.
The fact in point (5) indicates that most of the change to the 12C:13C isotope ratio of atmospheric CO2 and most of the recent increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration was caused by some unknown, natural (i.e. non-anthropogenic) effect.
7.
The fact in point (6) indicates that all of the change to the 12C:13C isotope ratio of atmospheric CO2 and all of the recent increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration may have been caused by the same unknown, natural (i.e. non-anthropogenic) effect.
Simply,
it is possible that none of the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration and none of the change to the 13C:12C atmospheric isotope change were caused by anthropogenic emission
but were due to the unknown, natural (i.e. non-anthropogenic) effect that caused most of the change to the 12C:13C isotope ratio of atmospheric CO2.
8.
But the anthropogenic emission may have disturbed the carbon cycle such that the equilibrium state(s) of some parts of the carbon cycle have altered.
Therefore,
it is possible that all of the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration and all of the change to the 13C:12C atmospheric isotope change were caused by the anthropogenic emission
that induced the unknown, natural (i.e. non-anthropogenic) effect that caused the observed change to the 12C:13C isotope ratio of atmospheric CO2.
9.
It is possible that both the effects noted in points 7 and 8 contributed to the change to the 12C:13C isotope ratio of atmospheric CO2 and to the recent increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
Therefore,
it is possible that some of the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration and some of the change to the 13C:12C atmospheric isotope change were due to the anthropogenic emission.
10.
The change in atmospheric oxygen concentration in recent years is consistent with the amount of fossil fuel that was burned in those years.
In summation, the known facts (listed as points 1 to 10 above) demonstrate that
there is no conclusive evidence that any of the 20th century increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration is or is not due to the burning of fossil fuels.
Richard
Phil. says:
Does it matter? That suggests that over 1,000 years at that rate, if it should continue, pH would fall to around 7.1. Is there any evidenced that coral species cannot adapt to that change and have never adapted to such change in the past. There seems to be evidence that they have quite a bit of selectable variation.
Mary Hinge says of Stephen Goddard:
Since you are such an expert, pray tell, how many generations will corals need to adapt to the changes in pH and why is the variation obviously present in the various existing species insufficient?
You might like to know that recent papers provide evidence that in 100 generations humans have adapted to different sunlight conditions by completely changing their skin color (in both directions) and similarly have completely changed in other ways (The 10,000 Year Explosion contains a lot of accessible details).
“colors are from parasites”
Symbionts.
Richard,
It is OK that you are not able to follow the technical discussion, but it is simply not acceptable for you to make claims like “I wish to deceive” or other ad hominem attacks. You have no idea what you are talking about.