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.
TJB is right. From Peru is not making scientific arguments, he is making political arguments.
First off, CO2 is not “pollution.” It is a trace gas essential to life. Constantly repeating the canard that it is pollution is pseudo-science.
Like Ottmar Edenhofer, From Peru now admits that redistribution of wealth is the goal of climate alarmists. And one of the countries with its hand out happens to be Peru.
As From Peru says, “Lima [Peru] is already one the most polluted cities in the world.”
If Peru is unwilling to clean up its own mess, why should taxpayers in one of the world’s cleanest countries do it for them?
And I’m still waiting for an answer about why China always gets a free pass, and the clean, rsponsible U.S. should be expected to pay for other countries’ self-inflicted hell holes?
Here’s the next big move: it will be discovered and acknowledged that, after all, CO2 is highly beneficial, as is warming. China, as the #1 CO2 emitter, will demand payment and subsidies for its CO2 output.
Leftists will be all over it.
Smokey says:
January 12, 2011 at 5:53 pm
“TJB is right. From Peru is not making scientific arguments, he is making political arguments.”
The harm that does CO2 is a scientific argument. The actions that must be done to reduce emissions are political.
“First off, CO2 is not “pollution.” It is a trace gas essential to life. Constantly repeating the canard that it is pollution is pseudo-science”
For you everything that you don’t like is pseudoscience. As usual, your best “argument” is attacking the messenger, because you cannot respond to the message.
It is pseudoscience the paper that show that increased pCO2 cause shell dissolution in some species?
“Marine calcifiers exhibit mixed responses to CO2-induced ocean acidification”
http://www.whoi.edu/science/GG/people/acohen/publications/Ries_et_al_09_Geology_Mixed_Responses_to_Ocean_Acidification.pdf
It is pseudoscience the paper that shows that the Arctic is already corrosive to aragonite-shelled organisms?
“Aragonite Undersaturation in the Arctic Ocean- Effects of Ocean Acidification and Sea Ice Melt”
http://www.whoi.edu/beaufortgyre/pdfs/yamamoto-kawai_aragonite_science2009.pdf
“Like Ottmar Edenhofer, From Peru now admits that redistribution of wealth is the goal of climate alarmists. And one of the countries with its hand out happens to be Peru”
You only see conspiracy theories, as you cannot accept the science. The climate scientists have the goal of maintaining a livable climate and environment. It happens that wealth redistribution is a collateral benefit from environmental policy.
“If Peru is unwilling to clean up its own mess, why should taxpayers in one of the world’s cleanest countries do it for them?”
In this, I agree with you that taxpayers should not clean the mess. The big corporations should pay for the mess they are creating. I do not like cap and trade. It is a complicate scheme that opens the room to financial speculators. The actions should be strict standards to the energy industry. If they are not met the big corporations should pay for their emissions. The money obtained should be used to subsidize clean energy, or (as Hansen suggested) directly returned to the people. This carbon tax doesn’t imply a bigger taxation: to compensate the carbon tax, other taxes could be reduced. If the carbon tax that corporations pay is then returned to the people as a direct subsidy, the net effect is less, not more, taxation for the people.
For countries like mine, there are needed funds to help halt deforestation and finance clean energy developments. The way to do should be alike development programs are implemented today (by the World Bank, for example). Other measure should be relaxation of patent rights for clean energy. If one company drops patent rights for developing countries, then it should pay a smaller carbon tax.
“And I’m still waiting for an answer about why China always gets a free pass, and the clean, rsponsible U.S. should be expected to pay for other countries’ self-inflicted hell holes?”
Who is not criticizing China for all the crap that its factories and power plants emit?
China is today the world biggest polluter. The US is the second. Any action against carbon pollution (if you don’t call it pollution, it is because you are not a conch or a pteropod) must involve both.
This is really a silly, childish blame game between China and the USA. Each one demanding the other to reduce his emission before. Coutries like mine are suffering for all the pollution that countries like USA and China emit.
I do NOT defend China. Is that clear?
From Peru,
You say it’s about the science. Such science is routinely dissected here on WUWT. You claim we are not accepting the science confirming (C)AGW. You are not accepting the science presented here which destroys it. You say “The climate scientists have the goal of maintaining a livable climate and environment.” We’ve reportedly shown here how said climate scientists have to support (C)AGW to avoid being ostracized and having their professional careers crippled. Those producing work supporting (C)AGW are rewarded with research grants and career advancement. “Climate science” has been revealed as a politically-motivated movement to uphold (C)AGW. I would like to describe it as a game of “carrot and stick,” but it’s more serious than that, with serious quantities of cash involved. It’s more like paying protection money to organized crime, support it or suffer the consequences, and it’s more personally beneficial to be one of those collecting the money.
Your arguments are largely political. It’s clearly on display in your one previous post. Such was famously displayed at the 2009 Copenhagen “climate” summit. “You rich nations have the money, we need the money. You give us the money!” You say it’s about the science. Then in your post you try to generate guilt and display the “reparations” mindset, drawing on colonialism and slavery. But that approach doesn’t draw much sympathy being so far in the past, and the “rich” nations already send out many billions of dollars of private and public foreign aid. Thus comes the attempt at generating guilt for a recent and ongoing “problem,” namely the theoretical past, present, and future damages of global warming.
Sorry, it still ain’t working. And (C)AGW, the political movement, is falling apart. Copenhagen devolved into a loud screeching of desperation, not only from the revealing cracks in (C)AGW “science” and the revelations of “Climategate” but also the growing realization, in the wake of the global recession, that those “rich nations” really don’t have the money. We’re up to our necks in debt, and don’t even have enough cash to properly take care of our own citizens, let alone start up a perpetual stream of money to alleviate the “damages” from (C)AGW, whether one believes they are real or not. Sorry, but we don’t have it to send to you. Period.
Who has the money? Check with that “developing” nation, China. They’re awash in cash, and are quite happy using it for weapons programs and otherwise trying to achieve global dominance rather than waste it trying to raise the vast majority of their population out of squalid poverty. Now, you did emphatically say in this post “I do NOT defend China. Is that clear?” But yet you said:
“Cumulative emissions” does not matter. If you truly believe that (C)AGW is such a dramatic worldwide problem, then you should believe that everyone has responsibility for their continuing emissions. If indeed (C)AGW is such a dire situation, urgently requiring immediate action to avoid devastating consequences, then everyone should act, be they a “developing” or a “developed” nation.
As it is, you have done the functional equivalent of saying Person A has killed someone with a car in the past, Person B has not, therefore Person A has more responsibility to not kill someone with a car in the future.
What does that mean for China, India, and any other “developing nation?” It’s acceptable to allow Person B to kill someone with a car, since Person A already did so thus Person B would then merely be in equivalent standing with Person A?
Really, if you’re going to try to beat us with the guilt stick and make this a moral issue, then actually use morals properly in your arguments. There are lots of people who feel they should be able to cheat on their spouse since they themselves never have done so and they know someone who does, but that still doesn’t make it right.
Well, for you I have the following question: what makes you think that a change in a trace gas from 0.03% to 0.04% will disrupt anything? Because that is the huge, enormous change you are talking about.
So I’m sorry, but I don’t see any reason why it should disrupt either the climate or the ocean.
w.
From Peru says:
January 12, 2011 at 8:36 am
Yes, and for some organisms, oxygen is a deadly poison … but once again, the adverse effects of CO2 or oxygen don’t make them into “pollutants”. High levels of fat in your diet can kill you … but that doesn’t make fat a pollutant. Maybe it works different in Peru, but out here, “pollutant” doesn’t mean “a high level of a normal constituent” …
And these concentrations of CO2 will be reached in a few decades if CO2 emissions are not reduced.
No, it’s not reasonable to suspect that at all, it is a huge and unsupported leap of faith with no scientific validity.
To make it “reasonable” to suspect that, first you need to establish that a change of few hundredths of a percent in the concentration of CO2 actually made a difference in the past. Then you have to establish that there is a “good” and a “bad” direction for for that change, and that our actions have pushed things in the “bad” direction. Then you need to establish that the change will not only be bad, it will be “disruptive”.
Since not one of those claims has more than a shred of evidence to support it, in my world that makes it unreasonable to suspect that changing CO2 by a hundredth of a percent will do anything at all. This modern change is far, far less than the size of the historical changes in CO2, and they didn’t seem to lay the ocean to waste …
From Peru says:
January 12, 2011 at 2:26 pm
And you know this how? The Chinese have not made the slightest attempt to follow the West on this stupid path of self-destruction. When the Kyoto protocol was put together, China said “No thanks”. When they had the chance to sign on at Copenhagen, China said “No thanks”. When they had the opportunity to do so at Cancun, , China said “No thanks”.
However, when the CDF funds became available, most of them were scooped up by China and used to build dams … and they talk a good fight, evidently good enough to convince you of their noble aims even while they are building five hundred coal-fired power plants over the next decade.
How come you cut them all that slack when THEY WILL BE ADDING MORE POLLUTION OVER THE NEXT DECADE THAN ANYONE? Plus they’ll also be adding more CO2 over the next decade than anyone. Yet you want to act as their apologist … good luck with that.
From Peru, you desperately need a realpolitic check. The Chinese are not biding their time until the US signs on. They are playing the game smart, grabbing all of the money that green suckers and assorted fools are willing to give them, but with no intention of signing on to any thing substantive.
When Kyoto came up for a vote in the US Senate back under Clinton and Gore, who supported the measure, it went down to defeat 99-0. So of course the Chinese say “we’ll sign up as soon as the US signs up”, they know very well that means “never”, and it allows them to go on fooling gullible Westerners into believing they actually will do something sometime somewhere, honest they will.
Wake up and smell the coffee, my Peruvian friend, los Chinos no son tus amigos no matter how much they may pat your stomach and blow in your ear …
w.
From Peru says:
January 12, 2011 at 2:26 pm
From Peru, you sound like the Mexican in the joke about Texans and Mexicans. The Mexican says to the Texan, “I’m really angry at you guys. Half of Texas used to be Mexico, and you cabrones stole it.”
“Hang on there, pardner,” says the Texan, “what’re you so all-fired angry about? That was hundreds of years ago, and besides, you guys still have plenty of land”.
“Si, that’s true, but you stole all the good land,” says the Mexican.
“The good land?”, says the Texan, obviously mystified. “Pardner, the land on either side of the border is about the same, it takes a hundred acres to raise a single cow wherever you go around here.”
“Si, si,” says the Mexican, “but you took the part with all of the paved roads”.
I have spent a good chunk of my live working on small-scale rural development projects to assist people in the developing world in improving their own lives. So you have no moral standing to lecture me in the slightest.
But I did not do that because of your and other peoples’ attempts to convince me I bear some historical guilt. I feel none. As a very-well-melanized man once told me in Senegal, “maybe your great-grandfather did something to my great-grandfather, but what does that have to do with you and me?”
I do what I do because of my current concerns, not because of something that happened 200 years ago. I am moved by my heart, not my understanding of the past.
This destructive holding on to historical grievances, this often-lethal firing up of human passions through tales of how centuries ago somebody done somebody wrong, has wreaked huge damage in places like the Middle East and Ireland. And Sunnis and Shiites are still blowing each other up because of killings that happened fourteen hundred years ago … you sure you want to go down that path?
If you want to try to spread that kind of history-based guilt, if you want to stir up ancient grievances, of course you are free to do so. But in your shoes, I’d take a hard look at places like the Middle East before I went around trying to re-fight historical battles and re-ignite historical passions and re-debate historical guilt and culpability as you are doing in your post … it never turns out pretty.
Finally, you Peruvian folks have been running your own country for what, over a century or so now? So if you don’t have paved roads in 2011, don’t come blaming me. I wasn’t born then, I don’t owe you one damn thing. Take your complaint to the Peruvian Department of Transportation. Yeah, you was robbed by the bad government … so was my grandpa after the Civil War. Get over it.
I’m more than happy to assist you and others, From Peru, and I have proven that through a lifetime containing lots of work in the developing world. But I’m not willing to lift a finger when you try to get me to do so by pulling out the violins and singing sad songs from the 1700’s.
w.
Glad you are not editing negative comments.
The article appears to be peppered with clever sounding facts which are actually wrong. Just a short example, you state “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” is frighteningly wrong. What makes the limestone? Not the algae.
Would urge readers to either go to the sources or at least read the comments from “Peru says”. Points out the totally topsy turvey mis-interpretation of the original literature required to support your thesis.
Ries and others are doing a great job in helping to develop a picture as to how acidification will play out in the ocean, but aren’t by any means suggesting its not a problem. To cite the last sentence in their latest (2010) abstract: “our data suggest that a threshold seawater [CO3 2-] exists, below which calcification within this species (and possibly others) becomes impaired. Indeed, the strong negative
response of O. arbuscula to XA = 0.8 indicates that their response to future pCO2-induced ocean acidification could be both abrupt and severe once the critical XA is reached.”
Willis Eschenbach says:
“I’m more than happy to assist you and others, From Peru, and I have proven that through a lifetime containing lots of work in the developing world. But I’m not willing to lift a finger when you try to get me to do so by pulling out the violins and singing sad songs from the 1700′s.”
I have NO anger against any country, like the UK, France or the USA.
And I have NOT any anger against the Spanish, that’s history, and history tells that the elite that depredated Peru in the past also exploited their own Spanish People. Modern Spanish have corrected themselves, leaving behind their aristocratic-oligarchic tradition when the fascist dictator Francisco Franco died. So I can have only good thoughts on modern Spain
I am against certain groups of people that TODAY damage the entire planet with their pollution, specially vulnerable countries like mine. And when their actions are denounced, they deny that their actions are harmful (i.e. “CO2 is plant food ” ,”acidification is a lie” ,”warming is good”, etc) or even raise the specters of “communism”, saying, as good McCartysts that environmentalists have a hidden “communist” agenda.
I make a comment about redistribution of wealth because this idea is so absurdly associated by so many people with the policies of the Soviet Union or Maoist China. I then pointed that it as act of social and historical justice. That was my reason of making that little historical review. It was directed against those McCartysts to make them reason a little about history and justice.
If you help people in the developing world as you said, my compliments to you. You should be not offended, since what I said does not apply to you.
From Peru,
You should listen to Willis Eschenbach. He speaks the truth.
Singapore was nothing a century ago. Now, it is rich. And it has no natural resources. Japan was rubble in 1945. It also has no natural resources. Now it is wealthy. South Korea was destroyed following the Korean war. Now it is extremely prosperous.
What’s the difference between those countries and, say, North Korea? The difference is the type of government, nothing more or less.
We owe Peru, China, Zimbabwe, and a hundred other UN countries exactly nothing. They have the means to become prosperous. And prosperous countries are by far the least polluted.
It is not our fault that their governments steal their citizens’ wealth through bad policy decisions, rejection of the free market, and over taxation. If they were to emulate our capitalist system they would be wealthy in one generation. It is not our fault that they prefer the self-destruction of socialism.
The co2 scam is simply an excuse to get their hands into our pockets via the corrupt U.N. And yes, it is a scam. As Willis points out, a one-hundreth of one percent change in the atmosphere is not the reason for any but the most insignificant temperature fluctuations. So small they can’t even be measured.
How does that justify the U.N.’s demand for a hundred billion dollars a year to be paid into the U.N.? Buying the votes of countries with promises of billions from responsible, pollution free countries is just a scam based on demonising co2. You should be smart enough to see that.
Willis Eschenbach says:
“the Chinese say “we’ll sign up as soon as the US signs up”, they know very well that means “never”, and it allows them to go on fooling gullible Westerners into believing they actually will do something sometime somewhere, honest they will.
Wake up and smell the coffee, my Peruvian friend, los Chinos no son tus amigos no matter how much they may pat your stomach and blow in your ear …”
I am NOT pro-Chinese, as I make clear before.
I have said some comments above:
“This is really a silly, childish blame game between China and the USA. Each one demanding the other to reduce his emissions before. Coutries like mine are suffering for all the pollution that countries like USA and China emit.”
It is clear?
“Wake up and smell the coffee, my Peruvian friend, los Chinos no son tus amigos no matter how much they may pat your stomach and blow in your ear …”
Yo se que los Chinos no son mis amigos, no tienes que recordarmelo.
Willis Eschenbach says:
“Well, for you I have the following question: what makes you think that a change in a trace gas from 0.03% to 0.04% will disrupt anything? Because that is the huge, enormous change you are talking about.
So I’m sorry, but I don’t see any reason why it should disrupt either the climate or the ocean.
(…)
To make it “reasonable” to suspect that, first you need to establish that a change of few hundredths of a percent in the concentration of CO2 actually made a difference in the past. Then you have to establish that there is a “good” and a “bad” direction for for that change, and that our actions have pushed things in the “bad” direction. Then you need to establish that the change will not only be bad, it will be “disruptive”.
Since not one of those claims has more than a shred of evidence to support it, in my world that makes it unreasonable to suspect that changing CO2 by a hundredth of a percent will do anything at all. This modern change is far, far less than the size of the historical changes in CO2, and they didn’t seem to lay the ocean to waste …”
CO2 and temperature are deeply correlated in the past. Also ocean acidity.
You posted a paper:
““Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations over the past 60 million years”
And I posted other:
““Coupling of CO2 and Ice Sheet Stability Over Major Climate Transitions of the Last 20 Million Years”
http://atripati.bol.ucla.edu/23.pdf
Yes, 15 million years ago the levels of CO2 were comarable to the present ones and (quoting the paper)
“When pCO2 levels were last similar to modern values (that is, greater than 350 to 400 ppmv), there was little glacial ice on land or sea ice in the Arctic, and a marine-based ice mass on Antarctica was not viable. A sea ice cap on the Arctic Ocean and a large permanent ice sheet were maintained on East Antarctica when pCO2
values fell below this threshold. Lower levels were necessary for the growth of large ice masses on West Antarctica (~250 to 300 ppmv) and Greenland (~220 to 260 ppmv). (…) During theMid-Miocene, when pCO2 was apparently grossly similar to
modern levels, global surface temperatures were, on average, 3 to 6°C warmer than in the present”
So these “hundredth of a percent” really make a difference for the climate. A 3-6ºC warming (not considering future emissions, only the present level of CO2, 390 ppm) is a HUGE warming. The melting of Greenland and West Antartica can trigger a huge sea level rise.
For the effects of ocean acidification in the past, we have the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). Here is an article:
“Rapid Acidification of the Ocean During the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum”
http://ethomas.web.wesleyan.edu/lysoscience.pdf
Where is shown that carbonate deposition in the sea (as shown in a series of sites drilled) was abruptly interrumped after a rapid release of carbon dioxide (in less than 20 ky) that rapidly acidified the ocean. The recovery took 100 000 years.
Quotes from the article:
“At each site, the P-E boundary sequence was characterized by an abrupt transition from carbonate-rich ooze to a dark red clay layer, which then graded back into ooze (Fig. 1 and table S1). Carbonate content was 80 and 90 wt % in the underlying and overlying oozes, respectively
(…)
Given these age constraints, the CCD is inferred to have shoaled more than 2 km within a few thousand years (Fig. 3). Recovery was gradual, with the CCD descending to the shallowest site (1263) within 10 to 15 ky of the CIE onset and to the deepest site (1262) within 60 ky. By 110 ky, carbonate content had fully recovered.”
Legend:
CCD = Calcite Compensation Depth
CIE = Carbon Isotope Excursion
The article ends with a warning:
“If combustion of the entire fossil fuel reservoir ( near 4500 GtC) is assumed, the impacts on deep-sea pH and biota will likely be similar to those in the PETM. However, because the anthropogenic carbon input will occur within just 300 years, which is less than the mixing time of the ocean (38), the impacts on surface ocean pH and biota will probably be more severe.”
FP;
Gorsh, it musta been awful when the CO2 levels were 10-15X the present, and the oceans and lakes were sterilized, bubbling acid vats!
Oh, wait …
From Peru has drunk the Kool Aid, and is beyond reason. He wouldn’t know the scientific method if it bit him on the a …nkle. The fact that he still believes that a tiny trace gas is “pollution” shows how far gone he is.
Peru says:
“CO2 and temperature are deeply correlated in the past. Also ocean acidity.”
I won’t bother with the acidity canard, because Willis thoroughly deconstructed that nonsense in a recent article. But I will agree with Mr Peru that there is some correlation between temperature and CO2 in the past.
But the correlation isn’t what Peru believes. The actual correlation is that rises in CO2 follow temperature rises.
On short time scales the cause and effect is clear: CO2 follows temperature. Even on very short time scales, CO2 lags temperature – this chart shows a five month lag.
On medium geologic time scales, CO2 clearly follows temperature.
On very long time scales there is no correlation. But short term, global temperatures are not affected by rises in CO2.
And the temp anomaly that alarmists like to refer to have no relation to CO2.
Also, observed vs modeled CO2 observations show only a small rise. JoNova shows the non-existent correlation on long time frames.
The wild-eyed hand waving over CO2 is partly the result of the deliberately alarming use of a magnified y-axis in graphs. Let’s look at some graphs with a normal y-axis:
Note the CO2 at the bottom of this graph.
Here is Dr Roy Spencer’s graph, showing the level of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Can’t see the CO2? OK then, let’s magnify the y-axis by ten times.
Still can’t find the CO2? OK then, let’s magnify the y-axis by 100X. See it? Finally?
CO2 is a very minor trace gas. Its concentration has increased by 0.01% over the past century and a half — with no ill effects. But when someone’s mind falls into the bottomless pit of cognitive dissonance, empirical facts no longer matter. They become true believers, like some folks from Peru.
Smokey says:
January 13, 2011 at 7:10 pm
“From Peru has drunk the Kool Aid, and is beyond reason. He wouldn’t know the scientific method if it bit him on the a …nkle. The fact that he still believes that a tiny trace gas is “pollution” shows how far gone he is.
(…)
But when someone’s mind falls into the bottomless pit of cognitive dissonance, empirical facts no longer matter. They become true believers, like some folks from Peru.”
As usual, you are describing yourself.
I have posted a paper that show how high levels of CO2 in the past (some 15 million years ago) , equal to the current 390 ppmwere characterized by temperatures 3 ºC to 6ºC warmer than the present, and with no ice sheets in the Nortern Hemisphere.
“Coupling of CO2 and Ice Sheet Stability Over Major Climate Transitions of the Last 20 Million Years”
http://atripati.bol.ucla.edu/23.pdf
I also posted a paper showing that rapid increases in CO2 concentration in the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum lead to rapid ocean acidification that resulted in an abrupt interruption in the deposition of carbonate, indicating that either calcification stopped or any carbonate formed dissolved before it accumulated in the bottom of the sea:
“Rapid Acidification of the Ocean During the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum”
http://ethomas.web.wesleyan.edu/lysoscience.pdf
Now you repeat the usual meme that CO2 lags temperature, showing that you fail to recognize the carbon cycle feedback: a warming (that can be caused by CO2, increased insolation, ocean cycles, etc) triggers the liberation of CO2 from the ocean, that in turn causes more warming.
It is a concept so difficult to understand?
And about your graphs about the concentration of CO2, yes, it is a trace gas, but it have an important effect in the climate, alike all the other well-mixed greenhouse gases. What matters for climate change is the CHANGE in the concentration of those gases. For CO2 the forcing can be expressed by this simple equation:
ΔF (W/m^2) = 5.35 ln([CO2]/[CO2]o)
Note that what matters in the ratio [CO2]/[CO2]o, not the concentration with respect of all the atmosphere (it makes no sense to compare [CO2] with [O2] or [N2] for example, that will be comparing apples with oranges)
In preindustrial times the concentration of CO2 was 280 ppmv. Now it is 390 ppmv.
Change [CO2] (%) = 100*(390/280 -1) = 39.3 %
This is change near 40%, not 0.01% as you affirm. It’s very simple math, how can you be so badly wrong?
You accuse me of not having idea of the scientific method, while you can’t get a 3rd grade school math calculation right?
From Peru says:
January 13, 2011 at 3:01 pm
You talk reasonably, and then you go on about history and justice … do you think history and justice means that I owe you something? Because you certainly talk like that. From Peru, I owe you NOTHING, and neither does the world. Not because of history. Not because of justice. Not for any reason.
I was in Lima in the 1980s. It sits (as you know well) on the Pacific coast on a stubby peninsula. When I was there, the whole town was blanketed with foul black smoke. What was it from? Well, the good folk of Lima hadn’t gotten the idea of landfills, so everyone just took their garbage to the edge of the city and threw it on the burning garbage heap all along the landward side of the city. How many megatonnes of CO2 and black carbon did that create every day for decades? Seems to me like as a matter of “history and justice” you should begin by repaying me for all that stench. You’ve lived in Lima, and you have the nerve to call CO2 a pollutant??? Bro’, you’ve got real pollutants there, I’m sure you actually know the difference.
And yet, because of “history and justice”, you feel like I owe you something … but I digress. You say:
Why is Peru “vulnerable” to increasing CO2? Point me out one single thing that CO2 did to Peru, and we can talk about it … you have the obligation to prove that my “actions are harmful” before you start ranting about my actions, and I have never found any evidence of that.
But since you obviously have evidence that CO2 is harming Peru, bring it on. Don’t bother me with climate model studies, though. I’m looking for evidence, not the exaggerated fantasies of Tinkertoy™ models … and don’t bother with “it’s warmer, and warmer is terrible” either. Go ask los pobres en los Andes which they fear more, extra heat or extra cold … because we never have a choice called “no climate change”.
So before you start complaining about how “vulnerable” Peru is to CO2, you first need to establish the link between CO2 going from 0.03% to 0.05% to some measurable damage in Peru.
I wish you luck in that task, porque haciendo eso será muy difícil …
w.
PS – people are dying, all over the world, from simple things like bad water and lack of fuel for cooking. Something like 40% of the people on the planet live on less than $2 per day, and I’m sure that a lot of them are in Peru, because I’ve seen and talked to them there. In the face of that, are you sure that CO2 is really so urgent an issue? If you really are concerned about future climate changes, go do something useful like help people install fog nets above Lima. That way, whether the climate changes or not, you will have reduced people’s susceptibility to the vicissitudes of climate …
From Peru says:
January 13, 2011 at 10:53 pm
I’m not sure why you think this is relevant. The study says that some 2,000 GTonnes of carbon were rapidly released (ca 1000 years) from methane hydrates at the bottom of the ocean. This represents on the order of 250 years of CO2 emissions at the current rate, not released into the air, but bubbled up from the depths of the ocean. Released into the air, it would have immediately driven the CO2 levels to around 1,300 ppmv …
In particular, this event would have been extreme because of the normally very low levels of dissolved methane in deeper, older waters. Because they contain little methane, these waters would be able to accept a large amount of dissolved methane. This, of course, would raise the lysocline, with concomitant effects on deep-dwelling organisms. However, the raising and lowering of the lysocline is one of the many natural buffering systems in the ocean. And as the article shows, it works as theorized, raising and lowering to buffer changes in carbon content.
In addition, this huge off-gassing from the bottom of the ocean would certainly disrupt both the vertical stratification and the horizontal currents of the parts of the ocean where they were going on.
So yes, I think we can all agree. Bubbling thousands of billions of cubic metres of methane up from the bottom of the ocean is a Very Bad Idea™. It would tend to disrupt the oceanic chemistry from the sea floor upwards.
I just don’t see what monster amounts of methane bubbling up from the seafloor have to do with an as-yet almost unmeasurable decrease in surface water alkalinity, despite years of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration. The ocean is a highly and multiply buffered chemical system. But even more than that, the ocean also needs to be considered as not just dead chemical reactions. It needs to be looked at as if it were a huge living organism that, like life everywhere, consumes carbon in prodigious amounts, and locally reverses entropy by enabling reactions that would not otherwise occur. If carbon amounts increase, living things that use and need carbon will shift and change and increase and decrease to use more of it. This is not predictable by simple chemical reactions.
For example, the family of animals in the ocean that is said to have the greatest mass of all families are the siphonophores … which most people have never heard of, and which we don’t know a whole lot about. They are not really single individuals, they are assemblages of individuals … but the individuals are incapable of living alone, they can only survive through their mutual interaction. They are predators, and everything that they eat contains carbon … perhaps you could predict the effect that the global mass of siphonphores has on the carbon cycle in the case of increased dCO2 concentrations. I’m not that brave.
I discuss the only large-scale oceanic pH study I know of here. I don’t see any cause for concern. The water at the input to the Monterrey Bay Aquarium can go from a pH of 7.8 to a pH of 8.1 in one month, and the fish are still happy. pH over the coral reefs varies by more than that. You seem to have the idea that the ocean is some delicate flower that can’t stand the slightest variation in carbon levels. Nothing could be further from the truth.
First let me congratulate ‘From Peru’ for his contribution. It is good to see peer reviewed sources instead of the usual. How typical for it to be responded to by the usual misrepresentative and agenda driven bilge that seems to dominate debate in AGW.
Willis Eschenbach says:
January 14, 2011 at 2:19 am
“You talk reasonably, and then you go on about history and justice … do you think history and justice means that I owe you something? Because you certainly talk like that. From Peru, I owe you NOTHING, and neither does the world. Not because of history. Not because of justice. Not for any reason.”
Why you take my comments personally? I have congratulated you for your help to the Third World countries:
“If you help people in the developing world as you said, my compliments to you.”
I have nothing against you nor against any of the millions of people that live in the developed countries. I’m against the big polluters, that is, the big energy companies that burn coal when the electricity could be obtained from clean sources like the wind, solar energy, water currents,etc. They did not because are more interested in profits from burning a cheap energy source than provide a sustainable supply of energy. Same for automobile enterprises that sell fuel inefficient vehicles when they could sell vehicles that consume half the fuel per kilometer.
Ultimately this is not task of the companies (leaving aside moral issues), that only look for profits, but from the government, that must regulate them. But this companies lobby against any government action, labeling that as “communism”. It is incredible see how Barack Obama, that has done more for environmental regulation that most other presidents in USA history, being equated to bloody dictators like Vladimir Lenir, Joseph Stalin or Mao Tse Tung.
As I said before:
“You should be not offended, since what I said does not apply to you.”
Unless you are a lobbyst of the fossil fuel industry, I hope it is not your case.
Willis Eschenbach says:
January 14, 2011 at 2:19 am
“Rapid Acidification of the Ocean During the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum”
http://ethomas.web.wesleyan.edu/lysoscience.pdf
“I’m not sure why you think this is relevant. The study says that some 2,000 GTonnes of carbon were rapidly released (ca 1000 years) from methane hydrates at the bottom of the ocean. This represents on the order of 250 years of CO2 emissions at the current rate, not released into the air, but bubbled up from the depths of the ocean. Released into the air, it would have immediately driven the CO2 levels to around 1,300 ppmv …”
That monstruous release of carbon (as CO2 and CH4) is believed to have taken aproximately 20 000 years. As you said, humans are releasing carbon (dioxide) at a much faster rate, a rate that can take just 250 years to make a carbon release equal to the PETM. That’s a release 80 times faster!
The CO2 liberated in part dissolves into the ocean. The difference is that in the PETM is diffused from the ocean to the atmosphere, today is from the atmosphere to the ocean. That is an important difference, but the CO2 still makes its way to the ocean, and remember that the rate of CO2 increase is 80 times faster than in the PETM…
This almost certainly can disrupt the ocean chemistry. Ocean acidity has already increased by 30% (a drop in 0.1 pH units) since preindustrial times. That is not a small amount.
You showed large natural variation in oceanic pH. But what matters really is not the pH by itself, but the effect of that pH change on calcium carbonate (aragonite and calcite) saturation state. The normal state of the modern ocean is to be CaCO3 oversaturated. Marine calcifiers have adapted for millions of years to a high CO3– environment. Now ocean acidification converts carbonate (CO3–) into bicarbonate (HCO3-). If the CO3– concentration drops too much, calcification rates drops significantly or even become negative (that is, the CaCO3 shells dissolve).
This effect is particularly severe in the already relatively CO3– poor waters of the polar regions. In the Arctic, there is ALREADY aragonite undersaturation, so the Arctic waters are already corrosive to aragonite-shelled organisms:
“Aragonite Undersaturation in the Arctic Ocean- Effects of Ocean Acidification and Sea Ice Melt”
http://www.whoi.edu/beaufortgyre/pdfs/yamamoto-kawai_aragonite_science2009.pdf
The seasonal variations in ocean acidity and alkalinity that occurs in the ocean (as you showed for the Monterrey Acuarium) do not imply that the ocean system is immune to the downward trend in carbonate caused by antropogenic CO2 (i.e. the reasoning: pH varies a lot naturally, this does not kill marine life, so change is innocuous). On the contrary, they imply more vulnerability, as this paper, about the implication of the seasonal cycle for the Southern Ocean, shows:
“Southern Ocean acidification: A tipping point at 450-ppm atmospheric CO2”
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2008/11/20/0806318105.full.pdf
Quoting the article:
“Natural seasonal variations in carbonate ion concentrations could either hasten or dampen the future onset of this undersaturation of calcium carbonate. We present a large-scale Southern Ocean observational analysis that examines the seasonal magnitude and variability of CO3 and pH. Our analysis shows an intense wintertime minimum in CO3 south of the Antarctic Polar Front and when combined with anthropogenic CO2 uptake is likely to induce aragonite undersaturation when atmospheric CO2 levels reach 450 ppm.”
So the tipping point is already passed in the Arctic Ocean and thanks to the strong seasonal variation in pH and carbonate chemistry the threshold for aragonite undesaturation in the Southern Ocean is signifiacntly lower than originally thought in the Antarctic Ocean.
Another skeptic argument that backfires …
From ” From Peru” on January 14, 2011 at 8:05 am:
Really? Looks like yours has backfired, and re-invokes my previous point. The atmospheric concentrations of CO2 shall continue to rise, whatever consequences shall befall the oceans shall happen. By reciting the mystical phrase “tipping point” commonly used by (C)AGW alarmists, you have summoned the specter of The Irreversible Doom, the Point That Must Not Be Passed, and you said it has been passed.
China knows that a mandatory carbon reduction scheme is an economic suicide pact, thus are highly reluctant to agree to one. The “solution” you have proposed to the US and other “developed nations,” and indicated as being echoed by China, often heard when suicide pacts are proposed, is “You first.”
Do you really want to claim the moral high ground? Then do what has been done throughout history, from the abolishment of slavery to the adoption of democracy, and lead by example. You first.
From ” From Peru” on January 13, 2011 at 10:53 pm:
You are attempting to pass off a mistake in understanding of a grade-school math concept as proof someone is wrong.
There are 100 trees in an orchard, 1 of them is an apple tree. Ten years later, there are still 100 trees in the orchard, but 2 of them are apple trees.
The change in concentration of apple trees in the orchard is 1%, it went from 1% of the orchard to 2% of the orchard.
The change in amount of apple trees in the orchard is 100%, there was 1 but later there were 2.
Smokey reported the change in concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. You reported the change in amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, and tried to use it as proof Smokey was wrong.
That might be an allowable trick in Climate Science™, but not in science or mathematics.
Hopefully you’ll do better with your next quiz on 3rd grade math.
Kadaka,
like so many on here you counter a discussion with emotive fear mongering with no sources to back up your points.
Please try and counter scientific points with…err…science?
Thankyou.
rushmike,
You must be on the wrong thread. Happens sometimes.
But if you’re actually trying to respond, you get a big fail. Kadaka made a clear explanation that you can’t seem to understand. Why would he need “sources” to explain the difference between a change in the concentration of a trace gas, and the change in the proportion of the trace gas in the entire atmosphere? Reading comprehension, me boy. You need some.
What Mr Peru doesn’t get is the scientific method, which states that those proposing a hypothesis such as CO2=CAGW have the burden of showing that their alternate hypothesis explains observations better than the long-accepted null hypothesis.
The null hypothesis has never been falsified, and Occam’s Razor says that we don’t need to add an extraneous variable like CO2 to explain natural variability; the simplest explanation is the best.
How many times does it need to be explained that scientific skeptics have nothing to prove. The alarmist crowd keeps trying to turn the scientific method on its head anyway, and insists that skeptics must prove a negative. If it were not for such logical failures, climate alarmists wouldn’t have any kind of an argument.
The planet itself falsifies the CAGW conjecture by not cooperating with climate model predictions. Natural climate variability – the null hypothesis – fully explains observations. There is no need to summon a “carbon” demon to explain natural climate fluctuations.