From the Carnegie Institution and Stanford University comes word of this paper in JGR.
Washington, D.C. — Coral reefs are extremely diverse ecosystems that support enormous biodiversity. But they are at risk. Carbon dioxide emissions are acidifying the ocean, threatening reefs and other marine organisms. New research led by Carnegie’s Kenneth Schneider analyzed the role of sea cucumbers in portions of the Great Barrier Reef and determined that their dietary process of dissolving calcium carbonate (CaCO3) from the surrounding reef accounts for about half of at the total nighttime dissolution for the reef. The work is published December 23 by the Journal of Geophysical Research.
Reefs are formed through the biological deposition of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). Many of the marine organisms living on and around a reef contribute to either its destruction or construction. Therefore it is crucial that the amount of calcium carbonate remain in balance. When this delicate balance is disrupted, the reef ceases to grow and its foundations can be weakened.
In order to fully understand a reef’s ability to deposit carbonate and grow, it is necessary to understand the roles that the various elements of sea life play in this process. This is especially important because increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is predicted to decrease the amount of carbonate available due to acidification.
The research group set out to examine the role that sea cucumbers play in the reef environment.
Schneider’s team included Carnegie’s Ken Caldeira, as well as Jacob Silverman, of the Israeli Limnology and Oceanography Institute; Maria Byrne and Erika Woolsey, both of the University of Sydney and the latter also from James Cook University; and Hampus Eriksson of Stockholm University.
They studied the growth and dissolution of One Tree Reef, which surrounds One Tree Island in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Focusing on an area of the reef known as “DK13”, they found that sea cucumbers were abundant. They collected some of these sea cucumbers and placed them in aquaria to study the effect on sea water resulting from the sand and rubble transported through their gut system as part of their digestive process.
As part of another ongoing study in this area, the team found that the coral reef was dissolving at night. They found that sea cucumbers play a crucial part in this process. They live off the bits of organic matter in the carbonate sand and rubble that they ingest; in this process, their digestive systems produce acids that dissolve parts of these carbonate minerals. The dissolved carbonate minerals are then released into the surrounding environment. The researchers found that these lowly organisms might be responsible for half of the CaCO3 of the reef observed at night.
The burning of coal, oil, and gas releases CO2 into the atmosphere, which is later absorbed by the ocean, causing the ocean to acidify. Ocean acidification is expected to slow reef growth. With slower reef growth, the dissolution of CaCO3 within the guts of sea cucumbers is expected to become even more important to the reef CaCO3 budget.
“Even though the sea cucumbers dissolve CaCO3 on the reef, in a lagoon such as the one at One Tree Reef, where there is limited seawater exchange with the surrounding ocean, they can be important in recycling of nutrients to support primary productivity. They also increase sea water buffer capacity to partially offset ocean acidification effects, helping to maintain the overall health of the coral reef,” Schneider said. “Although sea cucumbers may play a part in reef dissolution, they are also an important part of an incredible marine environment.”
This research was supported by the Moore foundation. The authors thank the University of Sydney’s One Tree Island Research Station facility.
The Department of Global Ecology was established in 2002 to help build the scientific foundations for a sustainable future. The department is located on the campus of Stanford University, but is an independent research organization funded by the Carnegie Institution. Its scientists conduct basic research on a wide range of large-scale environmental issues, including climate change, ocean acidification, biological invasions, and changes in biodiversity.
The Carnegie Institution for Science (carnegiescience.edu) is a private, nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with six research departments throughout the U.S. Since its founding in 1902, the Carnegie Institution has been a pioneering force in basic scientific research. Carnegie scientists are leaders in plant biology, developmental biology, astronomy, materials science, global ecology, and Earth and planetary science.
Lazy Teenager;said…Here is a more important question with all the real and immediate problems reefs face why are we spending most of our money money on this? In the US we are now spending more money on a potential threat from CO2 to oysters as an example than we are on the known and devastating MSX, Dermo and Vibrio plagues. This is madness and demonstrates environmentalism doesn’t give a damn about the environment.============
YES! may be the best statement you ever make:-)
the enviro movement in the name of green holiest than thou, has enacted so many rules and regs by useful idiots being “activated” by greenbits and others it makes me scream!
and the real sad thing is it makes no real contribution to the true needs of the environment.
we have fools trying to keep rivers running to sea all the time, when naturally they never did for more than a few years in a decade, enforcing deltas that would naturally change their outlets many times sharing salts and nutrients and silt etc. locking up bushland, so woody weeds takeover causing huge fires. all in the name of pristine green.
classic laugh is the use of saved fly ash to go onto fields with high cadmium they manage to not remove? so one green move but no real brains
forgot. I have a mate whos an oceans chappie, he always asks why??? we pump partially treated sewage into sydney harbour and off brisbane etc, the coast stream takes it up and past the reef.
the blaming farmers line is getting beyond true as limits and buffers really have reduced that source, the human contribution, via OUR outputs is never ever mentioned.
we are short of phosphorus they say, so why? do we waste tonnes per day, out to sea..
every city pumping crap out into seas also has sea grass issues, its known why, human effluent. but again no action on it.
I think you will find this is more misleading reporting. I can not remember where I read it but the reef is being killed by pollution for human waste into the river to the sea and not CO2.
Its got to the state now that almost all the reports of CO2 pollution [are] misleading and unture.
I have a few aquariums. all of my aquariums have live plants growing in them. To facilitate this growth I inject CO2. The CO2 affects the PH of the tank. Every day the PH in my big tank ( 125 gallon ) varies between 6.8 before the CO2 is turned on in the morning to 6.6 in the evening before lights out. The tank has many shrimp and snails that along with the plants are growing and reproducing very well. By the way the temperature in the tank varies between 75.6 and 77.1 over the course of the day. This doesn’t seem to affect the fish or plants either I remove about 5 lbs of excess plant material every week. In the Discus tank the PH is closer to 6.0 ( solidly in the acidic range ) most of the time, the temp is 82 degrees and the snails are also reproducing quite well. I have seen similar situations in my friends salt water tanks but their PH levels are in the 8 to 8.2 range. They also add CO2 to help filter the wastes and help grow the coral. From my observations ocean acidification is a crock.
I’ve eaten a lot of strange foods. This is allegedly a delicacy in China but IMO, Sea cucumbers are some of the worst food in the world.
Eeeuuggg. That’s picture is nasty.
When you look at only half of any given cycle it is easy to draw a lot of bogus conclusions.
MORE CO2 cannot acidify seas around coral reefs. This is basic Chemistry:
CaCO3 (insoluble) + CO2* + H2O* = Ca(HCO3)2 (soluble)
Calcium bicarbonate is soluble and ALKALINE. More CO2 will cause the seawater to tend to more alkalinity.
* combined CO2 and H2O is called carbonic acid – which is a weak acid.
Remember the old test for CO2 using ‘lime water’ Ca(OH)2 ? First the lime water turned milky as CO2 reacted with the Ca(OH)2 to form a CaCO3 precipitate and water, then, if more CO2 is bubbled through the milky solution/suspension, it turns clear again as Ca(HCO3)2 is formed.
Nick Stokes says:
“Laww of Mass Action. Sensible people don’t measure pH directly. They measure dissolvedinorganic carbon and total alkalinity. These properties, fairly well consenved, are what actually determines solution of CaCO3. You can derive pH from the equilibria, but it doesn’t help very much. Even direct pH quotes are really based on a calibration equilibrium (bromocresol), and computed from that equilibrium.”
I have always been awed by the beauty of the ocean’s complexity—I find the simplicity we impose on it with the CO2 narrative an anathema.
I’ll pass along the most important thing I ever learned– we do not live in a linear world. Never ever ever rely on linearity to describe an ecosystem response.
Here is my why I believe this- many of these ocean acidification papers relate to near shore conditions as is the case for the sea cucumber paper posted here. As such all bets are off with respect to pH being “simply a calculation of DIN and alkalinity”. Given my understanding of the “cucumber reefs” proximity to a mangrove swamp-the DOC fraction especially organic acids produced by “swamps” can become major players. To make matters more complicated we have the sulfur chemistries at work in the sediment/water column exchanges to deal with. (I won’t even go near the primary productivity issues nor the problems of achieving representative samples) In fact for most shallow lagoons and near shore waters I would put my money on pH being more controlled by terrestrial inputs (nutrients and DON), sediment chemistries (especially the sulfur reactions) and primary productivity mediated by the hydrology more than I would on anything related to a small change in atmospheric pH. And I have no idea how one nets or if you will nets out the impacts of upwellings and changes in ocean state (those known and unknown).
We are making claims of precision that cannot be made and then we are using the minute changes resulting from these claims to make further claims of attribution and then if this were not a sufficiently unstable house of cards we are claiming the ability to discern or predict a precise biotic response. The only thing simple here- is that this is 3 bridges too far.
And your comment “sensible people don’t measure pH directly?” That will come as a real shock to many in the field- especially the guys at U of F that are so fond of their spectrophotometric sensors and the people at Scripps who seem to have taken a liking to the DuraFET sensors. Are there inherent problems to every pH measurement techniques- yup- and why I never would claim the ability to ever see a 0.01 pH unit change as meaningful for anything outside of a very controlled lab condition.
Gary Pearse says:
December 26, 2011 at 2:40 pm
Thanks, Gary. If that were the case, then you’d never have to check the pH in your aquarium … but you do have to check it. What am I missing here? If the life in the aquarium can’t change the acid/base balance, how does the aquarium pH go bad?
In addition, it is well known that coral reefs are net producers of CO2. As a result, they tend to neutralize the slightly basic ocean waters. This leaves the water over the reefs at a slightly lower pH than the surrounding ocean water. If life can’t change the pH of the ocean water as you claim, then … how do those clever corals do that?
w.
In an aquarium environment isn’t a closed loop. The aquarist needs to replace the chemicals used up by the tanks inhabitants. In the real world these things are supplied by the rest of the environment. My tanks go through a lot of fertilizer.
Lazyteenager,
I was under the impression that iron rusting was referred to as oxidation and not corrosion.
Lazyteenager,
On the 90 – 10 law (which I also have seen as 80 – 20), I haven’t seen it used in the context you illustrate. Whenever I’ve seen it it has referred to the observation that organizations often expend 80 – 90 percent of their energy or effort on 10 – 20 percent of what they are involved in. In otherwords people end up spending an inordinate amount of time on problems, verses what goes right.
Not saying your use is incorrect – just that I haven’t heard it used that way.
re post: Pat Moffitt says: December 27, 2011 at 10:13 am
BINGO!
Science is about precision – and that includes terminology. Obviously on comment posting folks often don’t take the time to ensure that they’re using exactly the right phrase or wording – but it does get important when we start talking about the basics (no pun intended!).
You’re never acidifying a solution until or unless you are adding sufficient acid to bring that solution to an acidic state – e.g., under pH 7.0. You may very well be adding an acid to the solution, but so long as the solution is basic, by the proper terminology you quite simply aren’t acidifying in any sense of the word. If you are adding enough acid or diluting enough to go to a pH 7.0, then you are neutralizing the solution. If you are lowering pH, but are still above 7.0, then you aren’t acidifying, you are reducing alkalinity or moving towards a neutral solution.
Corrosion, on the other hand, is relative and not specific to pH, even though we typically think of a corrosive solution as one that is most likely acidic. Alkaline substances can be just as highly corrosive however. Whether something is corrosive or not all depends on the system it is in, and the various physical and chemical reactivities of the substances present. For example, water, through the process of erosion, corrodes rock. You can conceivably have an alkaline substance that is corroded by another alkaline substance, all based on the particular structure and reactivity of each, and just how much difference there is in the level of alkalinity of each substance.
But you’re never acidifying a solution so long as it will remain above a pH of 7.0.
Pat Moffitt – “Those who deny global warming, climate change…….”
Link to the page where that is written. You’ll find it not by me. More smokebombs Pat?
philincalifornia – ” I say “I know barely anything about ocean acidification”. You even cut and paste the quote but have come to the conclusion “If you are an expert as you claim”.
Let me refresh your memory. Above you wrote :
– “Could you please explain to this Ph.D. chemist…….”
– “Yes Rob, a Ph.D. chemist with 200 peer-reviewed publications, 50 issued patents, and a current profession that involves cutting through bullsh!t science…..”
– “Go on, ask me a chemistry question. I’ll educate you”
–“I know barely anything about ocean acidification, but it’s still more than you know”
I have asked a very simple question that anyone with some basic knowledge on this topic could answer, yet you a ‘supposed’ PhD chemist can only offer bubkes. It’s because you aren’t what you claim to be are you?
re post: LazyTeenager says: December 26, 2011 at 3:03 pm
Just what in the world do you think pH is a measurement of, Lazyteenager? Of course chemical and biological processes don’t ‘care’ what the pH happens to be – they’re not sentient. Whether chemical and biological processes occur at all, or function properly, however, is quite often directly dependent on the pH of the solution. Of course there’s no ‘magic threshold’ – there’s just a spectrum across which reactions in solution either work or don’t based on the pH of the solution. Try taking a few organic chemistry, biochemistry, and medical classes, and then tell me how pH doesn’t matter to these processes. Explain to me why our blood pH level is so incredibly tightly regulated, by multiple redundant systems no less. How redox reactions don’t ‘care’ what the pH happens to be. Don’t go all schizophrenic on the issue either – you can’t say reactions don’t care what the pH of the solution is, only the hydrogen ion concentration within that solution – that’s a total non sequitur.
Just for clarification, in my previous comment I am referring to no evidence for corrosive seawater during times of prolonged high CO2 levels. This is because of the slicate/carbonate weathering process, the slow wearing away of rock surfaces by weather, supplies alkalinity back to the ocean. This doesn’t happen under geologically rapid CO2 releases, such as today.
re post: Rob Painting says: December 27, 2011 at 3:40 pm
An argument I’ve heard before, but really isn’t logical. If you have long term elevated levels of CO2, you would have to have correspondingly high rates of rock weathering to continually make up for it, using this logic. Only problem is that if those long term high weathering rates are possible, then it could also occur sufficiently to counter a rapid shift from ‘low’ CO2 levels to ‘high’ CO2 levels as in the present times. This becomes even more true considering that present day ‘high’ levels are still significantly lower than those postulated long term elevated levels – levels which have occurred in the past history of our world during times when both land and ocean life was apparently flourishing.
Now I understand why the AlGoremists use the doublespeak word “acidification” instead of the scientifically correct “neutralization”. Because the following scary headline just wouldn’t work:
The ocean’s pH is becoming increasingly neutralized, and very soon will be extremely neutralized to the point of catastrophic neutralization!!!!
re post: LazyTeenager says: December 26, 2011 at 4:00 pm
Bad, bad, bad, is right, right, right. LazyT, measurements without context, meaningful history, or controls are moot, and don’t provide any sort of scientific evidence. You can’t say, scientifically, that something has changed when you don’t even have a solid initial state for comparison. Problems with global ocean pH are far worse than global temperature measurement problems.
Meanwhile, trying to foof off on everyone that it’s a matter of ‘basic chemistry’ (or ‘simple physics’ as is commonly seen in non-scientific arguments re CO2’s atmospheric action) goes beyond absurd. Such claims can only be made by those who have no understanding of science, the scientific method, and the complexity of the system(s) being studied. ‘Basic chemistry’ as you describe it simply cannot begin to cover the issue in any meaningful fashion.
If you really want to go down that path, however, then you might try reading some of the actual science that has modelled some of the biggest chemical reaction components involved in the atmospheric CO2 to ocean ‘acidification’ equation. See below for an example.
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 33, L10605, 3 PP., 2006
doi:10.1029/2006GL026305
Modern-age buildup of CO2 and its effects on seawater acidity and salinity
Hugo A. Loáiciga, Department of Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara, California, USA
The impacts of increases in atmospheric CO2 since the midst of the 18th century on average seawater salinity and acidity are evaluated. Assuming that the rise in the planetary mean surface temperature continues unabated, and that it eventually causes the melting of terrestrial ice and permanent snow, it is calculated that the average seawater salinity would be lowered not more than 0.61‰ from its current 35‰. It is also calculated –using an equilibrium model of aqueous carbonate species in seawater open to the atmosphere- that the increase in atmospheric CO2 from 280 ppmv (representative of 18th-century conditions) to 380 ppmv (representative of current conditions) raises the average seawater acidity approximately 0.09 pH units across the range of seawater temperature considered (0 to 30°C). A doubling of CO2 from 380 ppmv to 760 ppmv (the 2 × CO2 scenario) increases the seawater acidity approximately 0.19 pH units across the same range of seawater temperature. In the latter case, the predicted increase in acidity results in a pH within the water-quality limits for seawater of 6.5 and 8.5 and a change in pH less than 0.20 pH units. This paper’s results concerning average seawater salinity and acidity show that, on a global scale and over the time scales considered (hundreds of years), there would not be accentuated changes in either seawater salinity or acidity from the observed or hypothesized rises in atmospheric CO2 concentrations
re post: Rob Painting says: December 26, 2011 at 4:24 pm
Gee, I guess that increased growth of plant life, forests, etc., due to the extra CO2 plant food couldn’t possibly have a thing to do with it. You may want to try listening to Freeman Dyson on this very issue:
Then consider the surprising findings of the Japanese satellite global maps of CO2 levels. Along with earlier findings of a global increase in biota over the past 30 years or so. In other words, it’s far from ‘clear’ that ‘half our fossil fuel emissions have been absorbed by the oceans’ and it’s also far from clear that there has been any decrease in global ocean pH over the past 50 or more years. The current state of science simply doesn’t begin to support either of those claims.
re post: LazyTeenager says: December 26, 2011 at 6:34 pm
Sounds like you were singing a different tune in your December 26, 2011 at 4:00 pm post when you took issue with Smokey’s claim that there isn’t evidence of man created CO2 causing any decrease in ocean pH levels. There you said:
LazyT continued:
Talk about logical fallacies. What did you pull that ‘law’ out of? Describe to us just how one picks which 10% of a system to capture? Then tell me how that is done with a system that has a huge number of unknowns. Tell us how a ‘system’ is even defined such that this ‘law’ can be applied. Give us some real life system examples where your ‘law’ is used in a complex system, with the specifics showing that your ‘law’ was actually used, and details of the 10% captured and decisions necessary to select the appropriate 10%.
re post: beng says: December 27, 2011 at 5:14 pm
LOL!! Hum… for argument’s sake, if we assume that the ocean pH actually is dropping, I suppose they could then accurately state that atmospheric CO2 is causing the ocean to evolve into a less basic state, as we reduce the caustic nature of the seas. Only somehow the associated innuendo with that phrasing might actually sound like a good thing too – Darwinianism of the oceans, mankind helping to speed up evolution of ocean life and the oceans themselves! {g}
Rob Painting says:
December 27, 2011 at 3:04 pm
====================================
I’m sorry Rob, when it comes to strawmen …..
….. I just say NO
They duped you once on global warming, and that’s shame on them, but being duped twice, that’s shame on you. More so if you’re a scientist.