Ocean Acidification: Chicken Little of the Sea Strikes Again

Reef exihbit on ocean acidification. — Image by Tom Clifton via Flickr

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.

SOURCE

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…

Fig1) Pelejero et al., 2005, “Fig. 2. Record of Flinders Reef coral 11B, reconstructed oceanic pH, aragonite saturation state, PDO and IPO indices, and coral calcification parameters. (A) Flinders Reef coral 11B as a proxy for surface-ocean pH (24); 11B measurements for all 5-year intervals are available in table S1. (B) Indices of the PDO (28, 39) and the IPO (27) averaged over the same 5-year intervals as the coral pH data. Gray curves in panels (A) and (B) are the outputs of Gaussian filtering of coral pH and IPO values, respectively, at a frequency of 0.02 ± 0.01 year–1, which represent the 1/50-year component of the pH variation (fig. S2). (C) Comparison of high-resolution coral Sr/Ca (plotted to identify the seasonal cycle of SST) (32), 11B-derived pH, and wind speed recorded at the Willis Island meteorological station (data from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology) (40). Note the covariation of wind speed and seawater pH; strong winds generally occur at times of high pH, and weak winds generally occur at times of low pH. All high-resolution 11B measurements are available in table S2. (D) Aragonite saturation state, , where is the stoichiometric solubility product of aragonite, calculated from our reconstructed pH assuming constant alkalinity (24). (E) Coral extension and calcification rates obtained from coral density measured by gamma ray densitometry (38).”

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…

Comparison of pH to Flinders Reef calcification rate (Pelejer0 et al., 2005) — Fig. 2) Flinders Reef: Calcification Rate vs. pH (Pelejero et al., 2005)

Fig. 3) Fliners Reef pH (Pelejero et al., 2005) vs atmospheric CO2

Fig. 4. Average mass of CaCO3 per coccolith in core RAPID 21-12-B and atmospheric CO2. The average mass of CaCO3 per coccolith in core RAPID 21-12-B (open circles) increased from 1.08 x 10–11 to 1.55 x 10–11 g between 1780 and the modern day, with an accelerated increase over recent decades. The increase in average coccolith mass correlates with rising atmospheric PCO2, as recorded in the Siple ice core (gray circles) (26) and instrumentally at Mauna Loa (black circles) (38), every 10th and 5th data point shown, respectively. Error bars represent 1 SD as calculated from replicate analyses. Samples with a standard deviation greater than 0.05 were discarded. The smoothed curve for the average coccolith mass was calculated using a 20% locally weighted least-squares error method. — Fig. 4) Iglesias-Rodriguez et al., 2008, “Fig. 4. Average mass of CaCO3 per coccolith in core RAPID 21-12-B and atmospheric CO2. The average mass of CaCO3 per coccolith in core RAPID 21-12-B (open circles) increased from 1.08 x 10–11 to 1.55 x 10–11 g between 1780 and the modern day, with an accelerated increase over recent decades. The increase in average pre=”average “>coccolith mass correlates with rising atmospheric PCO2, as recorded in the Siple ice core (gray circles) (26) and instrumentally at Mauna Loa (black circles) (38), every 10th and 5th data point shown, respectively. Error bars represent 1 SD as calculated from replicate analyses. Samples with a standard deviation greater than 0.05 were discarded. The smoothed curve for the average coccolith mass was calculated using a 20% locally weighted least-squares error method.”

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…

Fig. 5) Coralline red algae calcification response to increased atmospheric CO2 (modified after Ries eta la., 2009)

Fig. 6) Temperate coral calcification response to increased atmospheric CO2 (modified after Ries et al., 2009).

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…

Fig. 7) Example of CO2 fertilization in Greek fir trees (Koutavas, 2008 from CO2 Science)

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…

Fig. 8) Flinders Reef calcification rate plotted with atmospheric CO2.

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…

Fig. 9) Great Barrier Reef Calcification Rate (after De’ath et al., 2009)

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.

1. Rising Temperature: The Great Barrier Reef likes the warm-up since the depths of the Little Ice Age…

Fig. 10) GBR calcification rate and temperature.

2. Rising Sea Level: The Great Barrier Reef likes the slight sea level rise since the depths of the Little Ice Age…

Fig. 11) GBR calcification rate and sea level.

3. Rising Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations: The Great Barrier Reef likes the increase in CO2 levels since the depths of the Little Ice Age…

Fig. 12a) GBR calcification rate and atmsopheric CO2.

Fig. 12b) GBR calcification rate and atmospheric CO2 cross plot.

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.

Fig. 13) 7,000 years of pH and atmospheric CO2

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)…

Fig. 14) Kouwenberg (2004) Figure 5.4: Reconstruction of paleo-atmospheric CO2 levels when stomatal frequency of fossil needles is converted to CO2 mixing ratios using the relation between CO2 and TSDL as quantified in the training set. Black line represents a 3 point running average based on 3–5 needles per depth. Grey area indicates the RMSE in the calibration. White diamonds are data measured in the Taylor Dome ice core (Indermühle et al., 1999); white squares CO2 measurements from the Law Dome ice-core (Etheridge et al., 1996). Inset: Training set of TSDL response of Tsuga heterophylla needles from the Pacific Northwest region to CO2 changes over the past century (Chapter 4).

Century-scale fluctuations in atmospheric CO2 concentrations have also been demonstrated in the early Holocene (Wagner et al., 1999)…

(Wagner et al., 1999)Fig. 1. (A) Mean SI values (±1 ) for B. pendula and B. pubescens from the early Holocene part of the Borchert section (Netherlands; 52.23°N, 7.00°E) and reconstructed CO2 concentrations. The scale of the section is in centimeters. Three lithological (Lith.) units can be recognized (18): a basal gyttja (=), succeeded by Drepanocladus peat (//), which is subsequently overlain by Sphagnum peat ( ). Six conventional 14C dates (in years before the present) are available (indicated by circled numbers): 1, 10,070 ± 90; 2, 9930 ± 45; 3, 9685 ± 90; 4, 9770 ± 90; 5, 9730 ± 50; and 6, 9380 ± 80. Summary pollen diagram includes arboreal pollen (white area) with Pinus ( ) and with Betula ( ) and nonarboreal pollen with Gramineae ( ) and with Cyperaceae, upland herbs, and Ericales ( ). Regional climatic phases after (18): YD, Younger Dryas; Fr., Friesland phase; Ra., Rammelbeek phase; and LP, Late Preboreal. For analytical method, see (13). Quantification of CO2 concentrations according to the rate of historical CO2 responsiveness of European tree birches (Fig. 2). P indicates the reconstructed position of the Preboreal Oscillation. — Fig. 15) (Wagner et al., 1999) Fig. 1. (A) Mean SI values (±1 ) for B. pendula and B. pubescens from the early Holocene part of the Borchert section (Netherlands; 52.23°N, 7.00°E) and reconstructed CO2 concentrations. The scale of the section is in centimeters. Three lithological (Lith.) units can be recognized (18): a basal gyttja (=), succeeded by Drepanocladus peat (//), which is subsequently overlain by Sphagnum peat ( ). Six conventional 14C dates (in years before the present) are available (indicated by circled numbers): 1, 10,070 ± 90; 2, 9930 ± 45; 3, 9685 ± 90; 4, 9770 ± 90; 5, 9730 ± 50; and 6, 9380 ± 80. Summary pollen diagram includes arboreal pollen (white area) with Pinus ( ) and with Betula ( ) and nonarboreal pollen with Gramineae ( ) and with Cyperaceae, upland herbs, and Ericales ( ). Regional climatic phases after (18): YD, Younger Dryas; Fr., Friesland phase; Ra., Rammelbeek phase; and LP, Late Preboreal. For analytical method, see (13). Quantification of CO2 concentrations according to the rate of historical CO2 responsiveness of European tree birches (Fig. 2). P indicates the reconstructed position of the Preboreal Oscillation.

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…

Fig. 16) East Texas Stratigraphic Column and Creatceous CO2

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.

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David Middleton

Author

January 11, 2011 6:33 am

Correction to my comments on Ries et al., 2009…

6/18 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, 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.
3/18 had very slight declines in calcification at 2x pre-industrial: Oyster, lobster and soft clam.

latitude

January 11, 2011 6:38 am

Philip Foster says:
January 11, 2011 at 5:49 am
Overall oceans are not likely to become ‘more acidic’ because of more CO2.
=======================================================
It’s pretty much impossible Philip….
Biological processes have always been fighting the oceans buffer capacity.
Nitrification and denitrification are the most common, and those processes produce acids or they will not work.
Those acids dissolve the carbonates and make them available to be put back or replaced in the system.
Their argument is that the water column will become “less buffered”. In order to believe that, you would have to believe that the oceans will deplete their source of carbonates.
Carbonates are not used up, carbonates are cycled.

dbstealey

January 11, 2011 6:38 am

Kudos to Dave Middleton for this excellent article. His real world observations show that CO2 is at worst a non-problem, and that it is very likely a net benefit to marine life.
Since the rise in CO2 is beneficial and causes no observed harm to the planet, it stands to reason that this molecule, essential to life on earth, is also beneficial to marine life.
One commentator cites a paper by scientists who accept – and actively seek out – taxpayer funds, which are always available when showing alarming [but actually non-existent] damage due to the latest eco-scare.
I will take David Middleton’s and Willis Eschenbach’s unpaid analysis over someone feeding at the taxpayer trough any time, because they have no financial motive to misrepresent the issue, as the IPCC, government, and university scientists riding the climate grant gravy train do.
There is plenty of information here that deconstructs the notion that CO2 is harmful in any way. Carbon dioxide is a harmless and beneficial trace gas. More is better, because the biosphere is currently starved of CO2.

Pamela Gray

January 11, 2011 6:40 am

Well, I beg to differ. I just did an experiment and discovered that acid water at a ph of 8.1 can eat away…a bar of soap. Not only do I have this experiment as proof, there are millions of observations made by people around the world that this solution of acid water is capable of eating soap. That’s important. I don’t scrub my body with a bar of clams and oysters. The disappearance of soap is tragic and should be at the top of the concerned citizen’s list of warnings.
I have tee shirts, caps, and mugs. Save the soap. Send money.

Bob Shapiro

January 11, 2011 6:49 am

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.
Is it me, or do these author names indicate that this whole thing is a put on?
De’ath maybe should read Death.
Lough maybe should read Laugh.
And, Fabricius maybe should read Fabrication.

David Middleton

Author

January 11, 2011 6:50 am

Philip Foster says:
January 11, 2011 at 5:49 am
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.

Don’t forget basalt. Basalts a generally contain ~10% CaO by weight. They are also rich in Mg and Na. Basalt might play an even bigger role than carbonate rocks in buffering the oceans.
There’s a darn good reason why my wife’s tropical fish tank has chunks of coral and basalt in it.

Ian L. McQueen

January 11, 2011 6:51 am

Excellent article that I will be referring to frequently in the future.
There are some minor editing glitches, indicated by “///”, that should be tended to:
Fig. 8) Flinders Reef calcification rate plotted with ///atmsopheric/// CO2.
So, the PETM may have been an example of ocean ///acdification///… But there is NO evidence that it was caused by a sharp increase in atmospheric CO2 levels.
Plants ///“breath”/// [breathe] CO2 through microscopic epidermal pores called stomata
IanM
[Thanks, Ian, fixed — willis]

David Middleton

Author

January 11, 2011 7:03 am

Francisco says:
January 11, 2011 at 6:07 am
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.

I don’t think these are quite up to WUWT standards… But you can read them on my blog.
“Oh say can you see”… 20th Century Sea Level Changes, When Viewed in a Geological Perspective?
The National Academy of Sciences Forecasts Sea Level Rise of 22 mm/yr…

latitude

January 11, 2011 7:16 am

David Middleton says:
January 11, 2011 at 6:33 am
========================================
David, add this to your list:
The Waikiki Aquarium did this coral growth study using their well water, which has a low pH. They found that there was no difference in growth rates “Coral growth rates were near the upper rates reported from the field”
They were looking at nutrient loads, but using low pH water. That can be turned around to show no difference in low pH water also.
“The incoming well-water servicing the facility has low pH, crating over-saturation of carbon dioxide.”
“The well-water has been relatively stable over the past five years in terms of ph and oxygen (pH 7.5 – 7.8, O2 5.0 – 6.7 mg O2 l -1)”
http://resources.metapress.com/pdf-preview.axd?code=g2554037454q13wp&size=largest

DesertYote

January 11, 2011 7:49 am

SteveE
January 11, 2011 at 3:53 am
This is a bunch of warmist non-sense that is trying to reinterpret the paleo-record in ways that support the greeny political agenda.

From Peru

January 11, 2011 8:16 am

David Middleton says:
“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.”
Well in figure 1 we have:
3 show benefit with lower aragonite saturation state: blue crab, shrimp, lobster
4 showed a “parabolic” response, with calcification first increasing and then decreasing with decreasing aragonite saturation state: limpet, purple urchin, coralline red algae, halimeda
1 showed no response to decreasing aragonite saturation state: blue mussel
10 were harmed by decreasing aragonite saturation state: temperate coral, pencil urchin, hard clam, conch, serpulid worm, periwinkle, bay scallop, oyster, whelk , soft clam.
Of these last, 4 showed enhanced reduced calcification after a threshold: temperate coral, pencil urchin, hard clam and conch. However, even before that threshold, a slight reduction of calcification still happened
That is, at best, 7 of 18 showed benefit from increased pCO2 up to 903 ppmv, not 15 of 18.

Henry chance

January 11, 2011 8:24 am

Around a year ago there was an article on Climate Progress regarding sudden death of coral. With seven megatons of vitriol and 30 tons of bluster, the histrionics leaned toward being afraid of the end of sea life.
I asked a question why the article not once mentioned the actual level of Ph and the recent ph factor measurements. My question was rapidly deleted.

Hu McCulloch

January 11, 2011 8:25 am

As I noted previously on David’s post on ice cores, Dana Royer and co-authors (GSA Today, March 2004, pp. 4-10 and Geochimica vol. 70, 2006, pp. 5665-75) note that over most of the last 550 million (not thousand) years, CO2 has mostly been in the range 1000-3000 ppm, and that levels under 500 ppm like the last few million years and the late Carboniferious/early Permian period have generally ben periods of glaciation. They characterize under 1000 ppm as “cool”.
This implies that life in general and in particular the oceans have done just fine with 1000-3000 ppm. The corals, snails, and oysters have been as happy as the clams, since most of our limestone must have formed under these conditions.
It’s hard to say what the causality is — does high CO2 cause warmth or does a warm climate cause high atmospheric CO2 as the oceans degas — but it’s worth considering whether 500-1000 ppm might protect us against the otherwise inevitable next ice age, without excessive warming.

Dan Kirk-Davidoff

January 11, 2011 8:48 am

According to the Kouwenberg (2004) paper you cite:
“The extremely low number of stomata per mm needle length in the Tsuga heterophylla record at Jay Bath between 300 and 700 AD does not appear to result from extremely high atmospheric CO2 levels at the time, but coincides with the establishment of the species during a period of major disturbance at the site. The open, exposed setting after this disturbance probably provided highly stressed growth conditions for pioneering, early-successional T. heterophylla trees. Spring water-stress related to low soil temperature, would be the most plausible explanation for an acclimational stomatal frequency response to reduced water uptake. Thus, environmental stress factors associated with early-successional montane habitats show the potential to obscure stomatal frequency changes in response to atmospheric CO2.
This complication should be taken into account when selecting leaf material from high-elevation sites for stomatal frequency analysis. It is essential to concomitantly analyze the local successional forest developments that correspond to a montane leaf record. For the Jay Bath record, the late-successional closed forest, prevalent at the site from 800 AD until present, indicates that stomatal numbers of Tsuga heterophylla over the past 1200 years are not affected by these extreme growth conditions, and can be relied upon to reflect atmospheric CO2 changes.”
Best to read the papers first, before borrowing their figures.

Grumbler

January 11, 2011 8:55 am

How many of the atmospheric models deduct the proportion of CO2 assumed to be acidifying the ocean. If I’m told x amount of CO2 is man made and 10% of that is dissolved in the oceans then are the models run with 90% of x. I doubt it. This magic CO2 can’t be in two places at once.

Dave Bob

January 11, 2011 8:59 am

Willis,
You said,
“Coral reefs are plants, so overall they are a net sink of CO2.”
But my tattered dictionary tells me, after some flipping back and forth, that corals are animals.
(coral = anthozoan = coelenterate = invertebrate animal)
Am I missing something? Perhaps “coral reefs” and the basic coral organism aren’t exactly the same thing?
Thanks, as always, for your posts and comments.

Charles Higley

January 11, 2011 9:01 am

As CO2 is the beginning of an extended equilibrium including carbonic acid, bicarbonate, carbonate, and calcium carbonate, more CO2 will facilitate calcium carbonate deposition. Furthermore, protons (acidity) released by bicarbonate and carbonate cannot affect their own equilibrium—they are part of the equilibrium. Only protons from an outside source can influence the equilibrium. This is high school chemistry ignored by the alarmists entirely.

JohnWho

January 11, 2011 9:27 am

In Ries et al., 2009, does it say anything about the length of time it took to go from, say 400 ppm to 1000 or higher?
A gradual change in CO2 levels might have an even more neglible effect as the plants and animals slowly adapt.
Just wondering.

David Middleton

Author

January 11, 2011 9:46 am

@From Peru says:
January 11, 2011 at 8:16 am
Use you Mk I eyeball filter. Ignore the polynomial trend-lines. Look at the actual ranges of calcification rates at each level of aragonite saturation (CO2). The calcification ranges of all but two increase or at least over-lap with the base case out to the aragonite saturation correlative to a doubling of pre-industrial CO2.
Ries Fig 1
I just realized that I was looking at the Ries chart backwards this morning. The modified plots that I made used CO2 ppmv rather than aragonite saturation and reversed the x-axis. Lobsters actually love more CO2.
Correction to my correction to my comments on Ries et al., 2009…

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 lobster, blue crab, shrimp, 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.

David Middleton

Author

January 11, 2011 9:54 am

Dan Kirk-Davidoff says:
January 11, 2011 at 8:48 am
According to the Kouwenberg (2004) paper you cite:
“The extremely low number of stomata per mm needle length in the Tsuga heterophylla record at Jay Bath between 300 and 700 AD does not appear to result from extremely high atmospheric CO2 levels at the time, but coincides with the establishment of the species during a period of major disturbance at the site.
[…]
For the Jay Bath record, the late-successional closed forest, prevalent at the site from 800 AD until present, indicates that stomatal numbers of Tsuga heterophylla over the past 1200 years are not affected by these extreme growth conditions, and can be relied upon to reflect atmospheric CO2 changes.”
Best to read the papers first, before borrowing their figures.

That’s why I did not use the 300 and 700 AD Jay Bath interval when I constructed the comparison of Kouwenberg to Moberg’s climate reconstruction in CO2: Ice Cores vs. Plant Stomata
Kouwenberg & Moberg

Manwichstick

January 11, 2011 10:15 am

@ur momisugly David Middleton
I don’t think you adequately responded to @ur momisugly from peru’s post.
I picked the Ries 2009 paper as one of the ones you talked about as a sample. I read it and compared my interpretation of it to how you presented it and now I no longer consider you an unbiased evaluator.
You conclude:
“It appears that in addition to being plant food… CO2 is also reef food.”
Whereas the author Ries concludes:
“Even those organisms showing enhanced calcification under elevated pCO2 could be negatively impacted by the decline of less CO2-tolerant species within their ecosystems.”
That is not adequate science journalism on your part. In my opinion, you misrepresented that paper.

David Middleton

Author

January 11, 2011 10:23 am

@Manwichstick says:
January 11, 2011 at 10:15 am
Look at figure 1 in Ries.

dbstealey

January 11, 2011 10:28 am

Manwichstick says:
“…author Ries concludes:
‘Even those organisms showing enhanced calcification under elevated pCO2 could be negatively impacted by the decline of less CO2-tolerant species within their ecosystems.’ ”
Key words: “could be”.
And Manwichstick could be the next big lottery winner, too.
I liked the graphs in the article. They really tell the story: there is no correlation between CO2 and calcification.
But there’s no grant money for someone pointing out something so un-alarming.
“OCEAN ACIDIFICATION!!”
That’s what brings in the grant bucks.

David Middleton

Author

January 11, 2011 10:44 am

Smokey says:
January 11, 2011 at 10:28 am
Manwichstick says:
“…author Ries concludes:
‘Even those organisms showing enhanced calcification under elevated pCO2 could be negatively impacted by the decline of less CO2-tolerant species within their ecosystems.’ ”
Key words: “could be”.
And Manwichstick could be the next big lottery winner, too.

It reminds me of this AGW meme regarding the ice core CO2 lag time…
“Does this prove that CO2 doesn’t cause global warming? The answer is no.
The reason has to do with the fact that the warmings take about 5000 years to be complete. The lag is only 800 years. All that the lag shows is that CO2 did not cause the first 800 years of warming, out of the 5000 year trend. The other 4200 years of warming could in fact have been caused by CO2, as far as we can tell from this ice core data. “
The lack of evidence to support CO2-driven warming doesn’t preclude the possibility that it happened.

I liked the graphs in the article. They really tell the story: there is no correlation between CO2 and calcification.
[…]

And when there is a correlation… It’s usually that of more CO2 –> More calcification.

Taliesyn

January 11, 2011 11:49 am

The chemistry of the oceans means that increasing CO2 can NEVER drive the pH below 7.0, in fact it probably can’t get below about 7.4. The reason is that as the pH drops, the ocean more actively dissolves the rocks it is in contact with (i.e. the earth itself), adding cations to the water that neutralize the CO2.