From a British Antarctic Survey Press Release. Next time some alarmist wails about ice melt in Antarctica, point them to this story that shows nature has self regulating features for our planet. (h/t to Hu McCullough)
Antarctica glacier retreat creates new carbon dioxide store
Issue date: 09 Nov 2009
Number: 11/2009
Large blooms of tiny marine plants called phytoplankton are flourishing in areas of open water left exposed by the recent and rapid melting of ice shelves and glaciers around the Antarctic Peninsula. This remarkable colonisation is having a beneficial impact on climate change. As the blooms die back phytoplankton sinks to the sea-bed where it can store carbon for thousands or millions of years. Reporting this week in the journal Global Change Biology, scientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) estimate that this new natural ‘sink’ is taking an estimated 3.5 million tonnes* of carbon from the ocean and atmosphere each year.
Lead author, Professor Lloyd Peck from BAS says,
“Although this is a small amount of carbon compared to global emissions of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere it is nevertheless an important discovery. It shows nature’s ability to thrive in the face of adversity. We need to factor this natural carbon-absorption into our calculations and models to predict future climate change. So far we don’t know if we will see more events like this around the rest of Antarctica’s coast but it’s something we’ll be keeping a close eye on.”
Professor Peck and his colleagues compared records of coastal glacial retreat with records of the amount of chlorophyll (green plant pigment essential for photosynthesis) in the ocean. They found that over the past 50 years, melting ice has opened up at least 24,000 km2 of new open water (an area similar to the size of Wales) – and this has been colonised by carbon-absorbing phytoplankton. According to the authors this new bloom is the second largest factor acting against climate change so far discovered on Earth (the largest is new forest growth on land in the Arctic).Professor Peck continues, “Elsewhere in the world human activity is undermining the ability of oceans and marine ecosystems to capture and store carbon. At present, there is little change in ice shelves and coastal glaciers away from the Antarctic Peninsula, but if more Antarctic ice is lost as a result of climate change then these new blooms have the potential to be a significant biological sink for carbon.”
ENDS
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“Brian Dodge (15:12:26) :
So, you think that the additional absorption of ~3.5 million tonnes of CO2 by phytoplankton blooms will regulate away the annual human emissions of ~26 gigatons of CO2? Done math much? If 24,000 km2 of new open water captures 3.5e+6 tonnes of CO2, how many km2 of ice must melt to capture 2.6e+10 tonnes of CO2?”
~26 gigatonnes is still 9.99/10’s of sweet FA in the grand scheme of things.
Nov 14, 2009
Volcanoes and CO2 and Global Temperatures
By Joseph D’Aleo, November 14, 2009
http://www.icecap.us
We’re all going to die from krill farts, if we don’t do something quick.
Or do I have it backwards? Are krill farts good for me?
Assume the IPCC is correct about climate sensitivity. What effect will the absorption of 3.5 million tonnes of CARBON by the biosphere have on temperature? We multiply the carbon removed as carrot eater above has said by 44/12 or 3.7 to get the number of tonnes of CO2, the gas, that will be removed. The amount is 14 million in round numbers.
To find out how many degrees C this loss of CO2 will cool the temperature by, we express it as millions of metric tons and divide by 1.8 million. It is a very, very small number. As various people point out above, to take out 14 million tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere will make no difference to global warming, assuming it all works as the IPCC says it does.
How much difference, then, would it make if we did something truly dramatic to atmospheric CO2? Let us say that the US cut its emissions, at present 6 gigatonnes a year, to 1. To do that, of course, suburbs and cars and malls and airtravel would have to be abolished. Agriculture would have to become organic and maybe even horse powered, nationwide. That might just about do it. Imagine 1870, but with a larger population, better medicine, and the internet. Oh, and a few windmills.
Take 5,000 metric tons and divide it by 1.8 million. Does it feel like a big number of degrees centigrade? The answer is 0.0028. And that, if the IPCC is right, is the number of degrees C per year that the planet is cooler for the reduction.
So, it is true that the difference that the increased ocean extent makes is too tiny to calculate on 10 digit calculators, and of no importance whatever to world temperatures, and anyone using this to talk about natural negative feedbacks to CO2 induced warming does not have both oars in the water. Or is, perhaps, as they say, in denial.
But it is also true that even were the US to revert to uninhabited plains and emit no CO2 whatever, it would, in the IPCC’s own terms, make little difference to global temperatures. You want to make a dent in this stuff, its not the 6 gigatonnes you have to worry about, its the 26 gigatonnes. If you want to deny this, you are also, as they say, in denial.
Martin G Atkins,
you can watch animated progress of the Wilkins collapse at the European Space Agency ‘Observing the Earth’ page. Latest ENVISAT image is a few days old.
The ice bridge collapsed months ago,and there’s maybe 40 by 100+km of shattered shelf slopping about in some skinny sea-ice,waiting to be flushed in summer…you do know the difference between sea-ice and shelf,don’t you?
“”” Mike H. (14:20:51) :
Excuse me, isn’t the phytoplankton stealing the CO2 that we need for crops? Between the IPCC and the phytoplankton we could starve in the near distant future. Shouldn’t we be cooling the planet down so those voracious phyto whatchamacallits don’t have a chance to sequester all of our precious CO2? /fun “””
What makes you think that this phytoplankton all just lives and dies of old age, and sinks.
This is just the start of the whole oceanic food chain. Zooplankton feed on these phytofolks, and in turn get eaten by krill and other higher organisms.
The cold waters of Antarctica are among the most productive in the ocen food chain; why do you suppose that whales spend so much time there scarfing up all that krill.
Brian Dodge (15:12:26) :
So, you think that the additional absorption of ~3.5 million tonnes of CO2 by phytoplankton blooms will regulate away the annual human emissions…
Perhaps not. But, how many other negative feedbacks are there of which we have been unaware?
carrot eater (17:08:25) :
But there is no reason to assume that unknown and unpredicted negative feedbacks will arise in just the right amounts to have whatever effect we think we desire.
It doesn’t have to. It just has have a minimal bandwidth and/or integral action. Negative feedback systems are self-regulating.
Oliver Ramsay (20:45:05) —
I’d go one step further and suggest that nature and the laws of physics are essentially the same thing. At least there is a corpus of natural laws which includes the laws of physics (and of chemistry, and thermodynamics, and so on).
And I am not suggesting that “nature” regulates itself to suit us, but I am suggesting that it regulates itself according to its own laws and we are part of the natural order (or were the last time I looked).
Nature is opportunistic. 100 years is nothing in the grand scheme of things or on an evolutionary scale so ‘adaptation’ is ‘making best use of what each organism can already do’. If you accept CO2 has increased since the dawn of the industrial era, then we are probably seeing opportunistic increases in plant growth across the globe, mitigated by temprature, rainfall etc. at a local level.
What I am saying is – we notice blooms, but we probably would not notice say an average 0.5-1% increase in forest productivity. Even a very small increase in photosynthetic rates – on average – worldwide will have a huge effect. We may already be seeing this, but have not been measuring it.
Witness the seasonal rise and fall in CO2 as measured at Mauna Loa – that corresponds with Northern Hemisphere seasonal productivity and decay. Measure that too against the changes in atmospheric CO2 as a result of chemical dissolution/release in cooler/warmer seawater – changes on which we can only do a ‘best estimate’ as the sea is not homogeneous in temperature or alkalinity.
Nature will self-regulate; it is only a matter of time. You could say though that in that timescale we don’t matter.
michel 23:01:51
Thanks for your clear exposition of what these figures actually mean.
Alfred E. Neuman (Mad Magazine) was right all along when he said”What-me worry?”
Giant Ice berg spotted off Australia:
“I’ve never seen anything like it – we looked out to the horizon and just saw this huge floating island of ice,” said fur seal biologist Dean Miller.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/6554023/Giant-iceberg-spotted-off-Australia.html
Nick (00:06:17) :
Martin G Atkins,
you can watch animated progress of the Wilkins collapse at the European Space Agency ‘Observing the Earth’ page. Latest ENVISAT image is a few days old.
My web skills are terrible. I can’t find anything on that site showing Wilkins more recent than April. Is there an exact link available?
Nick (00:06:17) :
you can watch animated progress of the Wilkins collapse at the European Space Agency ‘Observing the Earth’ page. Latest ENVISAT image is a few days old.
Nup can’t find it. Could you actually post a link to the image?
The ice bridge collapsed months ago,and there’s maybe 40 by 100+km of shattered shelf slopping about in some skinny sea-ice,waiting to be flushed in summer
And just how many months ago was that Nick 3, 4 or 6.
you do know the difference between sea-ice and shelf,don’t you?
Yes I do. Sea ice is formed at sea and shelf is ice pushed into the sea that inevitably breaks up and floats away. Good job it does because if it didn’t the whole world would be covered in ice. Here’s something else calm your fears. It’s the October 2009 Sea Ice Concentration. The red areas are in percent above the anomaly.
http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt74/MartinGAtkins/S_200910_anom.png
In the serious department Nick, it really is an insignificant part of the Antarctic. Ice shelves grow break up and float away all the time. It’s been going on for 11 thousand years.
MartinGAtkins (07:41:31) :
Nick (00:06:17) :
“you can watch animated progress of the Wilkins collapse at the European Space Agency ‘Observing the Earth’ page. Latest ENVISAT image is a few days old.”
Nup can’t find it. Could you actually post a link to the image?
http://www.esa.int/esaEO/SEMYBBSTGOF_index_0.html
“The ice bridge collapsed months ago,and there’s maybe 40 by 100+km of shattered shelf slopping about in some skinny sea-ice,waiting to be flushed in summer”
And just how many months ago was that Nick 3, 4 or 6.
Over 6.
“you do know the difference between sea-ice and shelf,don’t you?”
Yes I do. Sea ice is formed at sea and shelf is ice pushed into the sea that inevitably breaks up and floats away.
There’s more to it than that, in the Antarctic sea ice is predominantly annual and thin, whereas the shelf is perennial and very thick in the case of the Wilkins it’s not being ‘pushed’ (~200m thick).
Bart (00:43:35) :
“But, how many other negative feedbacks are there of which we have been unaware?”
We know that C14 depleted CO2 from human fossil fuel use is increasing the CO2 in the atmosphere. We also know, by comparing economic data about fuel use to the CO2 increase in the atmosphere, that about half the amount emitted is absorbed by the oceans directly and the biosphere by conversion to biomass. Just how much goes where and how that changes over time are important science questions and subject to much study(hence the publication of the article under discussion. For an in-depth discussion of why these details are important, see https://www.up.ethz.ch/education/biogeochem_cycles/reading_list/cox_etal_nat_00.pdf.)
Just because we don’t know what all negative feedbacks are doesn’t mean that we can’t tell what they will or won’t do, and so the more important question for policy decisions is “Will the unknown negative feedbacks significantly alter the trajectory of CO2 in the atmosphere absent any changes in fossil fuel use?”. You can see for yourself that despite changes in the global temperature which are caused by all sorts of chaotic and periodic factors which influence the weather, and plankton blooms, and presumably other negative feedbacks, the past rise in CO2 doesn’t show any significant response – http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1960/offset:-330/scale:0.01/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1960. The “known unknowns” changing negative feedbacks in CO2 drawdown (ENSO – droughts, rainfall changes,sea surface temperatures; solar cycles; GCR effects on cloudiness and those sorts of things) have had a much larger effect on temperature than CO2 rise. Their may be “unknown unknowns” that will kick in with negative feedbacks, and make things better; “unknown unknowns” that kick in to make thing worse are just as likely.
“Negative feedback systems are self-regulating.” Only total negative feedback systems are self regulating. If the positive feedback of less CO2 absorbed by the ocean as its temperature rises exceeds the negative feedback of more plankton blooms as the ice melts, the system will respond more to a CO2 change, and may jump to a new equilibrium. This can work both ways e.g. PETM warming, Younger Dryas cooling. The assymetric shape and sometimes rapid transitions of climate to the sinusoidal Milankovich forcing suggests that the climate has short term positive feedbacks that favor rapid warming. While it is true that the integral negative feedback of biogeochemical carbon sequestration did eventually stabilize the CO2 after the PETM, and probably will eventually remove the excess anthropogenic CO2 if nothing else does, “eventually” is equal to “forever” in human society & policy terms.
Brian Dodge (12:19:51) :
“We know that C14 depleted CO2 from human fossil fuel use is increasing the CO2 in the atmosphere.
No. We know the relative quantity of 12C has been increasing by a slight amount. Some have speculated this change might be due to the burning of fossil fuels, because a majority of plant life appears to have a slight preference for metabolizing 12C over its the other isotopes. Spencer relates that the 13C/12C ratio varies with the SST, so there is no need to hypothesize an anthropogenic driver.
“Only total negative feedback systems are self regulating.”
All locally stable systems are self-regulating within the stability boundary. The only question is how well they regulate. This relates to the bandwidth and integral action qualifications I raised, and you implicitly acknowledge in your last sentence.
But, these topics, and any potential nonlinear divergences, are beyond the scope of my comment. The question I was responding to was whether such actions had to be balanced on an unlikely knife’s edge, as CE implied. His comment of “negative feedbacks will arise in just the right amounts to have whatever effect we think we desire” triggered my innate response of, “but that is precisely what negative feedback does.” It rises to the exact level needed to balance the system.
Now that you’ve gotten up to speed,Martin,you need to look at what kind of ice-shelf Wilkins is,and the timeline of its disintegration. It is not like one of the super shelves fed by very large catchments on continental Antarctica,which actively calve large fragments. It is very sensitive to regional temperature change compared to the high throughput shelves.
Wilkins is a modest sized shelf with only a small input from land ice-some valley glaciers on Alexander Island. It is predominantly sustained by surface accumulation. It is mechanically ‘pinned’ by that island and the smaller Charcot,Latady and Rothschild Islands. It has been retreating for 30 years in a series of collapses from a mechanical optimum expressed by those islands positions and regional temperatures. It has not been calving and advancing around a relatively stable/optimum size/front,because its land input is relatively insignificant:input has not been compensating for loss. Loss has been dramatic:close to 10,000km2 since 2005.
Why is sea-ice trending up in area around Antarctica? A shorthand attribution;there are a lot of papers on the facets of this trend. This is happening because of-not despite- rising sea temperature trends in the Southern Ocean,which seem to be changing stratification properties of the surface layers, see Zhang 2007. Rising air temperatures enable more rain and snow over the ocean,as verified by the increases in precipitation noted on the Antarctic Peninsula. Also,the ozone-hole enabled stratospheric cooling causing strengthening of the circum-Antarctic winds,creates more polynya thence ice formation.
It looks like these tourists got caught with their global warming pants down:
http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gmg/op/shaP–x4AmDIPSkOd_cicLg/view.m?id=238445&tid=120787&cat=Conservation
“Eighty British tourists on a journey to watch emperor penguins in the Antarctic have been stranded for a week after their cruise ship got stuck in the ice. The Kapitan Khlebnikov, a Russian icebreaker that takes people through the icebergs of the Weddell Sea and to Snow Hill Island rookery, set out on 3 November and was due to return tomorrow.
But bad weather caused the sea-ice to compact, making it impossible for the ship, with its 105 passengers, including the 80 Britons, to break through. ”
Just when they thought it was safe to trust predictions of global warming from among the alarmist’s, these jokers tested Mother Nature, and lost.
And an icebreaker ship that can’t bust out of ice. That hilarious.
Also,the ozone-hole enabled stratospheric cooling causing strengthening of the circum-Antarctic winds,creates more polynya thence ice formation.
I thought there was recent evidence that stratospheric cooling caused ozone-hole expansion. That the ozone hole problem first came to light at the end on a long term cooling trend lends some credence to this notion. As has its recovery during the subsequent warming years.
http://www.sepp.org/key%20issues/ozone/ozoneeos.html
Nick (15:18:32) :
“This is happening because of-not despite- rising sea temperature trends in the Southern Ocean,which seem to be changing stratification properties of the surface layers, see Zhang 2007.”
I HATE declarations like that. First the categorical imperative, followed by the perfunctory disclaimer, and it is clear the certainty expressed in the precedent is predicated on the uncertain subsequent. AAArrrgggghhh!
@ur momisugly Bart (14:46:03) :
I said “We know that C14 depleted CO2 from human fossil fuel use is increasing the CO2 in the atmosphere.”
To which you replied “No. We know the relative quantity of 12C has been increasing by a slight amount.”
In the URL you give, Dr. Spencer says “Of course, some portion of the Mauna Loa increase must be anthropogenic, but it is not clear that it is entirely so.”
and you leap to the conclusion that ” there is no need to hypothesize an anthropogenic driver.”
Do you think that humans aren’t burning fossil fuels at rates sufficient to account for approximately twice the rise in CO2 actually seen?
Do you think that the CO2 that people are sending into the atmosphere is magically be sequestered someplace, only to be replaced by exactly enough CO2 emissions from warming oceans to give an equivalent rate of rise , even though the warming of the oceans is much noisier than the rise in CO2?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1960/offset:-330/scale:0.01/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1960
The relative quantity of 12C is not only increasing in the atmosphere, but in the ocean as well, indicating that the ocean is a sink, not a source as Spencer claims; the pH is declining as well, an independent indication that the CO2 missing from the human emissions to the atmosphere have gone into the ocean.
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2005/July/01070501.asp
For a comprehensive rebuttal of Spencer’s claim for natural origins of rising CO2, see http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/01/19/a-bag-of-hammers/
Holocene Arctic warmer than today.
http://heliogenic.blogspot.com/2009/11/holocence-arctic-warmer-than-today.html
Phil. (09:55:27) :
Thank you for the link. It makes life so much easier. ;-^
Over 6.
So the bridge broke up at the time maximum ice melt. There is nothing remarkable about a narrow strip of ice joining an island and an ice shelf breaking up.
There’s more to it than that, in the Antarctic sea ice is predominantly annual and thin, whereas the shelf is perennial and very thick in the case of the Wilkins it’s not being ‘pushed’ (~200m thick).
My description of the difference between sea ice and ice shelves was a generalization and framed as such my description was correct. Even without a strong glacial influence accumulated land ice will slowly push the shelf away from the land mass.
This effect is somewhat restricted by the island and land formations around the Wilkins Sound. The shelfs connection with the Latady and Charcot islands has always been tenuous.
There is nothing about the annual dance of the Wilkins ice shelf that has anything meaningful to say about the global climate.
Brian Dodge (18:20:27) :
“In the URL you give, Dr. Spencer says “Of course, some portion of the Mauna Loa increase must be anthropogenic, …”
Of course it is; 0.00001% is “some portion”. Not saying it is 0.00001%, just making the point.
“Do you think that humans aren’t burning fossil fuels at rates sufficient to account for approximately twice the rise in CO2 actually seen?”
I think the key to your question is “at rates sufficient to account for approximately twice the rise in CO2 actually seen”. This indicates there is negative feedback which, despite our best efforts, is handily dealing with our output, and the far greater output from natural processes.
“… the pH is declining as well, an independent indication that the CO2 missing from the human emissions to the atmosphere have gone into the ocean.”
Let me see if I have this straight. CO2 has been increasing in the atmosphere: check. The oceans have become marginally more acidic: check. Atmospheric CO2 absorbed in the oceans could contribute to ocean acidity: check. Therefore, this is independent verification that the rise in CO2 is largely manmade: …huh?
This is circulus in probando. Do you really not see that? I mean… really?
“For a comprehensive rebuttal of Spencer’s claim for natural origins of rising CO2, see http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/01/19/a-bag-of-hammers/“
For a comprehensive waste of time, you mean. First, Tamino starts hopping up and down and shrieking that Spencer has treated the data incorrectly, despite the fact that, that is how the data are reported for d13C, as Spencer makes clear just before Figure 1. It may be a stupid convention, but it is the convention nevertheless, and you have to follow it if you want to get good data.
Next, Tamino gleefully announces that Spencer has made a “stupid” error and, in the process, commits one himself. He states that Spencer’s Figure 6 is merely a shifted version of Figure 3. But, he fails to note the titles on Figures 4 and 5, which clearly indicate that the detrending took place on the derivative sequences. Now that you have gotten an idea of the quality of Tamino’s work, take a few moments to eyeball Figures 4 and 5 for yourself. Do these sequences look uncorrelated to you?
And Brian, BTW, if I tried to point out this stupid error on his part at his blog, nothing would happen. Literally. My post would simply fail to appear. This happened to me several times long ago, and I never go back to that site, except this time to see what you were crowing about.
You should be aware of this, if you are depending on his blog for guidance. Contrary voices are not allowed in the arena. If you ever noticed someone failed to answer the challenge, and thought they had retreated ignominously from the field of battle because they knew their POV had been roundly defeated, it is likely that their further comments were simply censored.