We’ve already had a “climate craziness of the week” so I’ll just file this bit of blather under another category. First, this article in The Independent, which aims to scare the children.
Now here’s the press release from the University of Bristol. Note the simplistic experiment, followed by broad disclaimers about it, emphasis mine.
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Ocean acidification leaves clownfish deaf to predators
Press release issued 1 June 2011
Baby clownfish use hearing to detect and avoid predator-rich coral reefs during the daytime, but new research from the University of Bristol demonstrates that ocean acidification could threaten this crucial behaviour within the next few decades.
Since the Industrial Revolution, over half of all the CO2 produced by burning fossil fuels has been absorbed by the ocean, making pH drop faster than any time in the last 650,000 years and resulting in ocean acidification. Recent studies have shown that this causes fish to lose their sense of smell, but a new study published today in Biology Letters shows that fish hearing is also compromised.
Working with Professor Philip Munday at James Cook University, lead author Dr Steve Simpson of the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Bristol reared larvae straight from hatching in different CO2 environments.
“We kept some of the baby clownfish in today’s conditions, bubbling in air, and then had three other treatments where we added extra CO2 based on the predictions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for 2050 and 2100,” Dr Simpson said.
After 17-20 days rearing, Dr Simpson monitored the response of his juvenile clownfish to the sounds of a predator-rich coral reef, consisting of noises produced by crustaceans and fish.
“We designed a totally new kind of experimental choice chamber that allowed us to play reef noise through an underwater speaker to fish in the lab, and watch how they responded,” Dr Simpson continued. “Fish reared in today’s conditions swam away from the predator noise, but those reared in the CO2 conditions of 2050 and 2100 showed no response.”
This study demonstrates that ocean acidification not only affects external sensory systems, but also those inside the body of the fish. The ears of fish are buried deep in the back of their heads, suggesting lowered pH conditions may have a profound impact on the entire functioning of the sensory system.
The ability of fish to adapt to rapidly changing conditions is not known. Dr Simpson said: “What we have done here is to put today’s fish in tomorrow’s environment, and the effects are potentially devastating. What we don’t know is whether, in the next few generations, fish can adapt and tolerate ocean acidification. This is a one-way experiment on a global scale, and predicting the outcomes and interactions is a major challenge for the scientific community.”
The work was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council UK (Simpson) and the Australian Research Council (Munday).
Paper
‘Ocean acidification erodes crucial auditory behaviour in a marine fish’ by Steve Simpson, Philip Munday, Matt Wittenrich, Rachel Manassa, Danielle Dixson, Monica Gagliano and Hong Yan in Biology Letters.
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Translation: “we put the fish in a significantly different water environment, and they reacted differently”. Anyone who has ever owned a freshwater or saltwater aquarium can tell you about what happens when you transfer fish from the water environment they are used to, to one they aren’t. pH shock and Osmotic shock often often result from the abrupt change. The key is abrupt change, whether embryo or adult, the fish are wired for a specific ocean environment, change that environment abruptly and the fish change too. What they’ve done here is take 40 years of gradual change and compress it to the here and now.
And I have to think, these guys chose the absolute worst fish for the experiment, because I’m betting they didn’t go out and get wild embryos, but rather took the easy path of tank raised clown fish embryos. From Wikipedia:
Clownfish are now reared in captivity by a handful of marine ornamental farms in the USA. Clownfish were the first species of Saltwater fish to successfully be Tank-raised. Tank-raised fish are a better choice for aquarist, because wild-caught fish are more likely to die soon after purchasing them due to the stress of capture and shipping. Also, tank-bred fish are usually more disease resistant and in general are less affected by stress when introduced to the aquarium. Captive bred clownfishes may not have the same instinctual behavior to live in an anemone. They may have to be coaxed into finding the anemone by the home aquarist. Even then, there is no guarantee that the anemone will host the clownfish.
The “may not have the same instinctual behavior to live in an anemone.” is troubling. It suggests that tank raised clownfish may not be “normal”. And of course when I backtrack to the source method (from the Simpson paper) for obtaining embryos (Munday et al, 2008, referenced in the current paper) I find this:
Clownfish were reared at James Cook University’s experimental aquarium facility where the pH of unmanipulated seawater was 8.15 ± 0.07. This is similar to the pH that pelagic larvae would experience during development in the open ocean (1).
James Cook University in Townsville QLD has direct access to the ocean, so it would seem right that they have direct access to “unmanipulated seawater”. Still, they were tank raised, and that’s a different environment than the ocean and their wild cousins.
Let’s have a look at the paper.
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Ocean acidification erodes crucial auditory behaviour in a marine fish
Abstract
Ocean acidification is predicted to affect marine ecosystems in many ways, including modification of fish behaviour. Previous studies have identified effects of CO2-enriched conditions on the sensory behaviour of fishes, including the loss of natural responses to odours resulting in ecologically deleterious decisions. Many fishes also rely on hearing for orientation, habitat selection, predator avoidance and communication. We used an auditory choice chamber to study the influence of CO2-enriched conditions on directional responses of juvenile clownfish (Amphiprion percula) to daytime reef noise. Rearing and test conditions were based on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predictions for the twenty-first century: current-day ambient, 600, 700 and 900 µatm pCO2. Juveniles from ambient CO2-conditions significantly avoided the reef noise, as expected, but this behaviour was absent in juveniles from CO2-enriched conditions. This study provides, to our knowledge, the first evidence that ocean acidification affects the auditory response of fishes, with potentially detrimental impacts on early survival.
- Received March 14, 2011.
- Accepted May 10, 2011.
- This Journal is © 2011 The Royal Society
Full paper here
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First, note the time-line; it was fast tracked. It went from submission to approval in two months. It seems that according to this journal statement, they go for “fast track science” as a matter of policy:
Articles submitted to Biology Letters benefit from its broad scope and readership, dedicated media promotion and we aim for a turnaround time of within 4 weeks to first decision.
Looks like a paper mill to me.
And, this may indicate the paper was chosen on something other than scientific merit, emphasis mine:
Selection Publishing Criteria
The criteria for acceptance are: scientific excellence, work of outstanding quality and international importance, originality and interest across disciplines within biology. To be acceptable for publication a paper should represent a significant advance in its field, rather than something incremental.
All manuscripts are assessed by a member of the Editorial Board, who advises the Handling Editor on the suitability of the manuscript for Biology Letters. Based on this, the Handling Editor decides whether the paper should be rejected or sent for full peer-review. Many good papers are rejected at this stage on the grounds that they are insufficiently novel, due to high competition for space.
So, “novelty” is primary acceptance criteria and peer review is on a 4 week fast track. Check.
It seems volume of peer review is celebrated at this journal. That’s something I’ve never seen before in any other journal.
What really seems to be missing from this clownfish experiment is a control experiment. For example, did they test the fish by putting them in water that represents the CO2/ ocean environment of 10-40 years ago? I seems they only tested for the future representing 600, 700 and 900 µatm pCO2. Here’s what they say about the method:
The CO2-conditions of our rearing and test environments were current-day ambient (∼390 µatm), and elevated-CO2 treatments (approx. 600, 700 and 900 µatm), consistent with the range of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predictions for CO2 concentrations at the end of the twenty-first century [2].
This is very important, because the paper assumes that only an increase of CO2 will change clownfish behavior. Did they test for decreasing CO2 levels and what the fish would do then? Apparently not, and that basic use of a control seemed to have escaped those high volume peer reviewers racing to meet the 4 week deadline.
By not testing for a decreased CO2 situation, they invalidate their own premise. And that’s on top of the fact that they aren’t using wild clownfish embryos and they are making abrupt changes in the water chemistry that generations of the fish have not experienced and doing it only in one direction, up.
This is high school science stuff guys. I wait for an explanation as to why you didn’t test for a decrease to CO2 and the resultant pH on clownfish embryos.
So I wonder, if we take 10 peer reviewers from the “wilds” of science, put them in a think tank, increase the ambient CO2 levels to more than double they are used to, and then tell them they have 4 weeks to review 100 papers, will they still produce good science?
Maybe they need more peer reviewers in that clown car to be sure.
These cute & colourful clownfish have been imbued with a public endearment by Hollywood. This is undoubtedly the main factor being played on to instil public reaction through the MSM (note the widespread reference to them as ‘Nemo’ fish).
While these cute little creatures might be near the bottom of the oceanic foodchain, what most of the victims of this emotional propaganda don’t seem to realise is they are at the bottom of another foodchain. As taxpayers they are the fodder being used to fund this sort of nonsense.
Floor Anthoni says:
June 4, 2011 at 5:52 pm
“3. There are highly questionable issues with their experiments:
a. Bubbling CO2 into tank water to increase acidity is fraught with side effects because it does not mimic a natural situation in time, calcium buffering and locally high concentrations. To their credit, they bubbled enriched air rather than pure CO2.”
I am not a chemist but i had this idea as well… Looks like the chemistry in their experiment is not even a realistic simulation of what would happen in a real ocean with atmospheric CO2 slowly rising over the next decades…
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
June 4, 2011 at 10:21 pm
REPLY As I said previously, I am quite unconcerned about anything to do with corals.
My concern is with photosynthesis, nothing else. Many of the phytoplankton that form the base of the food web incorporate calcium into their structure
Don’t give me this Paleozoic b.s., I could care less….
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Then you need to learn a little about corals….
Corals are active feeders on phytoplankton, zooplankton, etc.
In order for corals to have evolved in that period, that period also had to have had massive quantities of phytoplankton and zooplankton which incorporate calcium into their structure to support those corals.
Corals would not have evolved if conditions were not optimum and the main requirement for optimum is massive quantities of phytoplankton and zooplankton.
You say your are concerned with photosynthesis, and don’t seem to know that corals have a symbiotic zooxanthellae/dinofalgellate and also rely on photosynthesis. But corals can also support themselves on active feeding alone.
Now to bring your pay scale up to speed:
You have corals that evolved when CO2 levels were in the thousands, that rely on photosynthesis, and are active feeders on phytoplankton, zooplankton, which incorporate calcium into their structure to support those corals.
CRS, Dr.P.H. says: “It’s an amazing ecosystem.”
Yes it is, learn a little more about it……………..
Alan Wilkinson says:
June 4, 2011 at 7:54 pm (Edit)
“Even presuming the effect claimed is real, the authors apparently overlook that little-known biological mechanism called natural selection. Presuming that any acidification proceeds gradually across multiple generations of Nemo fish it is highly likely an adapted version will evolve.”
What he said.
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
June 4, 2011 at 2:14 pm
Sorry to disappoint anyone. For those who truly think CO2 is biologically innocuous, please keep in mind that we warning labels on dry-cleaning bags for a very good reason.
CO2 “toxicity” – not this again! Suffocation by placing a bag over one’s head is due to acute hypoxia/anoxia = low O2, not a more slowly developing CO2 toxicity – although perhaps if you supplied just enough O2 into the bag to fulfill O2 requirements for brain function, firstly, somehow removing only Nitrogen and not much accumulating CO2, yes, you’d die somewhat later from increased CO2 levels – maybe from direct CO2 respiratory suppression, which I think exists, or ultimately from severe acidosis via the formation in the body of carbonic acid, H2CO3, then H+ – very quickly and nearly completely from the CO2 + H2O reaction.
Without oxygen, most of your brain can die within a few minutes from destruction of the blood supply’s capillary membranes [walls] across which the brain must get O2, glucose, etc., regardless of CO2 concentration – except in the presence of a “dive reflex” usually accompanied by hypothermia in drownings, usually in children, which apparently severely decreases metabolic rate and thus the oxygen demand on the part of all living cells.
I’m sure that people that argue this…
“CO2 will make the oceans acidic, and effect everything that has evolved in the ocean”..
…do not mean to argue creation, but that is exactly what they are doing.
Clownfish evolved when CO2 levels were in the 1000’s ppm, had to smell and hear.
Reef building corals evolved when CO2 levels were in the 1000’s, and are the primary predator of plankton.
In order for elevated CO2 levels now to have these effects on fish and corals….
Fish would have had to evolve without hearing and smell. Would not have been able to find their way home.
Corals would have had to evolve to feed on a prey that won’t exist for millions of years.
That sort of foresight is creationism…….
So the people pushing this science that says elevated CO2 will cause plankton levels to go down, fish to go deaf and have no sense of smell, coral reefs will be destroyed…..
When all of those things evolved to fill a niche when CO2 levels were many times higher…
are not really saying what they want to say
Alvin says:
June 4, 2011 at 10:03 pm
It was all probably due to lab-techs tapping on the glass. They hate that, you know?
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You don’t know clown fish very well. Tap on the glass, and the little buggers are likely to come and look to see what all the noise is about. Clown fish tend to be very curious.
jorgekafkazar
June 4, 2011 at 11:52 pm
Well, there was no actual predator in the test, so it would appear that the increasing CO2 protocol improved the ability of the fish to maintain a rational response to their environment. Fish are not entirely stupid.
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… and Clown Fish are right at the top of the fishy intelligence scale.
BTW, I had a aquarium that I maintained A. melonopus in. During the summer the water temperature would reach 32 C!!! Fish did just fine. My anemones, on the other hand weren’t thrilled
Latitude says:
June 5, 2011 at 5:19 am
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
June 4, 2011 at 10:21 pm
REPLY As I said previously, I am quite unconcerned about anything to do with corals.
My concern is with photosynthesis, nothing else. Many of the phytoplankton that form the base of the food web incorporate calcium into their structure
Don’t give me this Paleozoic b.s., I could care less….
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Then you need to learn a little about corals….
———
REJOINDER
I know all I need to know about the importance of corals. Coral systems are essential as nurseries for the larger organisms of the food web, and they are important.
However, most of the oxygen we breathe is produced by the uppermost layers of the oceans, not by trees etc. The concept of the Amazon as the “lungs of the planet” misses the boat…the euphotic zone of the ocean surface is much more important to terrestrial life.
You won’t hear many in the climate-change community, if any, talk about the points I’m raising, they aren’t smart enough. I’ve worked for >25 years in mitigation of biomethane produced from CAFO and industrial treatment operations, and built some of the largest anaerobic treatment systems on the planet. I know my atmospheric chemistry very well.
Believe me, I have been confrontational about it, including a nice in-your-face session with John Holdren. The emphasis upon “catastrophic anthropogenic global warming” is very misplaced and damaging.
If we keep on this path, we had better get used to eating hot, steaming bowls of jellyfish. Fortunately, there is a solution to carbon dioxide mitigation that is evading everyone. My team in Urbana is confirming the dynamics, we are quite excited. Watch this space.
Sorry to disappoint, I’m an occasional lecturer in the UI medical school. You are wrong. Excess CO2 in the human body creates a condition called “hypercapnia,” and it is a serious medical condition that can be fatal:
http://www.anaesthesiamcq.com/AcidBaseBook/ab4_4.php
Carbon dioxide is essential to life, it is a macronutrient (“plant food” if you will, although that is a misnomer) and is generally innocuous in nature. However, it forms carbonic acid in any aqueous system, and this effect is most profound at the gas/liquid interface. Hence the problem with oceanic acidification (that is the proper terminology by the way, although no one uses it).
As for Nemo going deaf, I could care less. Darwin proved how that thing works out, so the more adaptable clownfish will do just fine until the food web collapses, at which point the jellies will have a feast.
Thanks, Goeff, I liked your informative pH vs depth plot. It makes sense that pH should change with depth in the oceans, but I didn’t realize how much it changed.
Thanks also for the Wiki pH link. I read through that, and it seems to me, chemist-to-chemist here, that the various oceanic pH scales they mention are conflating pH with what is conventionally called total acidity. That is, one classically measures pH as the emf of dissolved [H+] across the electrode glass membrane. But, of course, actually titrating total acidity as HSO4(-), etc., gives a very different total [H+] than one calculates from pH alone. So, the pHT, and other scales, are just pH with some element of total acidity tacked on. Mixing it with other acid equilibria seems to unnecessarily confuse the thermodynamic concept of pH.
If you don’t mind a further observation, the hoopla about this clown fish paper is emblematic of the serious pathology that infects all of climate science, relative to the more modest disciplines. My experience in chemistry, as I’m sure you also know well, is that a fair amount of poor science gets published. After a while one learns to recognize what is poor science and what is not.
Good science continues to be useful long past its publication date. I’ve accessed synthetic methods, for example, dating almost to the beginning of the 20th century. Darwin’s “Origin” still offers relevant ideas. There are endless examples of good science remaining very useful for long times. The poor science fades away quickly and unremarked as it migrates into past literature.
The problem in today’s climate science is that poor science playing into the AGW scare gets picked up by news organizations and NGO publicity offices, and touted uncritically as a strong result. The clown fish study is an object example. AGW-interested scientists uncritically give this poor science respect it doesn’t deserve, because it supports a story they think is true. In climate science, bad science doesn’t encounter the silence it deserves and doesn’t die the quick natural death that would be its fate in other fields. I’d call it HeLa science, but Henrietta Lacks deserves a better association.
The really awful thing is that so many scientists in other fields do not apply the same critical judgment to climate science that they do to the science in their own fields. So, their credulity lends a trans-disciplinary credibility to poor quality climate science, and then reporters — who really haven’t a clue — take that as proof that the poor science is good science. And on it goes, the AGW merry-go-round.
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
June 5, 2011 at 1:58 pm
As for Nemo going deaf, I could care less. Darwin proved how that thing works out, so the more adaptable clownfish will do just fine until the food web collapses, at which point the jellies will have a feast.
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Let me remind you of what you have stated………………………
“Acidification from the production of carbonic acid due to atmospheric deposition of fossil carbon dioxide is, it appears, a valid environmental concern.”
“However, most of the oxygen we breathe is produced by the uppermost layers of the oceans, not by trees etc.”
“Don’t give me this Paleozoic b.s., I could care less…..the ecosystem was totally different then.”
“If we lose the photosynthesis in this layer, we are in a world of hurt, and I find the best studies of this phenomena to be quite compelling and convincing. We are already seeing inhibition of calcifying phytoplankton and other organisms which make up the base of the food web in the ocean. ”
and remind you what I stated:
Both clownfish and corals (scleractinia) evolved when CO2 levels were in the thousands ppm. Their food web did not crash, photosynthesis was not lost, calcification was not inhibited, and the only thing different in the ‘ecosystem’ was elevated CO2 levels in the thousands ppm.
Why will elevated CO2 levels make ocean acidification now, when it did not do it millions of years ago when CO2 levels were thousands ppm?
…and if you truly believe this ocean acidification BS, then you have to believe that these animals evolved during optimum conditions for them to evolve, and ocean acidification would be beneficial for them
@Latitude says:
June 5, 2011 at 3:26 pm
Not true. Civilization was not present, intensive agriculture was not present, production of complex industrial hydrocarbons and persistent organic pollutants were not present, etc. It is the sum of carbon dioxide plus pollution that is driving this thing to dangerous territory. Trust me, nobody at all is discussing this….not the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, not the East Anglia CRU Hockey Team, nobody.
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
June 5, 2011 at 4:15 pm
It is the sum of carbon dioxide plus pollution that is driving this thing to dangerous territory.
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Oh, you think you’ve found a new angle……
You think CO2 is synergistic in concert with other pollutants.
You might want to look at the latest wastes of money/studies showing that plankton levels are going down/going up, coral reefs are dying/recovering, fisheries are dying/rebounding, etc etc
If you think no one has looked at this you are not looking in the right places.
As far as CO2, it will not make the oceans lower the pH.
It never has and it never will.
That’s a none starter……….
@Latitude says:
June 5, 2011 at 4:33 pm
—-
This is real, verifiable science that can be studied, Latitude, vs. the model & mirrors stuff of the Hockey Team.
And, yes, carbon dioxide does decrease the ocean’s pH, particularly at the water/atmosphere interface which is also where the primary photosynthesis occurs.
Nobody in the field I am aware of is as focused upon that particular scientific aspect as I am.
Regarding your comment “Oh, you think you’ve found a new angle……
You think CO2 is synergistic in concert with other pollutants.”
That is exactly correct, you read about it first on WUWT. Even the Scripps Institution guys haven’t come to that conclusion yet.
Latitude says:
June 5, 2011 at 3:26 pm
“Both clownfish and corals (scleractinia) evolved when CO2 levels were in the thousands ppm. ”
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Amphiprioninae evolved during the eocene, they are completely modern.
“Since the Industrial Revolution, over half of all the CO2 produced by burning fossil fuels has been absorbed by the ocean”. Even if this were true (e.g. and not absorbed partly by the Siberian taiga forests) then it would amount to a whopping 0.4 grammes per square cm of the Earth’s surface. And 98% of this would have been absorbed, just as Oxygen is being absorded in seawater, onle 2% goes in the ionic phase, H2CO3 is a very weak acid. Take a depth of 10 meters for the waters that little Nemo lives in (an underestimate I daresay) and thus we have 0.4 grammes CO2 per 1 kilo water added. Given that seawater is full of salts that buffer the PH one can safely state: you wouldn’t note the difference. Nor would Nemo.
No CRS, I said you “think” you’ve found a new angle. I did not mean to imply that you really had.
So even though it is obvious that there was plenty of plankton when CO2 levels were in thousands ppm, animals that had to rely on that plankton to survive – evolved when CO2 levels were in the thousands ppm, and obviously the oceans were not so “acid” that it had any effect on them at all…..
…you still refuse to see it
Desert, you are exactly right.
How do tank raised clownfish know what predators sound like, and that they should do something to avoid them? Is this instinctive? If tank-raised clownfish have to be coaxed into living in an anemone (a predator-avoidance adaptation) then how do the researchers know that the “present-air” clownfish were actually swimming away from the predator noise and not exhibitting some other behavior?
I listened to the “predator” sound file (just curious). To me it just sounded like sitting in front of a fish tank while eating pop-rocks, in which case, increased CO2 impares my hearing, too.
Elevated CO2 Enhances Otolith Growth in Young Fish
A large fraction of the carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere by human activity enters the sea, causing ocean acidification. We show that otoliths (aragonite ear bones) of young fish grown under high CO2 (low pH) conditions are larger than normal, contrary to expectation. We hypothesize that CO2 moves freely through the epithelium around the otoliths in young fish, accelerating otolith growth while the local pH is controlled. This is the converse of the effect commonly reported for structural biominerals.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/324/5935/1683.abstract
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Anyone else see a total disconnect………..
Animals that use calcium do it by regulating their pH internally.
Coral, plankton, etc
At a lower pH, they don’t have to work as hard.
As a Townsville resident I can tell you that JCU does not have direct access to seawater as the campus is in the suburb of Douglas, several kilometers from the coastline. The university trucks its seawater in from a seawater reservoir system located at the Australian Insitute of Marine Science at Cape Ferguson which pumps seawater in from intakes from a beach based pumping station, some 50 kilometers away from Townsville. The authors of the study may have used artifical seawater for the experiments but in any case the seawater source is unlikely to have a significant influence on the experimental results. However, the dosing of seawater in a plastic, glass (or whatever) tank, without the associated biological benthos, is not a true reflection of seawater in the future with increased dissolved CO2. Biological buffering in the coastal zone overwhelms any effect of dissolved carbon dioxide into seawater from the atmosphere:water interface. Bubbling of a CO2 enriched air mixture into ‘pure’ seawater will indeed cause pH shifts just as it would if bubbled into biological saline. In human blood, essentially biological saline (serum or plasma) plus blood cells, is buffered by various biological buffers and hence stabilised pH changes. The same will happen in coastal seawater. It is unlikely that coastal seawater pH will change, as unlike ‘blue’ oceanic water (largely devoid of biological activity), as it will not respond in the same way as unbuffered seawater. Sure to have some sort of impact but it will be buffered by all the biodiversity (from microbes to macrobes) within the water column and benthos.
Just some quick questions and observation:
(1) Doesn’t the surface ocean layer become more “acidic” every time it rains?
(2) How do these fish survive the massive rainfall associated with hurricanes and tropical storms?
As anyone has (successfully) kept salt water fish should know, the pH of the water is buffered by the Calcium carbonate in the sand. It takes a lot to get the water’s pH to change.
–CRS, DrPH.
Dr. PH, we do put warning labels on dry-cleaning bags for a very good reason – to keep children from dying from lack of oxygen.
I’m sorry to disappoint you, but if you truly believe that the warning on dry cleaning bags is for CO2, I would have to question in which discipline you got your PhD … and why you are straying so far from that discipline now.
You go on to say:
I looked at the publication. I couldn’t find a single study showing the CO2 in the ocean was increasing. It was, to quote myself, “Models all the way down”. How is a “study” that doesn’t study anything but models an “excellent publication”? The only actual data I could find cited in the paper is a study on phytoplankton blooms … which is interesting, but even they admit it has nothing to do with CO2.
Yes, the effect of losing photosynthesis would be very bad … but since you haven’t provided a single citation that shows a) photosynthesis is decreasing or that b) CO2 is the culprit, I fear that your claims don’t match up well with the real world … and such alarmist fantasies don’t fare well here. You make the claim that “The combination of carbonic acid buildup with fertilizer runoff, air pollution deposition and other toxic influences seems to be having a measurable impact …”, which is nicely expressed, but without citations, “seems to be having a measurable impact” is meaningless. If it is indeed measurable … then where are the measurements?
While I respect the speed at which you are able to wildly fling uncited claims into the air, I fear that here on this blog we like to see, you know … evidence. Facts. Observations. Hard data. We’re not much impressed here (as you seem to be) by computer models. Sure, they are useful … but folks like you keep mistaking them for evidence of something other than the programmer’s beliefs.
So if you have two citations for this inhibition actually occurring in the ocean (one for the “inhibition of calcifying phytoplankton”, and at least one for the inhibition of “other organisms”), then please let us know what the heck you are basing your claims on.
But don’t bother us with model calculations and aquarium tests. They are interesting, but they are not evidence of anything. If there is something actually happening in the ocean as you claim, SHOW US THE DATA. Point to where in the ocean it is happening, show us the before and after measurements. Give us the raw data, and discuss how it was analyzed.
Because here on WUWT, anything less than that will just be treated as your personal claim … and while some folks here might get away with that because of their demonstrated expertise, with your personal claim about CO2 and dry-cleaning bags already shown to be nonsense, your other personal claims aren’t carrying much weight these days.
w.
Dr. PH, here is a claim from the “excellent publication” you cited above:
Whoa, scary … until you look at the facts:
1. According to the “excellent publication” itself, currently, the current ocean surface pH ranges from a high of about 8.3 to a low of about 7.9, a variation in pH of about 0.4 units … and oceanic organisms live very happily at all of those ranges.
2. The Ph of the input waters at the Monterrey Bay Aquarium varies by half a Ph point, the amount of the feared increase, in the space of a month or two. So their feared predicted rate of change (half a pH point in a couple of centuries) occurs in Monterrey Bay within a couple of months.
3. If that speed of change is not enough for you, this study shows that (because coral reefs produce CO2) the pH over the reef that they studied changes a full pH unit (from 8.8 to 7.8) in the course of 12 hours. The speed of the change (12 hours), the size of the change (one full pH unit) and the extreme values of the pH at both ends of the swing (8.8 and 7.8) should cause huge problems for the reef organism … if your theories about the deleterious effects of pH on oceanic organisms were true.
But I guess the creatures that live happily on the reef, with the pH bouncing up and down like a yo-yo, must not have read the same computer studies that the authors of your “excellent reference” find so convincing.
Finally, the true description for a lowering of the oceanic pH is not “acidification”, it is “de-caustification”. As someone elegantly pointed out above, the ocean becoming less caustic (that is to say becoming more neutral) is not likely to be a problem, whereas if it becomes more caustic that could be a problem. If it goes up a point, it’s becoming more like lye, which dissolves flesh. If it becomes more neutral, on the other hand …
w.
PS – Will the species in the oceans have to adapt if pH changes? Sure. Will they successfully adapt to changing pH? Well, since most of them do so on a daily, monthly, annual, and millennial basis, and have done so through paleo-gyrations of the oceanic pCO2 levels, I suspect they do just fine … as Mark Twain didn’t say, “The accounts of the ocean’s death have been greatly exaggerated” …