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.
Oh, yeah, one more thing. From the Nemo paper:
The “next few generations”??? How long does this clown think that a clownfish “generation” takes? The answer is as short as six months but usually about a year and a half. (Curiously, they’re all born males and in any group, one and only one subsequently changes to a female. If that female dies, another male makes the switch to female … and no, I don’t know how a given fish gets chosen for either the sacrifice or the honor of switching sexes depending on your point of view … “rock, seaweed, scissors”?)
Now, the “Nemo” authors fear the dread reduction in causticity will occur over the next two centuries … which is on the order of 120 clownfish generations. That should be enough time for some serious adaptation/evolution to take place …
w.
Thanks Willis (thumbsup)
@Willis Eschenbach says:
June 6, 2011 at 11:40 am
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Thank you, Willis. I’ve long admired your articles.
However, my own area of expertise is in biology, and the rate of increase of carbon dioxide buildup is unprecedented. That, plus the presence of ever-increasing atmospheric deposition of some very novel pollutants (persistent organic pollutants, or POP) are historically unprecedented.
Unlike warming, which is nicely counteracted by your elegant “thermostat” theory, the impact of carbon dioxide acidification upon the upper 10 meters of the ocean surface (“euphotic zone”) is of great concern to me.
Acidists (or “asses” as I call them) immediately jump onto the bandwagon of Deaf Nemo, dissolving corals, and losses of abelone and other tasty sea-creatures, and the impacts these have on commerce (usually measured in the measly billions).
However, if I am correct, we are screwin’ with something we shouldn’t be screwin’ with. Just thought I’d warn y’all now. As goeth the coccolithotrophes & pteropods, so goeth the rest of the stuff including tuna, whales, krill, not to mention primary oxygen production for the globe.
I’m serious, trust me.
@Willis Eschenbach says:
June 6, 2011 at 11:40 am
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.
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REPLY *ahem* Not a PhD (piled high & deep), but the Doctor of Public Health degree, which is the public health equivalent of the M.D.
And, I’m not straying in the least. My training is in environmental science and toxicology, as well as infectious disease epidemiology, environmental microbiology and other pertinent areas. I’ve served as Senior Environmental Scientist for the Gas Technology Institute & consult to the natural gas and oil industries as well as food, water and others. My hobbies include studying biological warfare and pandemic disease agents (and heavy metal guitar).
I hate to disappoint everyone, but the burning of fossil fuels is not without penalty. We have the usual stuff such as particulates and heavy metals, particularly from coal. Natural gas, which is my preferred fuel, is far cleaner, but all fossils produce excess carbon dioxide & the rate of buildup (not the actual concentration at any given point of time) is unprecedented.
Unlike so-called Hockey Team “climate models,” the impact of acidification can be directly studied and compared historically. Coccolithophores in the past were able to keep up with very high atmospheric carbon dioxide levels by producing more calcium carbon plates, which is where chalk comes from. Very elegant.
However, we are facing a double-whammy of carbon dioxide toxicity coupled with toxic influences from fertilizer runoff, atmospheric deposition and other influences. These are measurable and quite concerning to me.
Warming? Bah. We’ll be dead long before then. However, the oceanic food web is already showing distress, and the rapid and ongoing industrialization of China, India and other upcoming tigers will cement the process. Sorry to disappoint, but there are costs to everything, the second law of thermodynamics guarantees it.
CRS, you are overlooking carbonates/buffers.
In order for acidification to work, carbonates would become limiting.
That has never happened, even when CO2 was in the thousands.
There’s something that would be extremely obvious if it did, denitrification would have stopped. If that had happened, everything in the oceans would have died.
As it is, even when CO2 levels were ~4000 ppm, everything in the oceans went on about their business.
You might be on to something with your other pollutants, but you are way off base with CO2.
Unlike so-called Hockey Team “climate models,” the impact of acidification can be directly studied and compared historically. Coccolithophores in the past were able to keep up with very high atmospheric carbon dioxide levels by producing more calcium carbon plates, which is where chalk comes from. Very elegant.
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CRS, I’m not riding you, please take this as trying to be helpful.
I know you’re interested and studying these things.
Coccolithophores calcium carbon plates are called coccoliths. They are one part calcium and one part carbon. The plant part of the Coccolithophore makes the carbon from atmospheric CO2. They didn’t “keep up” with high atmospheric CO2, they reacted to it by growing bigger, stronger, faster. Carbon was limiting.
You are contradicting yourself.
You can’t have acidification at the same time you have their exposed plates, coccoliths, getting bigger.
Many, many excellent posts thankyou to all who have participated. I have learnt very much reading them all.
One thing that i dont think was covered, did they study the predator fish under increased CO2? Is it possible by some miracle CO2 will reduce there hunger for Nemo and thus that cute and cuddly talking fish can live long enough to make a sequal?
If you wish to get into the chemistry of these things, you have to go a couple of stages deeper in complexity than this equilibrium diagram shows.
http://www.geoffstuff.com/equil.jpg (from http://www.chem1.com/acad/pdf/c3carb.pdfhttp://www.chem1.com/acad/pdf/c3carb.pdf )
In particular, the inputs and outputs of marine biota need to be assessed for their effect (if any) on the diagram.
As Pat Frank (Chemist) notes indirectly, the chemistry of natural systems tends to be more complex than test tube chemistry. IIRC, someone like Nick Stokes stated a year ago that oceanic water pH is not measured by electrode or titration so much as from a reconstruction of points in this diagram. Concepts like total ionic strength, the difference between activity and concentration, buffering – not all of them intuitive – can be overlooked.
@Latitude says:
June 6, 2011 at 7:15 pm
Unlike so-called Hockey Team “climate models,” the impact of acidification can be directly studied and compared historically. Coccolithophores in the past were able to keep up with very high atmospheric carbon dioxide levels by producing more calcium carbon plates, which is where chalk comes from. Very elegant.
===================================================
CRS, I’m not riding you, please take this as trying to be helpful.
I know you’re interested and studying these things.
Coccolithophores calcium carbon plates are called coccoliths. They are one part calcium and one part carbon. The plant part of the Coccolithophore makes the carbon from atmospheric CO2. They didn’t “keep up” with high atmospheric CO2, they reacted to it by growing bigger, stronger, faster. Carbon was limiting.
You are contradicting yourself.
You can’t have acidification at the same time you have their exposed plates, coccoliths, getting bigger.
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REPLY Much obliged, Latitude, and no offense taken! I’m familiar with the structure & purpose of the coccolith structures, which serve several purposes including (a) protection to the coccolithophores from predation, (b) shielding of the organism from UV, (c) helping the organism to maintain balance in the water etc.
The problem is one straight out of the toxicology books, except that I’m substituting the uppermost layer of the ocean (euphotic zone) for human skin. If we get scalded, our epidermis and underlying dermis is damaged, but not our lungs/liver/skeletal structure etc.
Similarly, the effects of acidification will be most profound at the surface of the ocean. The formation of carbonic acid will therefore be most inhibiting to the organisms inhabiting this zone, including algae such as coccolithophores, pelagic species such as pteropods and the like. As these bugs are the base of the food chain, responsible for the all-important “carbon pump” that removes carbon dioxide and allows it to settle into the deep ocean, and are the source of something like 75-90% of the planet’s oxygen, I take this very seriously.
I could care less about Nemo, global warming, corals etc. You won’t find anyone else talking this way if you look. Ocean acidification isn’t the “evil twin” of climate change, it is, in fact, the only problem worthy of discussion.
Regardless of the merits of the discussion about acidification, a radio ad (they call it interview, I’m sure) today was all about Nat’l Geo partnering with Pottery Barn Kids in an effort to what? Save the ocean or something. If I were a member of the target audience – 12 and under, I suppose – what I would have gotten out of it would have been a PR-friendly AGW message with just enough ‘scientific’ lingo weighted with the imprimatur of NG to give it some heft . Incorporated with merchandise. Get ’em while they’re young.
http://kidscreen.com/2011/04/14/pottery-barn-kids-gets-worldly-with-national-geographic/
http://www.potterybarnkids.com/customer-service/store-events.html
@RosalindJ says:
June 7, 2011 at 6:44 pm
Regardless of the merits of the discussion about acidification, a radio ad (they call it interview, I’m sure) today was all about Nat’l Geo partnering with Pottery Barn Kids in an effort to what? Save the ocean or something. If I were a member of the target audience – 12 and under, I suppose – what I would have gotten out of it would have been a PR-friendly AGW message with just enough ‘scientific’ lingo weighted with the imprimatur of NG to give it some heft . Incorporated with merchandise. Get ‘em while they’re young.
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REPLY Exactly! That’s why I call most of the pro-acidification crowd “asses.”
As with the CAGW group, they take an issue that might be a concern, pump it all up with hysteria, and then shriek like banshees to our kids, politicians and press.
There is a kernel of truth to all of this, including warming (I’m firmly in the Richard Lindzen camp on that issue, i.e. yeah, warming, but not much & not worth worrying about). The acidification concept is valid, but of course, they immediately move into panic-zone, mostly to gain attention & stimulate funding.
For those interested in my approach to the problem, take the Toxicology Tutor lessons here. I highly recommend that you review these, it is one of the most fascinating branches of environmental medicine.
http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/enviro/toxtutor.html
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
June 6, 2011 at 4:35 pm (Edit)
Dr. CPS, thanks for your gracious replies.
Unfortunately, they have contained no more facts than your previous claims. Let me repeat what I said before:
In response to that, you have returned with … well … umm … nothing but more uncited claims.
I do think that you are an honest man who is honestly concerned about a possible slight decrease in the causticity of the ocean. I have provided citations showing that both the size and the speed of your feared decrease in pH occurs naturally all the time in the ocean. In response, you have provided … well … nothing.
I hate to be blunt, but so far you’re just words, words about fear. You obviously stock a good line of products designed for sale in the “I’m so concerned” market. Well, perhaps we should be concerned, but since to date you’ve come up with … well … nothing in support of your alarmism, I’m sure that you can see why we might be reluctant to sign on to your “let’s get concerned” point of view.
w.
Willis, thank you. You’ve not apparently read my posts in their entirety. I am emphasizing that, given the reaction of carbon dioxide in seawater to form carbonic acid, there is a risk of acidification in the photic zone of the ocean from atmospheric carbon dioxide. In the epidemiological sense, risk is defined as . This is simple chemistry. The reaction happens, and the only variables are mass of carbon dioxide, rate of accumulation, and speed of removal of carbonic acid via carbonate production and settling (so-called “carbon pump.”)
I’m not finding data on this specifically because it does not appear to be a topic that has received much emphasis by the climate community. Those scientists (I use the term loosely) are driven by an agenda, I’m driven purely by risk management and analysis of what I perceive to be an environmental problem. In statistics and mathematical epidemiology, relative risk (RR) is the risk of an event (or of developing a disease) relative to exposure. Therefore, as exposure of the photic zone to carbon dioxide increases, the risk of acidification and biological inhibition similarly increases.
I often hear the old saw that “carbon dioxide is such a trace gas in the atmosphere that it can’t be having any harmful effects.” At its present concentration of 390 ppm in the atmosphere, the concentration of carbon dioxide in air is comparable to the concentration of organic carbon in raw sewage. 390 ppm is not a “trace amount” by any means.
Here’s an analogy: Unbridled release of sulfur dioxide from power plants caused tremendous problems with “acid rain” back in the 1960’s and 1970’s, resulting in substantial environmental damage to bodies of water including the Finger Lakes region of New York. Only after the institution of sulfur emission controls did acid rain cease to be a problem. http://www.epa.gov/acidrain/what/index.html
You are correct, I am “quite worried” about this situation. I was “quite worried” when I was recruited as a master of public health student in 1981 to help analyze a mysterious disease impacting gay men in San Francisco. I led my group to write a recommendation to the CDC that this appeared to be a bloodborne disease with similar epidemiological patterns to Hepatitis B, in which case, it would be a huge problem. Indeed, AIDS did follow that pattern.
Similarly, I’m very concerned over the risk of acidification. I have no agenda or interest, other than scientific honesty. If you can find any publication that refutes that acidification is occurring, please post it. Global temperatures are all over the map, but acidification appears to be progressive. Thank you.
Sorry, “relative risk (RR) is the risk of an event (or of developing a disease) relative to exposure.” As carbon dioxide increases, the risk of acidification increases. This is Chemistry 101.
Willis, this is the flaw in your logic:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/19/the-electric-oceanic-acid-test/
In my hypothesis, acidification only is relevant in the uppermost 100 or so meters of ocean depth, which is the euphotic (photosynthetic) zone where the pelagic species I’ve mentioned will be harmed. Deposition of air pollutants, runoff from agriculture and other harmful and toxic influences increase the toxicological damage to this very sensitive trophic level.
Most studies on acidification aim for “cute,” i.e. Nemo’s hearing, damage to recreational diving, and the demise of lobsters and oyster beds, etc. Based on my interactions with some very high-level CAGW proponents, my concept of “warming no, acidification yes” makes them very nervous. I think I have something here. Stay tuned.
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
June 8, 2011 at 9:31 pm
Doc, I think it’s wonderful about your hypothesis. You do understand that I was referring to an actual cited study, where they actually measured pH? Facts, my friend. You still are just waving your hands and flapping your lips.
I am clear that you think you have something there. Perhaps you do. However, to date you’ve provided nothing but handwaving and uncited claims. You have told us we should be worried. You have told us that your theories made some un-named people nervous. You have said that CO2 interacts with other harmful and toxic things.
But despite repeated requests, nowhere are there any facts. I gaze across a landscape of your words that is barren of anything resembling actual studies or observations or data or defined hypotheses or, well, anything but empty words.
So no, Doc, I fear I have no interest in staying tuned.
Instead, I’ll stay tuned to folks who provide citations and hard facts and the like. This is a scientific blog, and I’m a scientist in my odd and kronky way. Come back with facts and we’ll talk.
w.
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
June 8, 2011 at 9:10 pm (Edit)
CRS, it appears you still don’t get it, so let me try again.
For a couple decades, people have waxed lyrical about a host of imagined risks from increased CO2. We’ve been told that it will cause everything from skin cancer to increased divorce. After listening to this nonsense, many of us these days shut people up by asking for, you know, facts. Something to indicate that the risk is real. But it’s curious … they don’t have any facts.
However, while that make some people reconsider their foolish uncited claims, the lack of facts doesn’t seem to have affected the rate at which you continue to tell us that you have the inside line to the planetary worry center. And that is a real worry.
Look, Doc, I understand that something about this situation has your knickers in a serious twist … but why should we care about that based solely on your word, which has already been proven to be less than reliable?
In addition, your claim that what happens in the ocean is “simple chemistry” is nonsense, there’s nothing at all simple about the carbon cycle in the ocean. Did you include e.g. the variations in the lysocline or the carbonate compensation depth in your “simple” calculations? Serious question, CRS, did you include them? A simple yes or no would be sufficient, although given the information content of your posts to date that may be too much to ask for …
And reading your posts “end to end” doesn’t help, the signal to noise ratio is still zero. Including your latest post.
I’ll say it again, bro’ … BRING US SOME FACTS. Your “fears” and your “risks” at this point have less evidence for their rationality and reality than does the Loch Ness Monster, and for the same reason. Terminal lack of content.
w.
@Willis Eschenbach says:
June 9, 2011 at 2:08 am
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You may be an odd & self-made scientist, but you do not appear to have any training in risk management, where I am an expert. I cannot provide you with the scientific papers you request due to the pay-wall (I get anything I want for free thanks to the Univ of IL). If Anthony has a mechanism to upload papers, I’ll be happy to fry his servers and use up all of his bandwidth.
This is the summation of my argument:
a) the mass of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing due to continued burning of fossil fuels as well as natural sources including volcanic action. I do not believe this can be countered by your arguments.
b) It is well-proven that CO2 dissolved into water forms carbon acid. See above.
c) Dissolution of carbon dioxide into the ocean occurs first at the air/water interface, and carbon acid will form in the highest concentration at these levels. See EPA link below.
d) Toxicology is predicated upon dose/response relationships. If the atmosphere were 100% carbon dioxide, the oceans would acidify to their maximum. If there were no CO2, it would be a minimum. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. See Toxicology Tutor, which you apparently have not yet taken.
e) Acidification itself is a problem both for competition for calcium ions and acute toxicity. Carbon dioxide is a toxicant in high enough doses and is not an innocuous “plant food.” Trust me on that.
f) Decreases in pH have, in fact, been measured. See EPA below. I can’t comment on their policy makers, but they have the best environmental chemists in the world, bar none.
I first studied acidification in 1974, when I took an undergraduate class in Ecological Biology. We used a text by Dr. Paul A. Colinvaux, the standard at the time. Colinvaux taught that “acidification was impossible due to the neutralization potential in the ocean.” There were three flaws to his argument:
a) He did not figure in the rise of the Asian Tigers (China, India etc.) and their anthropogenic emissions and rapid industrialization, and
b) He looked at the world’s oceans as a completely-mixed system, when in fact, acute acidification primarily is a problem in the photic zone, a mere 100 m deep, at the surface of the ocean.
c) He did not figure in the synergistic effects of persistent organic pollutants (POP) such as combustion byproducts of plastic incineration, toxic releases from Chinese fabrication plants and the like. These were largely unknown in the 1970’s.
In regards to your assertion that acidification has NOT been measured, in fact, the decrease in ocean pH and alkalinity has been noted by many authors. As usual, the “carbon is harmless” crowd chants that there is not much difference between pH of 7.8 and 7.7, when in fact it is a logarithmic variance in hydrogen ion concentration. Many organisms are sensitive to these changes, and the rate of change of anthropogenic carbon increases is much faster than the historic record. Given enough time, they can evolve and adapt. However, we are not giving them much time.
If you want solid proof of my assertions, you’ll have to fund your own studies. I agree that studies published to date are somewhat contradictory; however, the potential for harm is there and this cannot be denied no matter how you try. What I am saying is that there is a substantial ‘RISK” from acidification, principles of chemistry back this, and some researchers believe they have observed deleterious effects (they may be observing toxicity from agricultural runoff).
However, my premise remains that carbon dioxide oceanic toxicity is the only problem of anthropogenic carbon increases. Catastrophic global warming, which has been nearly 100% of the research focus of the Hockey Stick crowd, is sufficiently discredited in my mind; I firmly agree with Dr. Lindzen’s testimony to Congress on this. Unlike climate change, acidification is not influenced by cloud cover, precipitation, solar and orbital influences and the like, it is a straightforward application of chemical principles…..more carbon dioxide dissolving into water equates to more carbonic acid production. Very simple.
EPA pretty much nails it here: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/recentoa.html
The good news is that control of major point-source emissions of carbon dioxide will not be that difficult nor expensive. Nobody else has caught onto it yet. The solution is very obvious when you think about it, but I seem to be the only one to have found the secret. Even my colleagues at the UI agree. More to follow.
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
June 9, 2011 at 12:00 pm (Edit)
No comment.
That’s the claim that you want to go with, that you cannot provide a single scientific citation to any of your arguments because every paper is paywalled? Really?
Why would I want to counter that, when I’ve never tried in the past?
Agreed.
Agreed.
This is supposed to be news?
I don’t trust you on one thing, Doc, because to date you have not provided a single checkable fact. When you make extravagant claims and blow people off when they ask you for some kind of evidence, they won’t trust you one bit.
Trust me on that …
And as to your point that CO2 is a “toxicant” at high enough doses, of course it is. So is oxygen, for that matter … so it’s not clear what your point is.
I looked at the “EPA below” citation. They’re as bad as you. Their citations are two entire chapters in the IPCC report. That’s like a God-botherer waving the Bible and saying “The answer’s in the book.” Maybe it is … but without a page number and a paragraph number, it is MEANINGLESS! Point me to one single scrap of observational data on that page about the reduced causticity of the ocean. Even the name is a joke. The ocean is not moving towards acidity. It is moving towards neutrality.
I have no clue why you posted this. I don’t know his work. I don’t care about his errors. I couldn’t give a feather for the Asian Tigers.
Man, you are the prince of the freakin’ tapdancers. WHICH authors studied WHAT aspect of the move towards neutrality, and WHERE in the ocean were they studying it, and where is it PUBLISHED.
I begin to despair, Doc. Your endless coyness about facts ain’t cute ,,,
I gave citations that show that a tenth of a point of causticity is meaningless in the ocean. I showed that the intake waters at the Monterrey Bay Aquarium vary by half a point in a few weeks. I showed that the reef waters change a full pH point in twelve freakin’ hours, and you simply repeat your inchoate fears about your fancied supersensitive ocean creatures?
BZZZT!! Next contestant, please. I thought you were a scientist. That’s someone who knows that nothing can be proven, only falsified.
There is “potential for harm” in everything. There’s grown men I wouldn’t trust with a sharpened popsicle stick. Which means of course, that the statement “there is potential for harm in the neutralization of the ocean” is meaningless.
Handwaving. You haven’t adduced a scrap of evidence in favor of your claims. Why should we believe handwaving?
Simple? I posted a cite showing that the coral reef exhales CO2, and this drives the carbon cycle places it would never go if life were not involved … how on earth is that simple? Carbon in the ocean is driven by a combination of chemistry and life. By life, I mean that phytoplankton are working the miracle of photosynthesis. These micro-plants use a combination of catalysts and solar energy to drive chemical reactions straight uphill … and you call that simple?
You never answered my questions about the variations in the lysocline and the carbonate compensation depth. When you do, then I’ll know that you do have a handle on at least one of the many buffering phenomena that stabilize the ocean.
Read it again and look for actual facts rather than childish scaremongering. Come back when you’ve harvested the facts, and relate them to us with proper citations.
You mean that some un-named university professors at some un-unamed university agree with you? Heck, why didn’t you say that in the first place? That’s powerful evidence right there, that settles the question for me …
w.
@Willis Eschenbach says:
June 9, 2011 at 3:20 pm
I don’t trust you on one thing, Doc, because to date you have not provided a single checkable fact. When you make extravagant claims and blow people off when they ask you for some kind of evidence, they won’t trust you one bit.
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REPLY I gave you everything you needed in my materials presented. Please don’t blame me for your lack of education in science, environmental risk management and toxicology. I’m not seeking to convince you, only provide information as a starting point. You must read not only the information, but the supporting references.
For example, the citations you require are in the “References” section for the very first publication I posted. Please read those first. Also, arguing against the competence of USEPA environmental chemists is a fool’s mission, they are the best in the world (I work internationally, and USEPA chemists are considered the gold standard).
Take the Toxicology Tutor for an introduction into the scientific principles I am discussing. I does not appear to me you have done so. If you cannot understand these, we cannot have a discussion.
Also, there is no “proof” of acidification….by demanding such, you reveal your lack of training in these disciplines. There are only indicators. Comparing oxygen to carbon dioxide is disingeneous (pure oxygen is not a toxicant, BTW). Too much water is lethal if you drown in it.
My thesis, again, is as follows:
a) anthropogenic carbon dioxide is increasing in the atmosphere. Yes or no?
b) carbon dioxide dissolved into seawater creates carbonic acid. Yes or no?
c) dissolution of atmospheric carbon dioxide into seawater is most pronounced at the air/water interface. Yes or no?
d) the majority of photosynthesis and ocean biota exists in the euphotic zone, a relatively thin (100 to 300m) layer of ocean water overlaying the seas. Yes or no?
e) certain organisms of the euphotic zone, particularly calcium-dependent algae (coccolithophores), pelagic organisms (pteropods) and others are shown to be sensitive to acidification. Yes or no?
f) the removal of excess carbon from the atmosphere relies upon the “carbon pump” mechanism, wherein carbon is fixed as carbonates and removed by sedimentation to the depths. Yes or no?
g) by inhibiting the biota of the euphotic zone, biological inhibition of primary production, photosynthesis, removal of carbonate by sedimentation, and production at the base of the food web is impacted. Yes or no?
h) carbon emissions will continue to escalate at an unanticipated rate due to industrialization of Asia (aka. Asian tigers) including China, India, and others. Yes or no?
i) persistant organic pollutants including byproducts of plastics production and incineration accumulate in the atmosphere, and put further pressure on the euphotic zone of the ocean. yes or no?
http://discovermagazine.com/2011/apr/18-made-in-china-our-toxic-imported-air-pollution/article_view?b_start:int=3&-C
I’m sure you enjoy arguing, but I’m signing off now. You are wrong, Willis, the evidence points against your counterclaims. There is no “scientific proof,” but we didn’t need that to prove that leaded gasoline was bad for the environment, either. This is how environmental risk managers like me work. If you want solid proof, please apply for a grant. Again, there is no proof of warming, but there are serious indicators that oceanic acidification is a problem in the making.
CRS, Dr.P.H.,
Unconvincing. CO2 has been many thousands of ppm in the past. Can you show harm to ocean organisms as a result? The fact is that the biosphere flourished when CO2 was high.
Also, I suspect from your university employment that you might have a slight bias. After all, it’s hard to get ahead in that setting by pointing out that ocean pH is not a problem.
@Smokey says:
June 11, 2011 at 2:36 pm
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REPLY: Thanks, Smokey! I don’t teach or have an appointment at the University of Illinois, and I can’t reveal my formal involvement/identity due to some rather sensitive Homeland Security work I get involved in. You’d never find me based on the shreds of information I post.
Dude, NOBODY has taken the stand I’ve taken, which is that warming is NOT a problem, but acidification MIGHT be!! True, carbon dioxide was much higher at times in the past, but the biosphere was also considerably different, and we weren’t crappin’ up the place with toxic byproducts of plastics manufacture.
Take a look in any store….Made in China, formed out of plastic, bubble-packaged etc. No EPA over there, I work over there. It’s “manufacture & let fly.” And, they are putting the gas-pedal down because they want to bury their old enemies, the Japanese. They ain’t too happy about us, but they think they have us where they want us (they do).
It’s great fun to rip on the Hockey Team, and I’ve done my share (I was a contributor to Jim Inhofe’s “Minority Report” on Climategate). And, I’m not saying we are going to die of this stuff anytime soon. However, it is a legit environmental problem, unlike nearly everything else identified with CAGW to date. And, as I said, the solution will be quite a bit more obvious than you’ve heard from USEPA, DOE etc. Workin’ on it as we speak.
I enjoy bantering with you guys, keep it up! I don’t have the time to lay all of my cards on the table, but acidification is a concern. However, I’m MUCH more concerned about the manufacturing and business climate of the USA, and we can do nothing to help anyone if we are a pauper nation. With the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, it would take the world over 100 years to reach pre-industrial levels if we turned off all the burners. Ain’t gonna happen.