That comes from this statement in the press release:
Professor Kennedy said that the doubling of the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere over the past 50 years is “like hitting our ecosystem with a sledge-hammer”
Hmmm, you’d think they could get the basic math right. From ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_mm_mlo.txt
Today’s seasonally corrected Mauna Loa CO2 April 2011 = 390.49 ppm
The seasonally corrected Mauna Loa CO2 value 50 years ago , April 1961 = 317.27 ppm
317.27 x 2 (a doubling over 50 years) = 634.54 ppm Seems the claim for doubling over 50 years is 244.05 ppm short. Perhaps he meant a ball peen hammer.
Greenhouse ocean study offers warning for future
The mass extinction of marine life in our oceans during prehistoric times is a warning that the same could happen again due to high levels of greenhouse gases, according to new research.
Professor Martin Kennedy from the University of Adelaide (School of Earth & Environmental Sciences) and Professor Thomas Wagner from Newcastle University, UK, (Civil Engineering and Geosciences) have been studying ‘greenhouse oceans’ – those that have been depleted of oxygen, suffering increases in carbon dioxide and temperature.
Using core samples drilled from the ocean bed off the coast of western Africa, the geologists studied layers of sediment from the Late Cretaceous Period (85 million years ago) across a 400,000-year timespan. They found a significant amount of organic material – marine life – buried within deoxygenated layers of the sediment.
Professor Wagner says the results of their research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), has relevance for our modern world: “We know that ‘dead zones’ are rapidly growing in size and number in seas and oceans across the globe,” he said. “These are areas of water that are lacking in oxygen and are suffering from increases of CO2, rising temperatures, nutrient run-off from agriculture and other factors.”
Their research points to a mass mortality in the oceans at a time when the Earth was going through a greenhouse effect. High levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and rising temperatures led to a severe lack of oxygen (hypoxia) in the water that marine animals depend upon.
“What’s alarming to us as scientists is that there were only very slight natural changes that resulted in the onset of hypoxia in the deep ocean,” said Professor Kennedy. “This occurred relatively rapidly – in periods of hundreds of years, or possibly even less – not gradually over longer, geological time scales, suggesting that the Earth’s oceans are in a much more delicate balance during greenhouse conditions than originally thought, and may respond in a more abrupt fashion to even subtle changes in temperature and CO2 levels.”
Professor Kennedy said that the doubling of the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere over the past 50 years is “like hitting our ecosystem with a sledge-hammer” compared to the very small changes in incoming solar energy (radiation) which was capable of triggering these events in the past.
“This could have a catastrophic, profound impact on the sustainability of life in our oceans, which in turn is likely to impact on the sustainability of life for many land-based species, including humankind,” he added.
However, the geological record offers a glimmer of hope thanks to a naturally occurring response to greenhouse conditions. After a hypoxic phase, oxygen concentration in the ocean seems to improve, and marine life returns.
This research has shown that natural processes of carbon burial kick in and the land comes to the rescue, with soil-formed minerals collecting and burying excess dissolved organic matter in seawater. Burial of the excess carbon ultimately contributes to CO2 removal from the atmosphere, cooling the planet and the ocean.
“This is nature’s solution to the greenhouse effect and it could offer a possible solution for us,” said Professor Wagner. “If we are able to learn more about this effect and its feedbacks, we may be able to manage it, and reduce the present rate of warming threatening our oceans.”
If you are an Academy member or have an Academy “sponsor”, PNAS papers aren’t really peer reviewed. Suggestions are passed on to the author, with no need to heed.
If you don’t think the National Academy is a joke on climate science, you will if you read their just-released “America’s Climate Choices”, as NAS has succeeded in removing “science” from “climate”, and, sadly, their “Proceedings” often does the same
“If we are able to learn more about this effect and its feedbacks, we may be able to manage it
They want to manage it. What they really mean is that they want to micromanage Life on Earth. When they fail, it will still be all your fault, irregardless of whether they knew what they were doing… which is highly doubtful.
Sledge hammer, and the ring-the-bell carnival game gave me a great idea:
Whack-a-warmer.
Kind of like Whack-a-mole, but with cuddly figurines of Al Gore, James Hansen, etc., who pop out of their hole with some new panic attack global warming alarmism tidbit, and then the so-called “deniers” whack them before they hide back in their hole.
;>P
Gee, with that kind of mathematical ability he qualifies as a Journalist.
Guess arithmetic is not part of modern Climate Science Data Changing.
From the article:
“These are areas of water that are lacking in oxygen and are suffering from increases of CO2, rising temperatures, nutrient run-off from agriculture and other factors.”
and then:
…….and may respond in a more abrupt fashion to even subtle changes in temperature and CO2 levels.”
It doesn’t matter the topic, the mantra must be included and adhered to, except which one comes first? uh ohhhhh…….. and the whole we can manage it line? Why don’t learn to manage tornadoes, how about hurricanes? those are more localized events, they should be much easier to manage, right?
One thing I don’t see mentioned is what effect do underwater volcanoes have on CO2 in the oceans? I doubt we even have a clue on not only how many there are, and I’ve seen reports that esimate 5000 worldwide, but how much CO2 and Methane is being emitted? There is so much we don’t know, I’d like to see a model that takes every possible piece of the climate puzzle and address them. Oh wait…. we just dismiss those we don’t understand and say they don’t matter. All roads lead to CO2, how convienant.
We are now being engulfed by a tsunami of rubbish alarmist papers that have been under preparation over the last few years in “justification” for the lavish funding they’ve been getting. It’s not over by any means but unlike a non-metaphorical tsunami we can just laugh it off. What else is there to do?
“Actually, a sledge hammer is very small and light compared to the massiveness of the ecosystem. Metaphor fail.”
Hold on, let’s not let a perfectly good metaphor get discarded without thinking it through to full absurdity…
They’re saying we’re doing just as much damage to the ecosystem as a crazed lunatic running around an open field, swinging a sledgehammer over his head, attempting to bash individual O2 molecules.
Metaphor, unintentionally, dead-on accurate. 🙂
James Schrumpf says:
May 17, 2011 at 9:49 am
Could someone explain why Mauna Loa is . . .
James,
Here is a post with many comments that might be helpful, or not!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/04/under-the-volcano-over-the-volcano/
“We know that ‘dead zones’ are rapidly growing in size and number in seas and oceans across the globe,”
No they don’t!
Like Norman Myers and his “40,000 species a year becoming extinct,” they just make it up.
This is OT, but important. The following site http://enenews.com/ keeps track of news as they appear (mostly from Japanese news sources) about the nuclear plant. Scrolling down through just a few pages of its most recent headlines is not a reassuring experience. This is turning into a big, chronic disaster with no end in sight, and it’s by no means limited to Japan. Why has this all but disappeared from the news elsewhere?
Not only the Deccan Traps (30,000 year eruption event), but the Chicxulub meteorite impact — as even a simple Wikipedia search will find. The end of the Cretaceous was a nasty time for life on earth, and not because of CO2 — if anything, CO2 was up because of the Deccan and Chicxulub events.
“These are areas of water that are lacking in oxygen and are suffering from increases of CO2, rising temperatures, nutrient run-off from agriculture and other factors.”
Does oxygen out-gas at a similar rate to CO2 or is it faster or slower? I can’t find a definitive answer.
I think Kennedy and Wagner should stick to what they do best…………. getting assassinated and composing music !!
Do you really think its reasonable to base your assessment on one measurement in one location? I’m sure Professor Kennedy was using data from the thousands of sites located all over the world.
Peter in MD says:
“…what effect do underwater volcanoes have on CO2 in the oceans? I doubt we even have a clue on not only how many there are, and I’ve seen reports that esimate 5000 worldwide…”
The total number of undersea volcanoes may be in the millions.
As I read them, they’ve got it back to front and are seeing a blossoming of Life on Earth at that time and not at all the disaster they’re painting it to be.
What sort of organic matter – animal or vegetable – but even then it doesn’t matter.
I suggest that there was a massive profusion of plant growth, (presumably the animals would have liked that too) caused by the extra CO2 and warmth. The more there was alive, the more would die and sink to the bottom. Water circulates very slowly at depth so all the extra dead stuff would soon strip whatever oxygen there is down there. That’s what happens isn’t it, decaying ‘stuff’ burns oxygen and when the oxygen runs out, it becomes preserved, eg as coal, oil, gas or whatever these jokers have dug up.
The lack of oxygen is what allowed them to find anything in the first place and not the reason it came to be there, leave it another 80 million years and they’d have struck oil. They are witnessing a flowering of life on earth and cannot see it.
Clowns, the lot of them.
“Ed Caryl says:
May 17, 2011 at 9:09 am
This passed peer review????”
yah – everybody peed on it.
China is having problems with exploding Watermelons:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13421374
I sure someone will link this excessively fast growth to CO2 & global warming.
Getting off topic a bit, between the listening devices on submarines traveling world wide and systems like SOSUS http://www.navy.mil/navydata/cno/n87/usw/issue_25/sosus.htm
should there not be some idea on the number of underwater volcanoes if this information can be accessed?
So let me get this right, a 0.1% variation in the solar TSI is totaly insignificant, but a 0.01% variation in the atmospheric content (100 ppm) is hitting the ecosystem over the head with a sledgehammer.
Re Mauna Loa as a CO2 measuring site.
Mauna Loa is used because that is where such measurement began. Initially as a hobby by Charles Keeling. But the record is the longest. It is a good situs, even if within 15 miles of an active volcano, Kilauea Iki. However being upwind, the effect is minimal, and when the wind shifts, the volcanic CO2 is easily detected. Mauna Loa, as was determined early, is ideal. It is far from urban influence, is high enough to get lower atmospheric readings of pure atmosphere, such as it is.
There are of course now other sites. Ironically, some also close to volcanoes. But the readings are uncontradicted: the measures from Mauna Loa are pure accurate data and CO2 is indeed increasing.
It lends lends itself for the measure of other atmospheric components, both natural and introduced and began the trend of high astronomical observatories serving as climate science sites.
“Greenhouse Oceans”
Interesting new term.
Is this a new term from the marketing and branding departments of the CAGW movement that they are going to use?
There is a long list of Orwellian doublespeak they use in their propaganda already such as climate deniers, carbon pollutions, climate disruptions, greenhouse pollutions, acidification of the oceans and carbon footprint, which all are misleading.
I wonder how a greenhouse ocean looks like?
Is it an ocean with accelerate warming?
Really, that is all you can come up with.
The only thing you can do to defame their conclusions is comment on the mistaken writing of some shoddy journalist about a doubling.
Clutching at straws
Scientific standards corrected for the emancipation of the numerically challenged.
….I think it was a “Sludge-hammer”, actually. More mismatched volumetrics too, I’m sure.