Guest Post by David Middleton
Introduction
As global warming morphs into climate change and global climate disruption and anthropogenic CO2 emissions give way to stochastic variability, clouds, the Sun, cosmic rays and our oceans as the primary drivers of climate change, environmental extremists are raising a new CO2-driven ecological disaster scenario to hysterical levels: Ocean acidification. Claims have been made that oceanic pH levels have declined from ~8.2 to ~8.1 since the mid-1700’s. This pH decline (acidification) has been attributed to anthropogenic CO2 emissions – This should come as no surprise because the pH estimates are largely derived from atmospheric CO2 concentrations (Orr et al., 2005). It has also been postulated that anthropogenic CO2 emissions will force an additional 0.7 unit decline in oceanic pH by the year 2100 (Caldeira et al., 2003).
Alarmist organizations like the National Resources Defense Council are hard at work extrapolating these oceanic pH model predictions into ecological nightmares…
Scientists predict the Arctic will become corrosive to some shelled organisms within a few decades, and the Antarctic by mid-century. This is pure chemistry; the vagaries of climate do not apply to this forecast.
OA is expected to impact commercial fisheries worldwide, threatening a food source for hundreds of millions of people as well as a multi-billion dollar industry. In the United States alone, ocean-related tourism, recreation and fishing are responsible for more than 2 million jobs.
Shellfish will be affected directly, thus impacting finfish who feed on them. For example, pteropods—tiny marine snails that are particularly sensitive to rises in acidity— comprise 60 percent of the diet for Alaska’s juvenile pink salmon. And this affects diets farther up the food chain, as a diminished salmon population would lead to less fish on our tables.
Coral reefs will be especially hard hit by ocean acidification. As ocean acidity rises, corals will begin to erode faster than they can grow, and reef structures will be lost worldwide. Scientists predict that by the time atmospheric CO2 reaches 560 parts per million (a level which could happen which could happen by mid-century; we are currently nearing 400 ppm), coral reefs will cease to grow and even begin to dissolve. Areas that depend on healthy coral reefs for food, shoreline protection, and lucrative tourism industries will be profoundly impacted by their loss.
This sounds like a serious threat… As have all of the other alarmist clarion calls to halt capitalism in the name of the most recent environmental cause célèbre. Just to be fair, before pitching Ocean Acidification into the dustbin of junk science along with Anthropogenic Global Warming, let’s look at the science.
The answers to the following questions will tell us whether or not CO2-driven ocean acidification is a genuine scientific concern:
- Is atmospheric CO2 acidifying the oceans?
- Is there any evidence that reefs and other marine calcifers have been damaged by CO2-driven ocean acidification and/or global warming?
- Does the geological record support the oceanic acidification hypothesis?
Is atmospheric CO2 acidifying the oceans?
Before we can answer this question, we have to understand a bit about how the oceans make limestone and other carbonate rocks. The Carbonate Compensation Depth (CCD or Lysocline) is the depth at which carbonate shells dissolve faster than they accumulate. That depth is primarily determined by several factors…
-Water temperature
-Depth (pressure)
-CO2 concentration
-pH (high pH values aid in carbonate preservation)
-Amount of carbonate sediment supply
-Amount of terrigenous sediment supply
Calcium carbonate solubility increases with increasing carbon dioxide content, lower temperatures, and increasing pressure.
What evidence do we have that the lysocline or CCD has been becoming shallower or that the oceans have been acidifying over the last 250 years? The answer is: Almost none.
Pelejero et al., 2005 found a cyclical correlation between pH and the PDO…
Is there any evidence that reefs and other marine calcifers have been damaged by CO2-driven ocean acidification and/or global warming?
Using the data from Pelejero et al., 2005, I found no correlation between pH and reef calcification rates…
And when sudden increases of atmospheric CO2 have been tested under laboratory conditions, “otoliths (aragonite ear bones) of young fish grown under high CO2 (low pH) conditions are larger than normal, contrary to expectation” (Checkley et al., 2009).
A recent paper in Geology (Ries et al., 2009) found an unexpected relationship between CO2 and marine calcifers. 18 benthic species were selected to represent a wide variety of taxa: “crustacea, cnidaria, echinoidea, rhodophyta, chlorophyta, gastropoda, bivalvia, annelida.” They were tested under four CO2/Ωaragonite scenarios:
409 ppm (Modern day)
606 ppm (2x Pre-industrial)
903 ppm (3x Pre-industrial)
2856 ppm (10x Pre-industrial)
7/18 were not adversely affected by 10x pre-industrial CO2: Calcification rates relative to modern levels were higher or flat at 2856 ppm for blue crab, shrimp, lobster, limpet, purple urchin, coralline red algae, and blue mussel.
6/18 were not adversely affected by 3x pre-industrial CO2: Calcification rates relative to modern levels were higher or flat at 903 ppm for halimeda, temperate coral, pencil urchin, conch, bay scallop and whelk.
3/18 were not adversely affected by 2x pre-industrial CO2: Calcification rates relative to modern levels were higher or flat at 903 ppm for hard clam, serpulid worm and periwinkle.
2/18 had very slight declines in calcification at 2x pre-industrial: Oyster and soft clam.
The effects on calcification rates for all 18 species were either negligible or positive up to 606 ppm CO2. Corals, in particular seemed to like more CO2 in their diets…
Neither coral species experienced negative effects to calcification rates at CO2 levels below 1,000 to 2,000 ppmv. The study reared the various species in experimental sea water using 4 different CO2 and aragonite saturation scenarios.
It appears that in addition to being plant food… CO2 is also reef food.
More CO2 in the atmosphere leads to something called “CO2 fertilization.” In an enriched CO2 environment, most plants end to grow more. The fatal flaw of the infamous “Hockey Stick” chart was in Mann’s misinterpretation of Bristlecone Pine tree ring chronologies as a proxy for temperature; when in fact the tree ring growth was actually indicating CO2 fertilization as in this example from Greek fir trees…
Coral reefs can only grow in the photic zone of the oceans because zooxanthellae algae use sunlight, CO2, calcium and/or magnesium to make limestone.
The calcification rate of Flinders Reef has increased along with atmospheric CO2 concentrations since 1700…
As the atmospheric CO2 concentration has grown since the 1700’s coral reef extension rates have also trended upwards. This is contrary to the theory that increased atmospheric CO2 should reduce the calcium carbonate saturation in the oceans, thus reducing reef calcification. It’s a similar enigma to the calcification rates of coccoliths and otoliths.
In all three cases, the theory or model says that increasing atmospheric CO2 will make the oceans less basic by increasing the concentration of H+ ions and reducing calcium carbonate saturation. This is supposed to reduce the calcification rates of carbonate shell-building organisms. When, in fact, the opposite is occurring in nature with reefs and coccoliths – Calcification rates are generally increasing. And in empirical experiments under laboratory conditions, otoliths grew (rather than shrank) when subjected to high levels of simulated atmospheric CO2.
In the cases of reefs and coccoliths, one answer is that the relatively minor increase in atmospheric CO2 over the last couple of hundred years has enhanced photosynthesis more than it has hampered marine carbonate geochemistry. However, the otoliths (fish ear bones) shouldn’t really benefit from enhanced photo-respiration. The fact that otoliths grew rather than shrank when subjected to high CO2 levels is a pretty good indication that the primary theory of ocean acidification has been tested and falsified.
Some may say, “Hey! That’s just one reef! Flinders reef is an outlier!” Fair point. So let’s look at a larger data set.
The January 2, 2009 issue of Science featured a paper, Declining Coral Calcification on the Great Barrier Reef, by Glenn De’ath, Janice M. Lough, Katharina E. Fabricius. This is from the abstract:
Reef-building corals are under increasing physiological stress from a changing climate and ocean absorption of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. We investigated 328 colonies of massive Porites corals from 69 reefs of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) in Australia. Their skeletal records show that throughout the GBR, calcification has declined by 14.2% since 1990, predominantly because extension (linear growth) has declined by 13.3%. The data suggest that such a severe and sudden decline in calcification is unprecedented in at least the past 400 years.
I have not purchased the article and my free membership to the AAAS does not grant access to it; but I did find the database that appears to go with De’ath et al., 2009 in the NOAA Paleoclimatology library: LINK
Well… I downloaded the data to Excel and I calculated an annual average calcification rate for the 59 cores that are represented in the data set. This is what I came up with…
It is “cherry-picking” of the highest order, if that last data point really is the basis of this claim: “Their skeletal records show that throughout the GBR, calcification has declined by 14.2% since 1990, predominantly because extension (linear growth) has declined by 13.3%. The data suggest that such a severe and sudden decline in calcification is unprecedented in at least the past 400 years.”
Over the last 400+ years the Earth’s climate has warmed ~0.6°, mean sea level has risen by about 9 inches and the atmosphere has become about 100 ppmv more enriched with CO2; and the Great Barrier Reef has responded by steadily growing faster.
2. Rising Sea Level: The Great Barrier Reef likes the slight sea level rise since the depths of the Little Ice Age…
3. Rising Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations: The Great Barrier Reef likes the increase in CO2 levels since the depths of the Little Ice Age…
Does the geological record support the oceanic acidification hypothesis?
Average annual pH reconstructions and measurements from various Pacific Ocean locations:
60 million to 40 million years ago: 7.42 to 8.04 (Pearson et al., 2000)
23 million to 85,000 years ago: 8.04 to 8.31 (Pearson et al., 2000)
6,000 years ago to present: 7.91 to 8.28 (Liu et al., 2009)
1708 AD to 1988 AD: 7.91 to 8.17 (Pelejero et al., 2005)
2000 AD to 2007 AD: 8.10 to 8.40 (Wootton et al., 2008)
The low pH levels from 60 mya to 40 mya include the infamous Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). E ven then, the oceans did not actually “acidify;” the lowest pH was 7.42 (still basic).
The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) was a period of significant global warming approximately 55 million years ago and has often been cited as a geological analogy for the modern threat of ocean acidification. There is solid evidence that the Lysocline “shoaled” or became shallower for a brief period of time during the PETM. Several cores obtained from the Walvis Ridge area in the South Atlantic during Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 208 contained a layer of red clay at the P-E boundary in the middle of an extensive carbonate ooze section (Zachos et al., 2005). This certainly indicates a disruption of the lysocline during the PETM; but it doesn’t prove that it was ocean acidification.
The PETM was a period of extensive submarine and subaerial volcanic activity (Storey et al., 2007) and pedogenic carbonate reconstructions do support the possibility that seafloor methane hydrates released by that volcanic activity may have sharply increased oceanic CO2 saturation.
But… The terrigenous paleobotanical evidence does not support elevated atmospheric CO2 levels during the PETM (Royer et al., 2001). The SI data indicate CO2 levels in North America to have been between 300 and 400 ppmv during the PETM.
So, the PETM may have been an example of ocean acidification… But there is NO evidence that it was caused by a sharp increase in atmospheric CO2 levels.
The range of oceanic pH variation over the last 200 years is well within the natural variation range over the last 7,000 years.
Some have asserted that there is no geological precedent; claiming atmospheric CO2 concentrations have risen faster in the last 150 years than at any time in recent geological history. Ice core-derived CO2 data certainly do indicate that CO2 has not risen above ~310 ppmv at any point in the last 600,000 years and that it varies little at the decade or century scale. However, there are other methods for estimating past atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
Plants “breathe” CO2 through microscopic epidermal pores called stomata. The density of plant stomata varies inversely with the atmospheric partial pressure of CO2. Several recent studies of plant stomata from living, herbarium and fossil samples of plant tissue have shown that atmospheric CO2 fluctuations comparable to that seen in the industrial era have been fairly common throughout the Holocene and Recent times.
Plant stomata measurements reveal large variations in atmospheric CO2 concentrations over the tast 2,000 years that are not apparent in ice core data (Kouwenberg, 2004)…
Century-scale fluctuations in atmospheric CO2 concentrations have also been demonstrated in the early Holocene (Wagner et al., 1999)…
If the plant stomata data are correct, the increase in atmospheric CO2 that has occurred over the last 150 years is not anomalous. Past CO2 increases of similar magnitude and rate have not caused ocean acidification. In fact, marine calcifers would probably take 3,000 ppmv CO2 in stride, just by making more limestone… Kind of like they did during the Cretaceous…
Once again, we have an environmental catastrophe that is entirely supported by predictive computer models and totally unsupported by correlative and empirical scientific data. We can safely pitch ocean acidification into the dustbin of junk science.
References
Reef data from:
De’ath, G., J.M. Lough, and K.E. Fabricius. 2009. Declining coral calcification on the Great Barrier Reef. Science, Vol. 323, pp. 116 – 119, 2 January 2009.
Lough, J.M. and D.J. Barnes, 2000. Environmental controls on growth of the massive coral Porites. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, 245: 225-243.
Lough, J.M. and D.J. Barnes, 1997. Several centuries of variation in skeletal extension, density and calcification in massive Porites colonies from the Great Barrier Reef: a proxy for seawater temperature and a background of variability against which to identify unnatural change. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, 211: 29-67.
Chalker, B.E. and D.J. Barnes, 1990.
Gamma densitometry for the measurement of coral skeletal density. Coral Reefs, 4: 95-100.
Temperature data from:
Moberg, A., D.M. Sonechkin, K. Holmgren, N.M. Datsenko and W. Karlén. 2005. Highly variable Northern Hemisphere temperatures reconstructed from low-and high-resolution proxy data. Nature, Vol. 433, No. 7026, pp. 613-617, 10 February 2005.
University of Alabama, Hunstville
Sea Level data from:
“Recent global sea level acceleration started over 200 years ago?”, Jevrejeva, S., J. C. Moore, A. Grinsted, and P. L. Woodworth (2008), Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L08715, doi:10.1029/2008GL033611.
CO2 data from:
D.M. Etheridge, L.P. Steele, R.L. Langenfelds, R.J. Francey, J.-M. Barnola and V.I. Morgan. 1998. Historical CO2 records from the Law Dome DE08, DE08-2, and DSS ice cores. In Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, Tenn., U.S.A.
Dr. Pieter Tans, NOAA/ESRL (www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends)
Other references:
Royer, et al., 2001. Paleobotanical Evidence for Near Present-Day Levels of Atmospheric CO2 During Part of the Tertiary. Science 22 June 2001: 2310-2313. DOI:10.112
Caldeira, K. and Wickett, M.E. 2003. Anthropogenic carbon and ocean pH. Nature 425: 365.
Orr, J.C., et al., 2005. Anthropogenic ocean acidification over the twenty-first century and its impact on calcifying organisms. Nature 437, 681-686 (29 September 2005) | doi:10.1038
Pelejero, C., Calvo, E., McCulloch, M.T., Marshall, J.F., Gagan, M.K., Lough, J.M. and Opdyke, B.N. 2005.
Preindustrial to modern interdecadal variability in coral reef pH. Science 309: 2204-2207.
Zachos, et al., 2005. Rapid Acidification of the Ocean During the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum . Science 10 June 2005: 1611-1615. DOI:10.1126
Storey, et al., 2007. Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum and the Opening of the Northeast Atlantic. Science 27 April 2007: 587-589. DOI:10.1126
Late 20th-Century Acceleration in the Growth of Greek Fir Trees. Volume 11, Number 49: 3 December 2008, CO2 Science
Iglesias-Rodriguez, et al., 2008. Phytoplankton Calcification in a High-CO2 World. Science 18 April 2008: 336-340 DOI:10.1126
Koutavas, A. 2008. Late 20th century growth acceleration in greek firs (Aibes cephalonica) from Cephalonia Island, Greece: A CO2 fertilization effect? Dendrochronologia 26: 13-19.
The Ocean Acidification Fiction. Volume 12, Number 22: 3 June 2009, CO2 Science
Checkley, et al., 2009. Elevated CO2 Enhances Otolith Growth in Young Fish. Science 26 June 2009: 1683. DOI:10.1126
Liu, Y., Liu, W., Peng, Z., Xiao, Y., Wei, G., Sun, W., He, J. Liu, G. and Chou, C.-L. 2009. Instability of seawater pH in the South China Sea during the mid-late Holocene: Evidence from boron isotopic composition of corals. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 73: 1264-1272.
Ries, J.B., A.L. Cohen, D.C. McCorkle. Marine calcifiers exhibit mixed responses to CO2-induced ocean acidification. Geology 2009 37: 1131-1134.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
The last few decades have highlighted the job description ‘scientist’ such that it can be an oxymoron. That many have not been taught the first principles of scientific endeavour, or have chosen to ignore them is obvious. Orwellian scientists with their ‘Newspeak’ have held the world stage and the ears of politicians for far to long.
The denigration of real scientists trying to find the truth has been blatant and a blight on democracy and freedom. A freedom that millions died for to achieve. This period in history shall be looked back on as one of the dark ages of science, regardless of the many achievements.
The seekers of truth who post on this site such as David Middleton on this post will go down in history as those who trumpeted the truth from the wilderness. The politically correct, agenda driven useful idiots will not go away easily or quietly. Thankyou to all those who post here for your diligence, the battle has begun and they know not what to do, for they have never been challenged before.
Very good summary of the available knowledge, Dave.
One point where I di[s]agree: as already discussed in the ice cores / stomata post, stomata data show local/regional CO2 levels, not global, “background” levels. While interesting because of their high frequency response, the absolute values should be taken with caution, as influenced by local changes in vegetation, wind direction,…
Take e.g. the figure provided by Kauwenberg 2005: the peak CO2 level of 400 ppmv in the stomata reconstruction was around 500 AD, and lower levels of around 280 ppmv around 1,000 AD, but temperatures around 1000 AD (the MWP!) were higher than around 500 AD, which means higher CO2 levels in colder periods and vv. That is not very likely.
Moreover, even if the Taylor Dome gas diffusion mixing acts as a Gaussian low pass filter (time constant 140 years, see http://medias.obs-mip.fr/paleo/taylor/indermuehle99nat.pdf ), a real sustained CO2 level of over 350 ppmv during 300 years would be clearly visible in the ice core record, but is not. While the ice core CO2 levels are averaged, an averaging doesn’t change the average…
It’s a pity the BBC isn’t a bit more rigorous in its news research. This very subject was a significant news item this morning, along with reference to the claimed effects of rising sea temperature. I can’t find a reference on their website yet.
Brilliant post, I really enjoyed reading it and the accompanying comments.
Unfortunately, this is real science, so we can be sure it will be ignored or condemned by the ‘climate scientists’ contributing to the next IPCC report/fantasy.
If man has caused a tiny amount of acidification in the oceans, we need look no further than the huge amounts of nitric and sulphuric acid our industries and vehicles produce.
Carbon dioxide, or rather its aqueous derivitive carbonic acid are only just acidic, unlike their distant cousins nitric and sulphuric.
However, where “the acidification of the oceans by CO2” argument really falls apart is in the numbers:
The volume of the oceans is ~1,31 billion cubic kilometres – after allowing for their salinity, this represents 1.35 billion billion tonnes. Note: One cubic metre of water weighs one tonne, so one cubic kilometre weighs one billion tonnes.
Man produces around 27 billion tonnes of CO2 per year, about half, or 14 billion tonnes, end up in the oceans.
So every year man is responsible for increasing the ocean concentration of CO2 by 14/1.35 billion, or 14/1,350 parts per million, or 0.00074 parts per million.
So 100 years of today’s CO2 emissions by man will increase CO2 concentrations in the ocean by just 0.07 parts per million, a truly minuscule amount. Even if we assume all this CO2 is concentrated in the top 10% of the ocean, then in this small part of the ocean, CO2 concentrations will increase by 0.7 parts per million.
I doubt if even Mannian Maths can screw with this number enough to make it significant.
Oops – some Mannian Maths crept into my last post, the numbers should read
So every year man is responsible for increasing the ocean concentration of CO2 by 14/1.35 billion, or 14/1,350 parts per million, or 0.0104 parts per million.
So 100 years of today’s CO2 emissions by man will increase CO2 concentrations in the ocean by just 1.04 parts per million, a truly minuscule amount. Even if we assume all this CO2 is concentrated in the top 10% of the ocean, then in this small part of the ocean, CO2 concentrations will increase by 10.4 parts per million per century.
My apologies for this, maybe I should apply for a job as a ‘climate scientist’ for making this type of elementary mistake.
I found this paper quite informative:
http://www.tos.org/oceanography/issues/issue_archive/issue_pdfs/22_4/22-4_tans.pdf
Tans scenario’s predict a maximum decrease of about .3 pH units before 2100 AD assuming large scale exploitation of fossil fuel deposits with gradual pH alkalinity recovery in the following years in Figure 5.
Meanwhile, diurnal, geographic, and seasonal natural pH changes dwarf these ‘expected’ levels of pH changes, and, in any case, micro-environmental pH changes next to biota actually control pH during biological H ion, CO2, and Carbonate uptake processes.
Also keep in mind that life is not static. Individual organisms and species have innate mechanisms to deal with environment change both physiological and evolutionary.
IMO, the ocean acidification meme is simply trash science.
all climate research funding should be like this starting 2011:
50% of full amount given for the initial research.
50% of full amount paid only if forecasts and models are proven correct.
Under this model, British taxpayers would have saved 50% of the millions they spent on the MET office.
“Ocean acidification” leading to coral reefs and shells dissolving, how ridiculous!
The problem comes from the amounts of dissolved solids.
See, it happens after the expected return of the possibly-runaway global warming with the melting of all the glaciers on land, all the Arctic ice, the Greenland ice sheet, and the Antarctic ice. This massive infusion of essentially freshwater will unbalance the oceans, as the incoming water will be so relatively pure that it can take up truly massive amounts of minerals. A certain portion of that will be calcium, with a significant portion extracted from the reefs and shells, which will be quite devastating due to the sheer mind-numbing quantities of calcium that’ll be dissolved from them.
This also constitutes a positive feedback mechanism as removing the calcium from the calcium carbonate will result in carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere, increasing the rate of global warming to even more catastrophic levels.
And that is Chemistry, which is Settled Science™, thus there is an overwhelming scientific consensus, thus there is no debate. It’ll happen. Wait for it. ☺
De’ath??
Is that Doctor De’ath??
(I’ll get my coat)
What really bothers me is how absolutely credulous these eco-zealots are. There is this thing called a “fossil record”. Apparently, there are plenty of shellfish specimens, some of which exist to this day, thriving during periods of time with much, much higher levels of CO2 and much higher temperatures. They really don’t notice the irony when they fail to correlate this with “fossil fuels”.
As it stands, they are less internally consistent, less accurate in their predictions, and far more willing to deny me my livelihood than the ladies who come to my door every couple of months trying to sell me their religion.
A great post & excellent read!
jonjermey says:
January 10, 2011 at 10:38 pm
“A few decades” = “Time for me to retire and get out of the way of possible payback” = horizon at which prediction becomes self-interested speculation.
Being a humble Chartered Engineer, but faithful to the use of English language, as we currently live in 2011,(unless the CO2 has affected the chronological process as well), arrogantly assuming that much of the above report was written in 2010, what is the difference between “a few decades”, which could be 3, 4, 5, 6,……..decades, etc. & “mid-century”? I mean to say folks, is somebody twisting words to make a case where none exists? Looks like we’re back to Elizabethan Blackadder & Baldrick calculating that, “some beans, plus some beans, = some beans”! When the language becomes fuzzy, then the report is likewise!
if groups like the NRDC were truly concerned about the environment they would be raising hell over illegal immigration here in the U.S. and the resultant over population which leads to loss of habitat and general environmental degradation. until then i won’t believe anything they say.
Patrick says:
January 11, 2011 at 2:26 am
What really bothers me is how absolutely credulous these eco-zealots are. There is this thing called a “fossil record”. Apparently, there are plenty of shellfish specimens, some of which exist to this day, thriving during periods of time with much, much higher levels of CO2 and much higher temperatures. They really don’t notice the irony when they fail to correlate this with “fossil fuels”.
As it stands, they are less internally consistent, less accurate in their predictions, and far more willing to deny me my livelihood than the ladies who come to my door every couple of months trying to sell me their religion.
————————
You comment on the fossil record isn’t quite correct.
The PETM saw the mass extinction of benthic foraminifera which coinsided with ocean acidification.
205 million years ago at the Triassic–Jurassic boundary, a sudden rise in the levels of atmospheric CO2 coincided with a major suppression of carbonate sedimentation, very likely related to ocean acidification
A similar situation occurred 65 million years ago during the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event. Most of the planktonic calcifying species became rare or disappeared.
Most of the evidence, reveals that marine calcifiers like corals did not form carbonate reef systems during periods of high CO2 in the past (Veron 2008)
The fossil record seems to support the idea that ocean acidification is bad carbonate marine life.
A nice, neutral term would be “neutralization,” but the alarmists don’t want a neutral term, but an alarming one.
I’m no great shakes as a chemist (took chemistry to 1st year university level) still less as a mathematician, but recently I did back-of envelope calculations as to what would happen if all atmospheric CO2 were to:
a. completely dissolve in the oceans
b. Form carbonic acid and completely dissociate
– and I came up with a ballpark figure around pH 5.5 – about 100-1000 times less acidic than vinegar (containing acetic acid), which that senator chappie used to illustrate the shell of an egg dissolving. The pH of rainwater, BTW, is typically around 5.5 if there’s no industrial pollution, in which case it can be somewhat lower (more acidic, say around 4.5).
However, neither a. nor b. applies. CO2 isn’t very soluble (and most of it, in water, remains as CO2). Also, carbonic acid isn’t a particularly strong acid (not like sulphuric acid, involved in the acid rain scare). Not to mention that what we’re talking about adding to the oceans comes from excess due to anthropogenic sources, not the whole atmospheric burden.
Oh – and if things did get warmer, of course, CO2 solubility would get less through out-gassing. “Acidification” (what a loaded term as no way is the ocean ever going to pass neutral pH7 and become acid) would presumably be worse in a cooling rather than a warming world, as more CO2 would dissolve.
The problem for alarmists when it comes to an ocean acidification scare is that the science isn’t that hard to grasp. pH is easily explained (as someone has already done in a brief posting). It’s also easier to make measurements/do experiments WRT effects on living organisms.
“Acidification” might blossom for a while, but I couldn’t see it flourishing for long. I’d say that an overt switch of emphasis to acidification would in itself signal the beginning of the end for CO2 alarmism.
Excellent and interesting post, thanks.
Also two comments I found intriguing:
1) John Kehr says on January 10, 2011 at 10:19 pm
“What really kills the shallow water tropical corals (the only kind they care about) is the transition from glacial to interglacial and back again. That is why all the tropical corals alive today are ~9,000 years old. All the older ones died in the last melt water pulse at the beginning of the Holocene.”
Would that indicate that these corals are stenohaline, i.e. the decrease in salinity due to the melt water pulse is the cause for the loss of those corals?
2) Willis Eschenbach says on January 10, 2011 at 11:56 pm
“Coral reefs, which are the major CaCO3 shell formers, produce CO2. This daily production often drives the pCO2 in the local ocean around the reefs to levels three times the world average … without harming the reef. Go figure.”
(See also the rest of this interesting comment.)
Which begs the question – might it be that dying coral reefs still produce some CO2, thus still increasing the pCO2 in their surroundings – and thus leading AGW researchers to the claim that CO2 increases kill corals?
It never fails to amaze me how AGW faithful who also profess to love the natural environment seem to have no idea about the biology of said environment, never mind not looking at the fossil record …
Great piece.
Have you seen the 2011 budget for Ocean Acidification Research and the enormous budgets to “communicate” the findings and “educate” them at our schools?
http://climatequotes.com/2011/01/08/how-can-climate-scientists-spend-so-much-money/
Can’t we protest this insane amount of spending with all these facts available?
Salt water from salt water wells, no matter how high the CO2 levels are, will not drop below 7.4 pH.
Most labs and grow outs use salt water wells.
The Waikiki Aquarium published a paper showing that there is no difference in growth rates from corals grown in their well water, pH 7.4 – 7.8, than corals growing on the reef.
Corals have to make their internal pH less than pH 6.8, or they can’t lay down a calcium carbonate skeleton. At a lower pH, corals just have to work less hard at that.
Coral reefs nasty man made danger on the news this morning, perhaps as a distraction because they’re looking so silly in their about turn from CO2 causing global warming to now causing global cooling.
Overall oceans are not likely to become ‘more acidic’ because of more CO2.
A vast amount of the ocean beds are essentially made of limestone (though by no means all of course). Simple Chemistry tells us that carbonic acid will dissolve CaCO3 (a solid) to form Ca(HCO3)2 – Calcium bicarbonate, which is relatively soluble. This solution is itself very alkaline: strong base + weak acid = basic solution. Plenty of Calcium ions in solution to form shells.
Remember that old school test for CO2 – limewater Ca(OH)2 ?
First the solution went milky as CO2 reacted with Ca(OH)2 to form a precipitate of insoluble CaCO3. Continued addition of CO2 would then cause the milky precipitate to go clear again as a second reaction took place [as above]:
CaCO3 + H2O + CO2 = Ca(HCO3)2
So no worries from a little more CO2 unless it be more shellfish! CO2 is a life-giving gas in the oceans as well.
Great post, David Middleton.
I remember a comment you wrote last spring on the subject of sea level rise, where you looked at the existing data on sea level variations, going back decades, centuries, millenia and so on to increasingly large time frames. It was the most informative data I have seen here to show there is nothing unusual going on with sea levels, and I believe you should make a post of it.
Good synopsis.
One small comment: CO2 fertilization causing increased growth in Greek pine trees wasn’t “THE fatal flaw” in Mann’s work, it was one of many problems. One of the major problems went in the opposite direction.
The famous “hide the decline” had to do with removing tree ring series that appeared to show COLDER temperatures after 1960, and then hiding the fact that these records, adverse to Mann’s hypothesis post-1960, had been removed. Why those trees showed less growth post 1960 is something I no longer recall, if I ever knew it, but we need to be certain that we keep the whole picture in mind when we bring up the huge polluted landscape that Mann and company have contrived.
I don’t know whether these contradictory links have been posted yet. Most end with the usual nod / speculation to the God of AGW.
Ocean Acidification
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006…/2006GL026305.shtml
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;320/5874/336
http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=7545&tid=282&cid=63809&ct=162
http://geology.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/full/37/12/1131?ijkey=O79jdQYUdBqN2&keytype=ref&siteid=gsgeologyNPR
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080421160728.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100108101425.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11511624
http://www.theresilientearth.com/?q=content/ocean-co2-storage-revised
The title of the paper is in the references along with the titles of most of the other referenced I cited.
If you have a copy of Ries et al., 2009, take a look at Fig. 1, you’ll see that 15 of the 18 species have positive calcification rate responses to out to at least 903 ppmv.
I did make one error. I listed lobster as not being affected out to 10X pre-industrial CO2. I should have listed lobster with oyster and soft clam in having a slightly negative reaction to 2X pre-industrial CO2. That error is now corrected.
The public are often misled by ocean acidification. Many think that the sea would actually become acidic. Here is what the Warmists at the Catlin Survey have to say on the FAQs page.
Here is a fierce response to the Warmists:
http://www.seafriends.org.nz/issues/global/acid.htm