Unexplored Possible Climate Balancing Mechanism

I still say they have grossly underestimated the Co2 uptake capabilities of the vast Canadian and Russian forests.

Biologists have known all this for many decades. After a billion years of photosynthesis and bacterial evolution, Earth’s atmosphere is now entirely biological. (Argon excepted). If you want to understand the atmosphere, you must understand the biogeochemical Carbon cycle. The primary characteristic of biology is internal homeostasis. ie, life tries to stay alive. The only questions are in the exact mechanisms of the resulting feedbacks, including water. Any biologist who has studied the global biogeochemical cycle will agree that the current fossil fuel consumption is 100 percent beneficial to life on Earth.

Jim says:
July 10, 2012 at 1:02 pm
“When the oceans heat up, they begin to outgas CO2. One mechanism this occurs by is loss of phytoplankton populations.”
The oceans absorb CO2 when they cool in ice ages and outgas CO2 when they warm (partially with centuries of delay, as it takes time for water thousands of meters deep to warm much to its depths), but there’s no need for such an imaginary mechanism. If you warm a glass of water on your table, solubility of gases in it decreases, and it outgasses. That’s Henry’s Law. The oceans are more complex, like the matter is more complicated than Henry’s Law when there are chemical reactions with the solute, yet such is really a similar basic idea.
Though limited in concentration relative to the astronomical mass of the oceans (which mass almost on the order of a thousand times the mass of the atmosphere), the oceans contain much more CO2 than the atmosphere. Aside from technicalities like seawater versus plain water, here’s a graph of CO2 solubility in water versus temperature:
http://docs.engineeringtoolbox.com/documents/1148/solubility-co2-water.png
Jim says:
July 10, 2012 at 1:02 pm
“How do you know the Nature study was wrong and this one correct?”
One? No, there are a variety of ways to cross-check, not just one study (aside from additional studies mentioned in my prior comment like the Continuous Plankton Recorders survey). If you don’t see what is wrong with believing a 40% decline occurred at a rate near 10% a decade with nobody previously noticing, ask yourself when would you have skepticism? Let’s say someone comes up to you and tells you that 99% of photosynthetic plant life in the world died last year while nobody noticed any decrease in fish catches, etc.?
The quote I included in my prior comment listed several reasons such is blatantly false; follow the links if needed.
Moreover, carbon dioxide was thousands of ppm in the past, vastly beyond the 400 ppm now or tens of ppm rise in recent decades, and marine life was abundant then, where phytoplankton is the basis of about the whole marine food chain. (For instance, http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/Climate%20Change/PhanerozoicCO2vTemp.png estimates 7000 ppm at times).
Besides, although not what gets mentioned in enviropropaganda, we know CO2 beyond current levels leads to increased, not decreased phytoplankton growth, from lab experiments in addition to observations in the field.
Read http://nipccreport.org/reports/2009/pdf/Chapter%207.pdf including section 7.1.3
There’s fresh enviropropaganda BS every year, part of general opposition by some groups to much of modern industrial civilization. (When not employed in careers producing any physical product, surplus majors in some fields go into trying to spread ideological ideas; meanwhile, very unfortunately, just positively promoting material advancement often doesn’t fit, like almost nobody does massive protests in favor of nuclear power, and they slip into what sells stories and memes: railing against industry and prophesying doom, in a manner which would favor political dominance of their movement over the producers).
For instance, as a random other example, one of the major groups (I forget their name at the moment) a bit ago claimed peak iron will occur within several decades — the fact that even the average rock in literally millions of trillions tons of Earth’s crust is 5% iron while higher-grade ores are available in utterly astronomical amounts does not prevent some media outlets from respectfully passing on even ludicrous claims like that.

Jim says:
July 10, 2012 at 1:02 pm
“How do you know the Nature study was wrong and this one correct?”
==================================================
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/25/the-ocean-wins-again/
Discredited plankton claim in nature

“A better understanding of the cause of the massive plankton blooms could allow climate scientists to unravel the mysteries of global warming.” Such as the mystery of why AGW doesn’t exist.

And today, this: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10818936, which says that warming has ‘slowed’ (nice piece of linguistic legerdemain) because of a mysterious step increase in the absorption of CO2 …
Naturally, this will need years (and billions of dollars) worth of study, but rest assured that global warming science is not challenged by this finding, according to these most knowledgable experts.

The study concentrates on diatoms. These silica-shelled phytos are the dominant type until they use up the silica; calcareous types can then flourish. If we have increased the oceans dissolved silica levels then diatoms will use up more of the other required nutrients before the calcareous phytos get a chance.
So here’s what is happening. Large scale agriculture begins using steam, then oil-powered tools. Agricultural silica run-off increases, dust from badly-managed fields increases and falls on the oceans. More dissolved silica is available and diatoms flourish.
‘Normal’ calcareous phytoplankton use a carbon fixation pathway called C3, a process which is discriminatory against heavy carbon, 13C and 14C. A calcareous phyto bloom will preferentially pull down light C. Now we change the balance by introducing more silica. Diatoms outcompete the calcareous types, and their own form of carbon fixation, ‘C4-like’, becomes dominant, a process which does not discriminate against heavy C. Diatoms die and sink, but their shells do not pull down carbon, only a small amount of organic matter which contains more heavy C. So, the atmosphere loses less carbon in toto, but what is loses takes down more 14C and 13C. So the atmosphere contains relatively more light C and the total CO2 level rises.
One hopes that this study has classified the diatom species involved: if they are poor producers of DMS we will see reduced low level cloud cover. And that would mean increasing atmospheric CO2, a light C isotope atmospheric signal and surface warming.
Sound familiar?
JF
(Have a look at Engelbeen’s graphs of atmospheric carbon isotopes. The change does not begin in 1850 as often stated, but in the mid 1700s.)

Julian Flood says:
July 11, 2012 at 5:42 am
‘C4-like’, becomes dominant, a process which does not discriminate against heavy C.
The C4 process does discriminate against the heavier isotopes, be it less than the C3 type photosynthesis. Thus if the diatoms use a similar process, they incorporate less of the heavy isotopes than of the light one. The average organic matter falling down at the ocean bottom is currently at much lower 13C levels than in the atmosphere or in the suface or deep ocean waters. The page of Anton Uriarte does explain that, but seems not available for the moment:
http://homepage.mac.com/uriarte/carbon13.html
But from another source:
C3 plants have a d13C range from –23‰ to –34‰ (average –27.1 ±2‰), whereas C4 plants range from –8‰to –16‰ (average –13.1 ±1.2‰)

Lucy Skywalker says:
July 10, 2012 at 10:51 am
Current CO2 increase is because of Henry’s Law – as always: (a) recent warming of ocean surfaces due to recent global warming and (b) deep thermohaline rising after the MWP 800 years ago.
Henry’s Law gives an increase of ~16 ppmv/°C for seawater-atmosphere equilibrium. On the other hand, increased temperatures increase the net carbon sequestration by land plants. That causes an average 5 ppmv/°C change over the seasons up to a 8 ppmv/°C change for glacial-interglacial periods. Thus the maximum 1°C increase in temperature since the LIA is good for maximum 8 ppmv increase. Far from the 100+ ppmv increase we measure…
Deep thermohaline currents from 800 years ago induce the CO2 levels of 800 years ago, mixed with the deep ocean waters. The CO2 levels of 800 years ago were ~280-300 ppmv and the deep ocean carbon content hardly changed over the whole period. Seems to me that the THC should reduce the current CO2 levels…

Smokey says:
July 11, 2012 at 8:11 am
There are numerous different ocean curents, and the 800 year delay is only an average. One of the very coldest episodes of the entire Holocene happened several hundred years ago, and there is no doubt that it resulted in massive amounts of CO2 being absorbed by the oceans.
The medium resolution ice core from Law Dome shows a dip of ~6 ppmv for a ~0.8°C drop in temperature between the MWP and LIA. The resolution is ~21 years, sharp enough to follow the temperature changes which lasted several centuries. That makes -again- a change of ~8 ppmv/°C, with a lag of ~50 years after the temperature drop.
The main problem is that most of the deep oceans – atmosphere exchanges are simple circulation: what goes in, goes out, without causing much change in the atmospheric levels. Only if the temperature at the surface changes, that influences the atmospheric levels, but very limited by Henry’s Law… 16 ppmv change in the atmosphere, or 32 GtC (the equivalent of only 4 years of the current human emissions) is all what is needed to compensate for a 1°C increase or decrease in ocean surface temperature. Without taking into account the biosphere, which works in opposite ways.

Ferdinand Engelbeen wrote
(after I wrote)
“‘C4-like’, becomes dominant, a process which does not discriminate against heavy C.”
quote
The C4 process does discriminate against the heavier isotopes, be it less than the C3 type photosynthesis. Thus if the diatoms use a similar process, they incorporate less of the heavy isotopes than of the light one.
unquote
Yes, I was overstating the case. C4 discriminates less strongly against the heavy isotopes. This does not alter the reasoning in my post: the light isotope signal may well be due to an increase in heavy isotope pull-down rather than/as well as a simple increase in light isotope input. A diatom organic product will have proportionately more heavy carbon in it than the equivalent made by a C3 plant.
I don’t know how this could be tested — I doubt that we have enough information. To further complicate matters, some C3 phytoplankton can turn to C4 when stressed by e.g. starvation, so counting microfossils will not prove anything. Maybe someone should do an experiment using dirt, mud, wellies, wet… You know, science.
JF

Urederra says:
July 10, 2012 at 10:09 am
What is gonna be next? Are we converting fossil fuels into … people?
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Of course we are.
Coal + O2 => H2O +CO+ CO2… (water plus carbon monoxide plus carbon dioxide)
CO2 + Sunlight via plants => Sugars, starches, proteins et al
Sugars, starches, proteins et al => Animal fats and proteins including humans
I thought everyone with a ninth grade education knew the carbon cycle.