Never mind predictions of catastrophic bleaching from global warming, cold is the culprit of this story. With ocean heat content now shown to be dropping slightly since 2005, there is even greater concern.
Excerpts from Physorg.com: Coral in Florida Keys suffers lethal hit from cold
January 30, 2010 By Curtis Morgan
Bitter cold this month may have wiped out many of the shallow water corals in the Keys.
Scientists have only begun assessments, with dive teams looking for “bleaching” that is a telltale indicator of temperature stress in sensitive corals, but initial reports are bleak. The impact could extend from Key Largo through the Dry Tortugas west of Key West, a vast expanse that covers some of the prettiest and healthiest reefs in North America.
Given the depth and duration of frigid weather, Meaghan Johnson, marine science coordinator for The Nature Conservancy, expected to see losses. But she was stunned by what she saw when diving a patch reef 2.5 miles off Harry Harris Park in Key Largo.
Star and brain corals, large species that can take hundreds of years to grow, were as white and lifeless as bones, frozen to death. There were also dead sea turtles, eels and parrotfish littering the bottom.
“Corals didn’t even have a chance to bleach. They just went straight to dead,” said Johnson, who joined teams of divers last week surveying reefs in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. “It’s really ecosystem-wide mortality.”
The record chill that gripped South Florida for two weeks has taken a heavy toll on wildlife — particularly marine life.
…
Many of the Florida Keys’ signature diving destinations such as Carysfort, Molasses and Sombrero reefs _ as well as deeper reefs off Miami-Dade and Broward — are believed to have escaped heavy losses, thanks to warming effects of the Gulf Stream. But shallower reefs took a serious, perhaps unprecedented hit, said Billy Causey, Southeast regional director of national marine sanctuaries for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
…
Cold-water bleaching is unusual, last occurring in 1977, the year it snowed in Miami. It killed hundreds of acres of staghorn and elkhorn corals across the Keys. Neither species has recovered, both becoming the first corals to be federally listed as threatened in 2006.
This big chill, said Causey, shapes up worse.
“They were exposed to temperatures much colder, that went on longer, than what they were exposed to three decades ago,” he said.
Typical winter lows in-shore hover in the mid- to high-60s in the Keys.
At its coldest more than a week ago, a Key Largo reef monitor recorded 52. At Munson Reef, just about a half-mile off the Newfound Harbor Keys near Big Pine Key, it hit 56.
At Munson Reef, said Cory Walter, a biologist for Mote Marine Laboratory in Summerland Key, scientists saw losses similar to what was reported off Key Largo. Dead eels, dead hogfish, dead coral — including big coral head 5- to 6-feet wide, bleached white with only fringes of decaying tissue.
“They were as big, as tall, as me. They were pretty much dead,” said Walter, who coordinates Mote’s BleachWatch program, which monitors reefs.
Read the entire story at physorg.com
h/t to Leif Svalgaard
I miss global warming. Going to take a dent out of tourism for the area as well.
Oh you silly deniers.
It’s not the cold. It’s CO2 causing “osteoporosis of the seas”.
Jane Lubchecno
“I call ocean acidification climate change’s evil twin,” she says. “Part of the need to reduce carbon emissions is to both slow down the rate of climate change but also to start repairing the damage that is being done to oceans. As the oceans become more acidic, it’s harder for corals, oysters, clams, crabs, mussels, lobsters to make their shells or their hard parts, and they dissolve faster. Another way to think of ocean acidification is as osteoporosis of the seas.”
Everybody repeats:
“It’s worse than we thought. If we don’t stop global warming now we will all freeze to death.”
It is not just Florida. Spent part of January in Cuba, close to freezing temperatures and dead coral on the shallow dive areas off the coast of Cayo Coco. Also quite a heavy storm which lasted several days which damaged the coral as well.
So, too warm leads to bleaching, but when it’s too cold, it skips bleaching and goes straight to dead.
Listen when nature speaks: cold is worse than warm.
What’s most astonishing is that you can find this story at physorg.com.
No worries,
just send the hot air team (Therminator as the captain) http://www.cyberkonsult.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/therminator.jpg
The blessed process of life: Cold increases carbon dioxide solubility in water, which in turn promotes CO2 RE-CAPTURE, fixation, as calcium carbonate (white in color). Then: No Cap&Trade needed.
With all those dead fish and damaged reefs you would think they could come up with more than a photo of one dead coral. So, I’m looking to see what I can find, and lo and behold, …I haven’t found anything yet, except this important announcement.
BE CAREFUL WHERE YOU SWIM IN FLORIDA!
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/wildlife-officials-to-re-stock-palm-springs-pond-120359.html
Back to the search for photos of the damage.
I have no doubt the corals will recover again as they have done for millions of years and even more drastic temperature changes.
No grounds for any alarmism in either way, war or cold.
Ok, some of the shallow water corals have died, ok… but how many people died during that same time because of the cold?
Like everything else in the AGW camp, you have to take their observations with a mountain of salt.
Steve Oregon – where does that woman get her ‘information’ from..?
I’ve seen calculations which prove that if all possible CO2 were dumped in the sea, it would reduce the basic figure from 8.2 to 8.0 – so still significantly alkaline.
The business about crabs etc not being able to form shells is also rubbish – never heard of freshwater snails, etc..? Rain water is slightly acidic (pH about 5.5) – so according to Jane they’d all be dissolving…
We live in Sarasota, Florida and don’t ever remember so many dead fish from a cold snap(s). Occasionally the red tide will strike during the summer months and do this, but when you walk on the beach now there is a wide assortment of sea life washed up – seems like an inordinate amount of snook in the mix.
While much has been made about the Manatee ( http://www.savethemanatee.org/news_feature_cold_weather_10.html ) population being hit, the local articles have tried to tag this as being a result of “global warming or climate change” – so the beat goes on in that respect…
It’s amazing (and frustrating) that most in the media find a way to connect any weather or environmental event to global warming. They can’t write an article or deliver news without hitting the “this is a result of us nasty humans bringing global warming upon ourselves” button.
I’m so tired of that spin…
Maybe increased CO2 will help to save them:
“In fact, the increase in the CO2 content of the modern atmosphere appears to have not been negative at all (on corals). In fact, it appears to have been positive, which should only have been expected in light of what we know about the beneficial influence of atmospheric CO2 enrichment on the photosynthetic rates of marine microalgae, such as those that comprise the food-producing symbiotic zooxanthellae of corals”
http://www.co2science.org//articles/V10/N13/B2.php
The warmists just don’t get it. Warm is better, cold kills.
Water certainly looks cold near Florida. Darn global warming!
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
A bit off topic, but surely now is the time for a simple timeline of this scam to be published, for the benefit of all those who are just realising that there is a problem. This includes the MSM journalists…
There has been an upsurge in warmer excuses – ‘this is one minor mistake – the basic science is sound – these are just a few troublemakers’. A simple history with hyperlinks would be a very useful tool for this type of thing…
I envisage something like John Daly’s site, but shorter and slicker. Off the top of my head, here are a few high-level subject headings. I’ve probably got some things wrong, but I seem to remember this sequence:
1- Collected weather station stats start to show a temperature increase from a low in 1970
2 – In the UK PM Thatcher starts CRU with remit to attack coal fuel and miners
3 – In the US Hansen starts agitating for research into warming threat
4 – the ‘CO2 amplified by water vapour’ mechanism is proposed
5 – the first computer models are developed to predict warming. At this time they seem to work.
6 – UN is persuaded to start the IPCC
7 – Kyoto conference brings governments on board and starts establishing a ‘Global Warming/Climate Change infrastucture, which rapidly becomes scientific orthodoxy.
8 – Steve McIntyre questions Mann Hockey stick and starts technical argument blog
9 – Several other blogs start to question other aspects of AGW – notably WUWT
10 – Collected weather stats start to show a halt in the temperature rise at about 2000, and the models cease to match reality.
11 – Major players in the Climate Change science field begin to have problems continuing their scientific justifications as the temperatures start to fall. Dubious science begins to be done in an effort to hide this.
12 – Blogs start to uncover various dubious scientific practices
13 – These blogs are generally ignored until the Climategate leak occurs. Then the mainstream newspapers start to signal the breaking of a scandal.
Someone who knows a lot more about it than me could do a useful check-list for journalists – they really need this sort of thing, otherwise they have to do their own research, and you can’t find much out in a pub…..
Take it to the bank. This WILL be used as evidence of global warming….
mkurbo
The list of things allegedly effected or traumatised by GW is so long that nobody takes it seriously anymore. Everyone knows they are a bunch of charlatans. Everyone laughed at the SOTU address as soon as Obama mentioned global warming. It’s been reduced to a joke.
The Warmists were not happy with the warm world they inhabited.
Man is to blame.
Now they are unhappy with the cooling world they inhabit.
Man is to blame.
Nothing, it seems, will ever satisfy them.
They should look in the mirror… and blame themselves.
Dodgy Geezer
Your endeavour is a noble one, but the scandal is well documented in various books already.
David (10:56:18) said:
However, what is the pH of the freshwater environments where freshwater snails live and grow etc?
“With ocean heat content now shown to be dropping slightly since 2005, there is even greater concern.”
What a strange interpretation. If that little wiggle in the ocean heat content is cause for concern in this particular context, then there wouldn’t have been any coral anywhere this whole century.
What’s more interesting to note is that a single season’s extreme weather fluctuation can be enough to cause major and lasting changes to an ecosystem someplace.
Surely a tragedy regardless of cause. I’ve snorkeled the Keys many times. They’re a Floridian prize for sure. But now Man has frozen them with his warming.
Hey, mkurbo, I lived in St. Pete for years. Bad, bad news about the snook. I used to fish them in Channel A on the Hillsborough. I remember the Red Tide, too. Seems like I remember talk about the frequency of Red Tide was brought on by AGW.
Sign me,
Also tired of that spin…
Steve Oregon (10:35:32) :
Oh you silly deniers.
It’s not the cold. It’s CO2 causing “osteoporosis of the seas”.
Not True!
Jane Lubchecno also says
“We cannot say definitively that these dead zones are caused by climate change, but we can say that they are consistent with our understanding of climate change dynamics. Moreover, there is no other obvious explanation for the appearance of dead zones off an open coast such as ours. This dead zone is a consequence of changes in oceanic and atmospheric conditions, not runoff of nutrients from the land.”
What is the truth?
Temperature
Coral species live within a relatively narrow temperature margin, and anomalously low and high sea temperatures can induce coral bleaching. Bleaching events occur during sudden temperature drops accompanying intense upwelling episodes, (-3 º C to -5 º C for 5-10 days), seasonal cold-air outbreaks. Bleaching is much more frequently reported from elevated se water temperature. A small positive anomaly of 1-2 º C for 5-10 weeks during the summer season will usually induce bleaching.
Solar Irradiance
Bleaching during the summer months, during seasonal temperature and irradiance maxima often occurs disproportionately in shallow-living corals and on the exposed summits of colonies. Solar radiation has been suspected to play a role in coral bleaching. Both photosyntheticaly active radiation (PAR, 400-700nm) and ultraviolet radiation (UVR, 280-400nm) have been implicated in bleaching.
The Spirit of the Universe definitely has a sense of humor!
Those who would deceive suddenly find that they are perceived as fools.
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Emeritus Professor of
Nuclear & Space Sciences
Former NASA PI for Apollo
I posed a question that was rapidly deleted on climateprogress. Joe was on a major ocean acidification rant but as usual offered no actual numbers. I asked how a PH of 8.2 was considered acidic and he just lost it. Trooth must be kept secret if it doesn’t support the dogma.
MattN (11:05:48) :
Take it to the bank. This WILL be used as evidence of global warming
You just said it: “Bank”…”Follow the money”: There were two big banks, one in favor of carbon share business “Al Baby” included, the other to spoil the first one’s business; perhaps out from there it came the hacker. Just guessing. See:
http://english.pravda.ru/business/finance/111958-0/
@ Dodgy Geezer (11:05:45) :
“A bit off topic, but surely now is the time for a simple timeline of this scam to be published, for the benefit of all those who are just realising that there is a problem.”
Jo Nova has done something of this sort. Here is the link to the pdf.
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/climategate/history/climategate_timeline_banner.pdf
Apologies if this is a repeat – my original post seemed to simply disappear rather than wait for the mods.
The only thing I saw on the nightly news the past week was a horde of sharks in a breeding gathering off the Florida coast. Hammerheads, Lemons, Bulls, Tigers.
Not the place to go for a global warming expose photo-op dive right now.
@P Gosselin
“..Your endeavour is a noble one, but the scandal is well documented in various books already…”
Yes – in too much detail! That’s no use for journalists, or anyone else who wants to understand the whole scam in 5 minutes. And it needs to be on the net…
I don’t think it’s MY endeavour – I don’t know enough about it – but I think SOMEONE will need to do it, otherwise the journalists will simply think this is a leadership issue which will go away when Pachauri resigns. Certainly I expect that MSM coverage will cease when that happens (as it will shortly)…
Steve Oregon (10:35:32)
I was hoping for soft shell lobsters.
http://tinyurl.com/yb3xs6w
“Jane Lubchecno
“… As the oceans become more acidic, it’s harder for corals, oysters, clams, crabs, mussels, lobsters to make their shells or their hard parts, and they dissolve faster.”
Oh Jane, don’t you ever read Wattsupwiththat? http://tinyurl.com/ylxz2sm
to Dodgy Geezer 11.05.45:
Jo Nova has a timeline on her blog http://joannenova.com.au/2010/01/finally-the-new-revised-and-edited-climategate-timeline/
David (10:56:18) :
Steve Oregon – where does that woman get her ‘information’ from..?
She’s the distinguished head of NOAA with a resume packed with academia awards and recognition for her lengthy career as an OSU professor and researcher.
Somehow that also makes her a climate expert?
So she can just make it up as she goes.
Lubchenco has been as bad as any Team Member, WWF or Greenpeace in the fabrication department. Along with spending millions on research with little to show for it.
When her OSU (NAS $9 million grant) Ocean Dead Zone research found no cause she began suggesting there was link to AGW.
Here deliberate and baseless fabrication has since traveled the globe and miraculously morphed into “established science” according to the RC clowns.
Now as the head of NOAA she is busy expanding her efforts to “educate” the public.
http://climatecentral.org/
Founding Board
Jane Lubchenco
http://climatecentral.org/about/people/
So how cold was the water ?
And why weren’t these ‘sensitive’ species wiped out during the last half-dozen ice ages ?
Depressing to think we’ve still got at least 20 more years of chilliness before we get back into the beneficial warming climate phase.
Which would you rather live in:
MWP or LIA? Holocene Climate Optimum or Younger Dryas?
If you know anything about natural history or the history of human civilization, you will pick the warm periods instead of the cold periods. Overall, warmer is better for not only human life but life in general.
Carrot Eater:
Do you think that evolution by natural selection is a valid scientific theory? If so, what does it matter if “a single season’s extreme weather fluctuation can be enough to cause major and lasting changes to an ecosystem someplace”? One of the most fundamental oxymorons (or perhaps hypocrasies) of environmentalism is that the primarily left-wing, materialist supporters of the new environmentalist religions, who most likely claim adherence to science and to Darwinism, posit that any human interference with nature is a sin, and worry frantically about damage to ecosystems, which must be kept pristine and unchanging.
Tell that to “Mother” Nature, which remorselessly changes and destroys, sometimes in a flash event (such as the recent Haitian earthquake). Although Darwin realized that environmental change is not required for evolution to happen, he recognized that it had a very dramatic effect in promoting natural selection. Environmentalists by their actions and teachings fundamentally oppose evolution – very curious.
Finally, I strongly doubt that in this instance – the prolonged cold weather in Florida – there will be lasting changes to Floridean ecosystems. Most marine animals are highly mobile, and no doubt these corals will be growing as well as ever after a few months of recovery, once they are colonized by new coral polyps. Lasting changes will only result if the last few years of cooling presage a more sinister event such as a return to ice-age conditions.
So climate change IS killing coral…since we all know the record cold was due to CO2 emissions 😉
Or at least that’s how it will be spun.
As Bruce Springsteen said .. “And you’ve got to learn to live with what you can’t rise above if you want to ride on down in through this tunnel of love”
On the term ocean acidification…
Basic chemistry states that moving towards a pH of 7.0, from any direction, is called neutralizing the solution. Not once during all of my years of biochem studies in college did I hear the word “acidification”. I could understand people making up a word for “becoming less basic” if a word didn’t already exist, but the term neutralizing has been around for a long time. Maybe “global warming is neutralizing the oceans” carries too many other connotations.
As James Brown said…”it is what it is”.
Brain coral to pinky coral: “Pinky, are you pondering what i’m pondering?”
This is very dark black humour: How history repeats itself:
19th.century: Cap&trade of slaves from the Black Continent,
21th.century: Cap&trade of black emissions for turning whites into slaves.
Steve Oregon (10:35:32) :
David (10:56:18) :
Richard Sharpe (11:14:52) :
@Steve Oregon,
…re: As the oceans become more acidic…
For the oceans to become acidic at all,
they have at first to become neutral (ph = 7.0)
Currently, the oceans are, depending on location
somewhere between ph=7.4 and ph=8.1, so
they are a little bit alcalic, not acidic at all.
Finally, the oceans are a buffer-solution (I’m
not sure if that’s the proper translation.
If not, somebody should correct me on that)
There is quite some Na, K, Mg in that solution
which hasn’t got it’s acidic counterpart already.
(speaking of Cl, F, SO, SO2, CO2, NO, NO2). So before
Na, K, Mg and o´thers are not ‘satisfied’, there won’t be
any – easily recognizable – decrease of ph)
@David (10:56:18) :
where did you see 8.2´? I’m just curious.
Never heard about anything above 8.1 in oceans, but
may be lack of knowledge/data, last time I really measured
this stuff was about ’79.
@richard Sharpe (11:14:52) :
Richard, it’s only ‘hearsay/saw it there’, from somebody here who does
have a bunch of small seawater aquariums – expensive hobby –
it’s not the ph which may cause trouble. Plus or minus
0.1/0.2 is manageable. What really does count, is the
amount of metals still in solution, measured in
milligramm/microgramm per liter. He does not have problems
with – too few – shells or snails.
More to that, could you imagine a seawater aquarium under
the glass-plated table of your living room? Looking from
the pizza, you are currently working on, over the plate
onto a small nautilus? Amazing, really amazing and I was it.
vigilantfish:
I only said ‘lasting’ damage because the article above says some corals have not yet recovered from a cold snap in 1977. There could be more to that story; all I know about it is that one sentence. But taking it at face value, I’m a bit surprised that a single cold snap has effects that persist that long.
As for evolution, yes, life adapts to its environment. Change the environment over time, and some species will die, some will flourish, some will eventually change over time through natural selection, some will migrate elsewhere, some will migrate in. The question is, if the climate changes over the next couple centuries, how will all that play out and how will it affect us, our living patterns and our agriculture? There’s no opposition to evolution there; that’s just a strange idea. It’s merely self-concern. Life will of course go on, but in some different way.
When we had a very active Sun and positive phases of the oceans:
CO2 caused global warming.
When we have a very low activity Sun and negative phases of the oceans:
C02 causes global cooling.
Where’s the unifying theory? How did C02 global warming cause C02 global cooling?
Never mind that the Earth has experienced far warmer and cooler times in the past. Anthropogenic usage of stored green energy releases C02 that has mystical powers.
Modern coral evolved 245 million years ago. It’s hard for me to believe that this winter’s cold was worse than anything the coral have had to endure for a quarter of a billion years.
I think it’s much more likely that environmental scientists can’t tell live coral from dead coral.
John Galt (11:58:44) :
We don’t get to choose the type of climactic period we get.
But if I had my druthers…I’d take any of those warming periods.
In the meantime, I am happy to have known 30+ years of most excellent warming. It was truly grand.
David (10:56:18) :
“The business about crabs etc not being able to form shells is also rubbish – never heard of freshwater snails, etc..? Rain water is slightly acidic (pH about 5.5) – so according to Jane they’d all be dissolving…”
Fresh water isn’t only rain, it’s also from springs fed up through minerals. The typical P.H. of a freshwater lake/river is 7.0 and up, and in Africa the cichlid lakes have a P.H. around 8.3, like seawater.
A very preliminary search at http://scholar.google.de revealed revealed that 100% of the literature dealt with the combination of “coral bleach” and “higher temperatures”, none with the combination with “coral bleach” and “lower temperatures”. Is there a consensus because of negligence?
If this would be true, there would be another scandal in science. Does anybody know more?
Pretty soon we will be told that the increased CO2 sollution in the oceans has lead to thicker shells rendering clam shells uncrackable by poor otters… thereby endangering them at some future date.
On second thought, I CALL IT!!! Where’s my grant to start my study?
OT but worth a mention as it might affect this sort of web site
/Quote/
Enemies Of Free Speech Call For Internet Licensing
Calls to introduce a licensing system to police the Internet on behalf of a powerful UN agency represent the latest salvo in a long-running battle to kill free speech on the web and bring an end to the powerful digital democracy that has devastated the carbon tax agenda of the UN by exposing the Climategate scandal.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/enemies-of-free-speech-call-for-internet-licensing.html
/Unquote/
Cold January kills record number of Florida manatees – NatGeo News Watch
http://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/news/chiefeditor/2010/01/cold-weather-kills-manatees.html
A two-week cold snap earlier this month caused a record number of deaths of endangered manatees in Florida, the state’s Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC) said this week.
“Biologists with the FWC’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute documented more than 100 manatee carcasses in state waters from the beginning of the year through January 23,” the FWC said in a news release…
FWC News – FWC records unprecedented number of cold-related manatee deaths
http://myfwc.com/NEWSROOM/10/statewide/News_10_X_ManateeCold1.htm
Previously:
FWC releases preliminary 2009 manatee mortality data January 6, 2010
http://myfwc.com/NEWSROOM/10/statewide/News_10_X_ManateeDeaths09.htm
Fish and Wildlife Research Institute
http://research.myfwc.com/features/view_article.asp?id=33589
More on other Florida fish and wildlife at…
FWC Newsroom – Index
http://myfwc.com/NEWSROOM/Index.htm
Piers Corbyn
http://www.weatheraction.com/docs/WANews10No8.pdf
QUESTION OF THE WEEK Now that Solar Cycle 24 has got going does that mean that the increasing solar activity will make the world generally milder?
A: NO! The correlation of solar activity and world temperature applies for ODD cycles – which dominate the relationship between earth temperature & solar activity. World temps are generally lower in even numbered cycles even when they are very active.
2010’s Historic Cold Spell in Florida and Southeast, Powerful Storms in California, Monstrous Snows in Arizona Mountain
By Joe D’Aleo Monday, February 1, 2010 Florida – Worst Freeze since 1989
http://www.intellicast.com/Community/Content.aspx?a=219
Has many details on these events.
“some of the prettiest and healthiest reefs in North America.”
That made me actually laugh out loud, then get pizzed off.
According to every thing they have said for the past decade, our reefs are everything but healthy.
It really does depend on how they want to spin it.
We are at the top limit of their range.
What do they expect?
Oh yeah, I forget, they expect the climate to be static, that little
“normal” line in the middle.
If there was no CO2 in the water, maybe the pH would be too high.
Did you know there were 3 ways to remove the CO2 from sea water?
1. Heat it.
2. Add more salts.
3. Freeze it.
If you consider that 87%ish of all CO2 is in the ocean (comapared to about 4%ish for the air) in times of global cooling and glaciation, 2 and 3 will become dominant and will release major quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere. By freezing, the concentration in minerals in sea water will increase leading to CO2 degasification of both pure water and sea water.
Florida sits right on the edge of the temperate zone. It sticks out into the ocean but it’s connected to the continent. A lot of the time, most every thing from south of Gainesville or Orlando, looks pretty tropical. Through many seasons citrus can be grown almost to the Georgia line. Other years the freezes kill most of the citrus all the way south to Lake Wales.
People from up north come down and plant Coco Plumosa trees all over the state because they look more like Coconut Palms than Cabbage Palms do. Northerners think that Florida should look like some tropical island down in the caribbean. Then, when it freezes, they all die. I was in Deland and the Ocala Forest this past weekend and there are dead Coco Plumosas all over the place.
Then there are the manatees. Manatees have been maintained north of their normal migration areas for decades by power plant warm water outflows.
But apple trees, sugar maple trees, etc won’t grow here. It’s normally too warm.
Like citrus, palms and manatees, the corals will continue to come and go in Florida based on decadal weather fluctuations. People grow up and they think that everything in their backyard is going to stay exactly the same for centuries. Maybe that happens in Maine or South Dakota (I don’t know) but it sure doesn’t happen in Florida. Change is here to stay. It’s been that way for a long time.
The carbon units infesting planet Earth go crazy in cycles that approximate the many and various solar cycles. When they begin to blame or attribute all their little problems to some natural process you can pretty much bet that something’s up or down (remember we’re speaking of “cycles”). These cycles have traditionally been resolved by wars. Wars that have killed off the younger generation and left the older units to fend for themselves and rebuild. No doubt the crazy carbon units of the 21st Century will soon get it into their little heads that another war is called for and when it is over they’ll have more practical things to worry about.
Shear the sheep before they freeze to death, so we can make woolen sweaters and keep warm
On the general topic of AGW. How many politicians and ‘pundits’ seem to believe that somewhere there is an Alladin’s cave packed to the ceiling with glittering “irrefutable evidence for AGW – beyond all doubt.” and these minor blips are merely trivial? It’s just that they can’t quite remember the password!
Steve Oregon (10:35:32) :
“…As the oceans become more acidic, it’s harder for corals, oysters, clams, crabs, mussels, lobsters to make their shells…”
Crabs first appeared on Earth (Gaia) during Paleozoic era,
http://tinyurl.com/yf2bxtn
when CO2 levels were 100 times higher than today.
http://tinyurl.com/cmq2a4
Damn it! This global warming has got to stop!
Cold kills AGW trolls. When was the last time you’ve seen one here? Are they all doing Scream-Ins outside?
Steve Oregon (10:35:32),
Ocean pH has been all over the map in the past: click
I used to raise tropical fish in tanks up to 125 gallons, and I can tell you from experience that pH is not nearly as important as other factors in a healthy fish population. I had clams and shrimp in the tank, too, and they didn’t seem to care about the pH, which varied over a wide range, from 6.5 to 8.5.
The trumped up ‘ocean acidification’ story is just the latest in a long list of Y2K-type scares that will amount to absolutely nothing. Read up on ocean buffering capacity.
Richard Sharpe (11:14:52) :
However, what is the pH of the freshwater environments where freshwater snails live and grow etc?
I can’t answer your question directly. However, there are rivers in Scotland which are famous (locally at least) for fresh water pearls which are found in fresh water mussels. These rivers must, I think, be heading towards acidic due the the environment in Scotland, large amounts of peat for instance. It’s hard to get facts, as a lot of the acidity is blamed on acid rain. I am not a biologist but there are a number of other creatures commonly found in these rivers as well as the snails, freshwater shrimp, caddis grubs mayflys and so on.
Freshwater Pearls have been known and valued in Scotland since human habitation began.
See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honours_of_Scotland
http://www.bing.com/reference/semhtml/Crown_of_Scotland
Just a heads up that there is a breaking story in the UK Guardian newspaper who claim an exclusive showing that Jones and the CRU covered up problems with temperature data from China.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/01/leaked-emails-climate-jones-chinese
“Today the Guardian reveals how Jones withheld the information requested under freedom of information laws. Subsequently a senior colleague told him he feared that Jones’s collaborator, Wei-Chyung Wang of the University at Albany, had “screwed up”.
The apparent attempts to cover up problems with temperature data from the Chinese weather stations provide the first link between the email scandal and the UN’s embattled climate science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as a paper based on the measurements was used to bolster IPCC statements about rapid global warming in recent decades.
Wang was cleared of scientific fraud by his university, but new information brought to light today indicates widespread concern about the affair among scientists.
In particular, it emerges that documents which Wang claimed would exonerate him and Jones did not exist.”
@Caroline Kettle (11:50:58) :
“Jo Nova has a timeline on her blog …..”
An impressive graphic, but a bit too detailed and hard to easily follow for the sort of thing I had in mind. It majors on the ClimateGate data (though it mentions earlier politics).
I had thought of a background paper covering all the history suitable for a journalist who had never read any science before, let alone climate science. It would be simple, fairly linear, and would have to point out every so often; “This is wrong because…”. Possibly written like a newspaper item, so the journalist can simply copy chunks out verbatim (which is what they seem to do anyway). Still, I’m sure that if the journalists really need it they will ask for it and someone will write one…
Dodgy Geezer
RichieP
I think you and Jo Nova have missed the obvious
March 1979 3 Mile Island Nuclear accident makes future power station build unlikely unless other energy sources are proved just as risky
Juy 1979 Office of Science and Technology hold conference to discuss risk of CO2 emissions.
!986 Chernobyl puts another nail in the nuclear coffin
1988 Hansen presents to Congress and the real bandwagon starts
I am not suggesting that this is all a scam by the Nuclear industry. I just believe that they must have had a strategy to counter the bad press that they were receiving at this time. Funding researchers who were casting doubt on their competitors MUST have been part of that strategy. After the band wagon was rolling everyone jumped on WWF, Greenpeace, Animal Rights, Anti-Capitalists etc all had a reason to fan the flames. The climate scientists themselves could not believe their luck. From a back water they had become the centre of the Universe. All they had to do was make sure their research came to the right conclusions. What would you do?
From carbon unit to carbon unit: There are among us some very greedy units who always want the resources from the rest, these are the units who provoke all the troubles…
Yes, I can already hear the AGW alarmists saying it’s the fault of global warming. Next we’ll hear them saying the next ice age will be caused by global warming. Is there anyone more dumb than an AGW alarmist these days?
Oceans losing their heat content…due to lack of sunspots and low magnetic flux.
I’ve already expressed my opinion supporting this proposition on a recent thread.
But here is an interesting complimentary view: Oceans can possibly be heated from below by volcanic action. So, should oceans temperature raise, CO2 can’t be the knee-jerk conclusion from the Man-made warmists.
This article was extracted from New Zealand Climate Truth no. 225, 23 October, 2009)
“The “globe” is cooling. The sea level is not rising. The ice is advancing. What is left? The Ocean is heating [This proposition has been contradicted as a recent Watts Up With That? post showed].
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/31/nodc-revises-ocean-heat-content-data/
The last two IPCC Reports made a big thing of ocean heating. The methods used showed considerable variability. The average showed periodicity, with troughs in 1965 and 1986 and peaks in 1980 and 2005. But the temperature increase from the 1965 trough to the later peak of 2005 was confidently attributed to “global warming” caused by carbon dioxide emissions.
At least, that was the story in the first two drafts of the 2007 Report. Then the people measuring temperature provided the disturbing news that the 2005 figure actually showed a fall in temperature, and they had to put that into their final Report.
Then there was overwhelming pressure on the scientists to backtrack on such a disturbing observation, and, loyally, they discovered a “rogue” unreliable sensor which restored the IPCC “confidence” that the ocean temperature is rising.
So they increased their coverage with a new sophisticated system called ARGO which has 3,000 probes. The results are disastrous, and they have yet to admit it. They are given in the following paper.
K. von Schukmann, F. Galliland, and P.Y. Le Traon, 2009. “Global hydrographic variability patterns during 2003-2008”. Geophysical Research Letters, v. 11124.09007. doi:1029/2008JC005237
To start with, the average temperature is falling. But what is worse. The variability is so great that it could not possibly be heated from the atmosphere. So it must be heated from below, from all the underwater volcanoesetc. that have so far been neglected. I attach the record for the Pacific basin which includes the variability ofsalinity and temperature (see figure on the next page).
This all comes on top of the paper by Douglass and Knox at:
Douglass, D.H. and R. Knox, 2009. “Changes in Net Flow of Ocean Heat Correlate with Past Climate Anomalies”. Physics Letters A., v. 373, Issue 36, 31 August 2009, p. 3296-3300.
The abstract reads:
“Earth’s radiation imbalance is determined from ocean heat content data and compared with results of direct measurements. Distinct time intervals of alternating positive and negative values are found: 1960– mid 1970s (-0.15), mid-1970s–2000 (+0.15), 2001–present (-0.2 W/m2), and are consistent with prior reports. These climate shifts limit climate predictability.”
The summary reads:
“We determine Earth’s radiation imbalance by analyzing three recent independent observational ocean heat content determinations for the period 1950 to 2008 and compare the results with direct measurements by satellites. A large annual term is found in both the implied radiation imbalance and the direct measurements. Its magnitude and phase confirm earlier observations that delivery of the energy to the ocean is rapid, thus eliminating the possibility of long time constants associated with the bulk of the heat transferred.
Longer-term averages of the observed imbalance are not only many-fold smaller than theoretically derived values, but also oscillate in sign. These facts are not found among the theoretical predictions.
Three distinct time intervals of alternating positive and negative imbalance are found: 1960 to the mid 1970s, the mid 1970s to 2000 and 2001 to present. The respective mean values of radiation imbalance are -0.15, +0.15, and -0.2 to -0.3. These observations are consistent with the occurrence of climate shifts at 1960, the mid-1970s, and early 2001 identified by Swanson and Tsonis.
Knowledge of the complex atmospheric-ocean physical processes is not involved or required in making these findings. Global surface temperatures as a function of time are also not required to be known.”
The periodicity found coincides with the behaviour of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), and as the heating is from below, this heating is related to the PDO must also behave in a periodic fashion.
The finding that the Earth’s energy is not balanced shows that the fundamental assumption of all the computer climate models that it IS balanced is incorrect, and means that all the models are wrong.
The global warmers and “climate change” enthusiasts have no excuses left.”
It looks like every where the AGW fiasco turns, the “door” is being shut in their faces.
May a thousand doors shut in their faces and this swindle by exposed as the hoax it is, once, and for all.
SandyInDerby (13:36:58) said:
Richard Sharpe (11:14:52) :
However, what is the pH of the freshwater environments where freshwater snails live and grow etc?
I can’t answer your question directly. However, there are rivers in Scotland which are famous (locally at least) for fresh water pearls which are found in fresh water mussels. These rivers must, I think, be heading towards acidic due the the environment in Scotland, large amounts of peat for instance. It’s hard to get facts, as a lot of the acidity is blamed on acid rain. I am not a biologist but there are a number of other creatures commonly found in these rivers as well as the snails, freshwater shrimp, caddis grubs mayflys and so on.
Freshwater Pearls have been known and valued in Scotland since human habitation began.
See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honours_of_Scotland
http://www.bing.com/reference/semhtml/Crown_of_Scotland
Thank you. Another step towards refuting the alarmists who claim the world as we know it will end if the pH of the oceans changes from 8.2 to 8.1.
JB Williamson (12:48:08) :
“OT but worth a mention as it might affect this sort of web site
/Quote/
Enemies Of Free Speech Call For Internet Licensing
Calls to introduce a licensing system to police the Internet….
http://www.prisonplanet.com/enemies-of-free-speech-call-for-internet-licensing.html“
I would suggest using the orginal story instead of Prison Planet, with its unfortunate “tin foil hat” image.
origin of the story:
http://rawstory.com/2010/01/agency-calls-global-cyberwarfare-treaty-drivers-license-web-users/
UN agency calls for global cyberwarfare treaty, ‘driver’s license’ for Web users:
“The world needs a treaty to prevent cyber attacks becoming an all-out war, the head of the main UN communications and technology agency warned Saturday.
International Telcommunications Union secretary general Hamadoun Toure gave his warning at a World Economic Forum debate where experts said nations must now consider when a cyber attack becomes a declaration of war….”
This probably ties in with the Fox news story declaring the Climategate whistleblower leak the attack of spies/hackers. They want to twist Climategate to their advantage to fleece the masses (license fee to the UN) and insure they can continue to feed bullpoo instead of the truth to people.
I really am getting tired of the spin.
OT but I’ve just found this on the BBC Scotland web page:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8492333.stm
Coldest December/January in Scotland since records began in 1914. Only weather of course, but …
Larry Geiger (13:04:47) :
“….Like citrus, palms and manatees, the corals will continue to come and go in Florida based on decadal weather fluctuations. People grow up and they think that everything in their backyard is going to stay exactly the same for centuries. Maybe that happens in Maine or South Dakota (I don’t know) but it sure doesn’t happen in Florida. Change is here to stay. It’s been that way for a long time.”
In upper New England, northern New Hamphsire, Maine, Vermont… it is poison ivy that is in the northern most reaches of its range. Gee it is so sad to see the really cold weather kill off the poison ivy. I just hope the four inches of snow and 19 F we had this week in mid North Carolina kills off the blasted fire ants. They crept north onto my farm in the last few years.
As a matter of fact lakes and rivers are normally more or less acidic in areas where there is no limestone rocks or where there is much coniferous forest or peatland. This includes among others most of Canada, parts of Scotland, most of Scandinavia and most of Russia. Moderately acid waters (down to about pH 6) do have molluscs, crayfish and other shell-forming animals, but more highly acid ones don’t.
Perhaps Florida should import some of those Norwegian corals. They seem to do very nicely in really cold water………
A few questions for the well informed:
1. Prolonged cold in Florida waters. Does this mean a cooler than usual Gulf Stream over the next few months?
2. If so are there weather implications for Europe which depends on warmth from the Gulf Stream?
3. The extent of N. Atlantic sea-ice seems to be strongly influenced by the heat of the Gulf Stream. Does this mean more sea-ice than in recent years in the N. Atlantic over the next few months and into next winter?
cal (13:50:35) :
In newsreel of margaret thatcher you may see a weedy little twerp in the background looking all ineffectual like and holding a brandy as if it were all he could do not to spill it.
dennis thatcher. Not a twerp. Not ineffective. Not a lush. Not a nice person.
Very friendly with nuclear power types though.
Coldest UK December and January for 30 years, news at ten weather forcast.
Posted elsewhere on this website is this image:
http://i48.tinypic.com/14e6wjn.gif
One can clearly see that there has been a recent warming trend (50+ years) in terms of world-wide ocean temps. Coral bleaching from cold water is a fascinating phenomenon, but clearly not at all indicative of the global trend.
The logic here is also relevent to temperature – one would be foolish to stick a thermometer out the window and declare they had calculated mean global temperature, by any definition.
“Cold-water bleaching is unusual, last occurring in 1977, the year it snowed in Miami. It killed hundreds of acres of staghorn and elkhorn corals across the Keys. Neither species has recovered, both becoming the first corals to be federally listed as threatened in 2006.”
I know little about corals, but according to this link (from last August), staghorn coral was making a bit of a comeback through human efforts (until the latest cold snap, anyway):
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/story/1199581.html?storylink=mirelated
I have to wonder, though: if Florida is at the northern limit of these corals’ range, it may be a waste of money to attempt preservation, regardless of their value to the tourist industry.
Henry Galt (15:39:40) :
“In newsreel of margaret thatcher you may see a weedy little twerp in the background looking all ineffectual like and holding a brandy”
I think you will find it was a Gin and Tonic if my memory serves me well. Got me thinking back to the Spitting Image puppets on TV though! We could really do with those guys back to take the p/ss out of the CRU tec!
“”””paul revere (11:23:13) :
“Jane Lubchecno also says
“We cannot say definitively that these dead zones are caused by climate change, but we can say that they are consistent with our understanding of climate change dynamics. Moreover, there is no other obvious explanation for the appearance of dead zones off an open coast such as ours. This dead zone is a consequence of changes in oceanic and atmospheric conditions, not runoff of nutrients from the land.”””””
Lubchenco burned through $9 million studying Oregon’s (seasonal) Ocean Dead zones and found no scientific link to global warming.
Her OSU research team speculated that shifting ocean currents and winds were likely the cause along with effects of volcanic surmounts rising over the same entire area.
Lubchenco, needing to show some useable benefit from the $9 million and being a global warming team player, began spreading her fabrication of a link to AGW.
Her primary method of deceit was to reference wind driven upwelling. Her link is the notion which supposes these particular winds are “consistent with” global warming predictions.
Her refined link sounds even better.
“Delayed early-season upwelling and stronger late-season upwelling are consistent with predictions of the influence of global warming on coastal upwelling regions.”
And as paul revere (11:23:13) quoted above
Lubchenco “Moreover, there is no other obvious explanation for the appearance of dead zones off an open coast such as ours.”
No other obvious explanation? How about her own research team? They had some explanations. No mention of global warming though.
Lubchenco also added her wholy concocted notion that these “dead zones” are a recent phenomenon and are lasting loner than ever.
All to embellish the imaginary suspicion that AGW is likely the cause.
Yet there are reports of dead zones going back 100 years and there has been no tracking or research to compare her recent “findings” to.
Lubchenco embellishes and fails miserably to find scientific evidence for her claims.
Her carefully chosen words do not insulate her from charges of spreading fabricated science. Her fabricated linking of ocean dead zones to AGW has been distributed through her many commentaries and interviews resulting in her “science” being accepted as established.
Although she observed areas of ocean floor littered with Dungenus crabs etc. this years harvest season is near record breaking with huge numbers of large, healthy Dungenus crabs.
Our Coho and Chinook Salmon runs are reported to be headed toward the highest levels since the Bonneviulle Dam was built in 1939.
Can I fabricate is an AGW link to these positive effects?
Or does it take a scientist?
Lubchenco has also claimed “Climate models are robust enough to predict wind patterns 100 years in the future. This will help Municipalities locate wind farms and buildings”
How asinine.
There are no such models period and even if there were, who would build anything according to such predictions?
Imagine proposing a wind farm where little or now wind is now but Jane’s says there will be some day?
This is buffoonery run amok.
@cal (13:50:35) :
!986 Chernobyl puts another nail in the nuclear coffin
1988 Hansen presents to Congress and the real bandwagon starts
……. After the band wagon was rolling everyone jumped on WWF, Greenpeace, Animal Rights, Anti-Capitalists etc all had a reason to fan the flames. The climate scientists themselves could not believe their luck..
You know, this could equally well be interpreted as:
Nuclear power developed in the 50s, becomes big idea in the 60s. Prompts major anti-nuclear weapons/Vietnam war type protest movement throughout 70s, which finally becomes successful in closing down nuclear development in the 80s. Cheap oil/gas probably had a lot to do with this as well.
Now big anti-nuclear/peace movement stil exists, but has nothing to do. Morphs into Green protest movement and gets laughed at because of sandals and vegetarianism. Needs big idea to protest at – finds it in temperature increase…
Gail Combs (14:21:47) :
In upper New England, northern New Hamphsire, Maine, Vermont… it is poison ivy that is in the northern most reaches of its range.
Eh? Poison ivy stretches all the way up to the northern boreal forest, to the ends of the northern deciduous forests. Lots of robust poison ivy in northern Ontario.
What is at the limit of its northern range in southern Ontario is the possum. Poor little buggers are the most bedraggled frost-bitten (literally) mammals hereabouts. Seen mostly as roadkill, which prompts the longstanding biologist’s joke: “why did the chicken cross the road? To show the possums it could be done….”
Steve Oregon
Check out this site for pH variation:
http://www.seafriends.org.nz/issues/global/acid2.htm#how_acidic
You can see the annual variation at the Monterey Bay aquarium ocean intake – 7.7 to 8.2. Interestingly, in parts of the tropics there is a daily surface water variation of 0.4 units due to biological activity.
Gail Combs (14:21:47) :
Why did the Armadillo cross the road?
We don’t know yet, but as soon as one makes it, we’ll ask.
Hot’s miserable
Cold’s a killin’
CO2 is life
And keeps on givin’
Wayne Delbeke (20:20:15) :
“Steve Oregon
Check out this site for pH variation:
http://www.seafriends.org.nz/issues/global/acid2.htm#how_acidic
You can see the annual variation at the Monterey Bay aquarium ocean intake – 7.7 to 8.2. Interestingly, in parts of the tropics there is a daily surface water variation of 0.4 units due to biological activity.”
That certainly is an interesting website. But human-induced variation in the mean/min/max pH of a given body of water would almost certainly have consquences for at least some species. Let’s assume that ecosystems have adapted to the range of pH vlues presented on seafriends.org. Couldn’t one assume that pH values outside of that range would act as a stressor to some more sensitive organisms/ecosystems?
Just curious….when do you think we’ll see the temperature record for January?
Sorry Anthony for the poem,
but, thinkin of all the poor coral,
cold and frozen…
and IPCC trying to take their CO2
and warmth away…
kinda got me right here…
just had to write my first
for their memory…
and hope for their prompt return.
if i didnt know better i would think i am reading a warmist blog.what sort of survey is this when someone says.” the corals didnt bleach thet went straight to dead” and we were stunned by what we saw” and ”unprecedented” aand floor was littered with dead turtles and parrot fish. wouldnt they just move on to healthy coral? these peole should write the next ipcc report.
“”” Well Jane performed an experiment with ordinary tap water dyed blue with a common laboratory blue dye; presumably also containing chlorine, Fluoride, maybe cough mixture or aspirin, and she showed that if you chilled it with big chunks of dry ice, that the common laboratory blue dye would become a common laboratory yellow dye, and I guess she was demonstrating that corals could grow in the blue dyed water, but not the chilled yellow water.
Well now we know she was probably right on chilling the water; but I don’t see why the dye color has anything to do with anything.
Why didn’t she do her experiment with some ordinary water from the Great Barrier reef, that we know corals will grow in ?