Much more carbon is sequestered by echinoderms than previously thought.
Published online 7 January 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.1041
Animals such as sea stars, sea urchins and sea lilies bury much more carbon than anticipated, according to the first study to estimate echinoderms’ contribution to ocean carbon storage.
Studies of biological carbon in the oceans tend to focus on organisms that drift through the shallows, such as plankton, because they are known to store carbon in the form of calcium carbonate, which they transport to the sea floor when they die.
Mario Lebrato suspected that bottom-dwelling animals such as echinoderms also store large amounts of calcium carbonate, and wondered how large a role they might have in the global carbon cycle.
While still an undergraduate at the University of Southampton, UK, Lebrato, now a PhD student at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Science in Germany, set out to study the rates at which echinoderms absorb calcium carbonate and what happens to the carbon when they die. “The funding for this was initially derived from my pocket because nobody believed in the echinoderm [carbon] contribution,” says Lebrato.
Read the rest of the story here:
I notice that the weather forecasting folk said when temps in Sioux City were going from about 5 degrees F to -27 degrees F, “tomorrow will be much COOLer” Indeed! And after some 2 weeks of brutally cold temperatures, it is still being called a cold “snap”.
In my book, when the temperature is near the freezing point of water, it is darn well COLD out. When the temp hovers around 0 degrees F for days, it is brutally COLD, and when temps hit -25 degrees F, it is “Arctic”, and well beyond brutally COLD.
Some people prate propaganda long enough, they start believing their own propaganda, and don’t realize that others, more knowledgeable, see them as the fools they are.
” londo (15:04:35) :
“Here we go again. A good paper ruined by AGW nonsense.”
I think it might be difficult the get anything published nowadays unless you pay homage to the powers that be. This type of closing remarks are becoming pretty common. It is a bit scary I think.”
It is very scary because it is the same type of “science” as was seen in the USSR. It is also proof of how badly science the world over has been compromised by a political agenda. One wonders how much other “science” has been compromised.
Someone suggested looking at how many papers were rendered useless because they depend on “homogenized” temperature data and references to the Climategate con-artists. The addition of the AGW blurb to papers should also be tallied.
LarryOldtimer (00:16:35) :
… Variance within a degree Celsius means nothing, but when weather events combine to cause large losses of crops which can’t be harvested (Fall of 2009, US) or huge amounts of snow in winter (which has to melt in spring, adding to spring rain runoff) make for a very late date to plant crops, this winter so far, and the first month of winter still has almost 2 weeks left) widespread famine is always the result…. so I am gonna grow lots of vegetables. I do like to have enough food to eat at a price I can afford.”
That is what I am suggesting too. I live in sunny North Carolina and just woke up to 10F Brrr…
You forgot to mention the USDA, FDA and the US Congress attempts to outlaw farming in the USA with their idiotic “Food Safety” bills. Surprise, Surprise, the last one was sponsored by Congressman “Cap and Trade” Waxman.
The Festering Fraud Behind Food Safety Reform: http://www.foodsafetynews.com/contributors/nicole-johnson/
“Scientists” arguing madly over less than 1 degree Celsius, while Hell is freezing over.” You forgot the “gun-toting types” tar, feathering and running the politicians out of town next fall, metaphorically speaking of course. I have already checked who has voted for the “Cap and Trade” and “Food Safety” bills and am campaigning against those incumbents.
I was watching one of those BBC nature shows recently (the recent one with that Ian Stewart guy as presenter) and he was talking about the carbon cycle.
So as I see it, it works like this;
CO2 absorbed by sea water.
Plankton feeds on the absorbed CO2
Plankton dies and falls to the sea floor
Plankton turns to rock
Rock is subducted as tectonic plates move
CO2 is returned to the atmosphere by vulcanoes.
Right…so my question is this.
If Plankton feeds on CO2, wouldnt an increase in CO2 be beneficial to all sea life since more CO2 means more plankton which means more food for them endangered Whales etc?
Unless of course Whales start dieing because of over eating? 🙂
Regards
Mailman
This article is from Nature – a biased, crackpot, unscientific journal. Take anything they publish with a grain of salt.
The soil heterotrophs and fungi play the same role on land.
No one has yet looked at carbon isotopes in soil.
Mailman (07:16:22) :
Unless of course Whales start dieing because of over eating? 🙂
All that fat can’t be good for their hearts. 🙂
Mike Ramsey
Ocean acidification is sort of the last stand for AGW promoters.
They have failed at warming, having to rebrand as ‘cliamte change’.
Storm predictions have failed embarassingly.
Arctic ice is not cooperating, and the fal back on that, ‘ice quality’ is just not holding up well.
Acidification is tough to disprove, complex, and easily mis-stated by warmers to keep people confused a long time.
They know if they lose on OA, there is nothing else to hold back the skeptics.
Untold billions of tons of calcareous marls are being precipitated on the ocean floor. As soon as someone develops a fudge factor, existing data can be coaxed to relate this tonnage to the MPG attained from new car models.
Guys, have I got the basics right for the carbon cycle?
Regards
mailman
I’ve read that the US Navy has minutely surveyed all the floors of the oceans to assist the navigation of its submarines. I bet they have a clue about the major volcanoes, although not about the numerous small fumaroles that may emit much more stuff. Possibly the Navy might part with its volcano data?
Mailman – Too focused on plankton. There are a lot of unknowns in the deep sea carbon budget. Snot houses also have had recent surprises. Also, CO2 is not only returned by erupting volcanoes, there are slower magma-fed hot areas which are probably leaking carbon through more subtle methods. Look at the chemistry in the rocks around a hot vent.
Average annual pH reconstructions and measurements from various Pacific Ocean locations:
The low pH levels from 60 mya to 40 mya include the infamous Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM); a period in which large scale subaerial and submarine flood basalt eruptions probably dislodged a massive volume of methane hydrates into the Atlantic Ocean, causing a shoaling of the lysocline (AKA ocean acidification). Even then, the oceans did not actually “acidify;” the lowest pH was 7.42 (still basic). PETM CO2 levels have been estimated to have been 1000 to 3000 ppmv from pedogenic carbonates… But fossil plant stomata suggest that CO2 levels in North America were not much different than today (300 to 400 ppmv).
The flood basalts associated with the PETM were more or less the culmination of a long period of flood basalt eruptions that had started in the late Cretaceous. These eruptions probably killed off most, if not all, of the dinosaurs a few million years before the Chicxulub impact event. Even after more than 10 million years of nearly continuous, massive flood basalt eruptions… The oceans did not become acidic.
If oceans managed to remain alkaline through the PETM, mankind’s piddling 3% addition to the Earth’s carbon budget is not going to acidify anything.
The pH of the oceans has fluctuated in the same range since at least the Miocene… 7.8 to 8.5. It has been asserted that the average pH of the oceans has declined from about 8.2 to about 8.1 since the mid-1700’s.
What’s the mid-point of 7.8 to 8.5? It’s 8.15.
What’s the mid-point of 8.1 to 8.2? It’s 8.15.
Oceanic pH fluctuates over a ~50 year cycle that correlates very well with the PDO (Pelejero et al., 2005). I’ll bet a good bottle of Far Niente Cab that 20 years from now, the Chicken Littles will be squawking about global cooling and ocean alkalinization… Right up until the PDO switches back to positive mode around 2033.
I said before, as I watched the US hearings a few months ago concerning Climategate, that “acidification” is the new big thing for the anti-industry movement.
It’s been filtering into the literature for a few years, and has been ratcheted up now that AGW is approaching collapse. It’s really elegant in it’s derivation, too. As the ocean cools it’s ability to store CO2 increases… more dissolved CO2 equals higher pH.
If they can transition the fear to ocean acidification from AGW then the attack on cheap energy will continue at a steady clip.
While I read WUWT daily and commend Mr. Watts for an excellent site. The site moves quickly on. So here I’m commenting on a post that may only be read by the moderator – I hope you like it Mr. Moderator.
The subject of Ocean acidification is another “here we go again”. The pH of the Oceans is dropping – who says so? Let me see the data. How do measure the pH Ocean-wide? There is something greater than 600 X 10 to the 12th cubic meters of ocean.
I have read and believe that the oceans have a nearly infinite capacity to buffer acid and the pH can only be changed locally and temporarily. I found the following explaination (without source):
Alkalinity, total hardness, carbonate hardness, pH, carbon dioxide, the carbonate-bicarbonate system, and calcium carbonate are all terms used to describe some component or process that is part of the buffering system present in seawater. – Seawater contains many mineral salts. These salts are present as ions of the elements that compose the salt, such as positive ions (cations) of sodium and negative ions (anions) of chlorine that form the salt, sodium chloride.
Seawater also contains carbon dioxide gas. When dissoved in water, carbon dioxide reacts with the hydrogen of water to form a weak acid, carbonic acid (H2CO3). if excess carbon dixoide is in the water, carbonic acid levels increase beyond the point where it can be quickly utilized in the carbonate-bicarbonate system, and pH levels drop. if too much carbon dioxide is taken from the water, carbonic acid decreases and pH levels quickly rise. Addition or deletion of carbon dioxide beyond atmospheric equilibrium temporarily changes pH but does not change the alkalinity (carbonate composition) of the water. Carbonic acid forms negatively charged carbonate (CO3 to 2nd -) and bicarbonate (HCO3-) ions.
Carbonate in turn joins with calcium to form calcium carbonate (CaCO3). The chemical reactions that form bicarbonate, carbonate, and calcium carbonate are equilibrium reactions; that is they can go back and forth depending on conditions such as increase or decrease of carbon dioxide, pressure, and temperature.
Under normal physical and biological conditions, the carbonate-bicarbonate ions act as a bank that automatically takes up excess carbonic or other acids, or forms more carbonic acid if carbon dioxide is lost. This is the buffer system that maintains the normal pH of seawater at about 8.2. Bicarbonate is most important in the normal pH range of seawater. Calcium is an important element present in seawater and is part of this system. Calcium is improtant for building strong coral skeletons, mollusk shells, and algal support, and has numerous other biological uses as well. –
As calcium carbonate is removed from seawater by chemical and biological processes (mostely utilized in the shells of tiny planktonic animals), more bicarbonate forms from carbonate, more carbon dioxide is assimilated into the buffer system, and pH remains constant. In the sea, carbon dioxide flows into the system in areas of high biological activity and water run off from land, accumulates in the depths, and is released back into the atmosphere in areas where deep sea waters well upward to the surface. The carbonate-bicarbonate buffer system equilibrates back and forth and pH stays relatively constant.
Someone with credibility needs to step up and stop this insanity of Ocean acidification before it becomes the next global warming.