Effect of CO2 levels on phytoplankton.
Story submitted by Don Healy
This article opens up a whole new vista into the relationship between CO2 levels, oceanic plant growth and the complex relationships that we have yet to learn about in the field of climate science. If phytoplankton respond like most plant species do, we may find that the modest increases in CO2 levels we have experienced over the last 50 years may actually create a bounty of micro plant growth in the oceans, which would in turn create the food supply necessary to support an increase in the oceans’ animal population.
At the same time, it would explain where the excess atmospheric CO2 has been going; much of it converted into additional biological matter, with only a limited existence as raw CO2.
There may well be a naturally balancing mechanism that explains how the earth was able to survive atmospheric levels of CO2 as high as 7000 mmp in past geologic history without turning into another Venus. Just surmising of course, but this fits with what we know about the response of terrestrial plants to elevated CO2 levels, so it is a plausible theory. Hopefully more studies along this line can clarify the situation.
From the article:
The diatom blooming process is described in the article by Amala Mahadevan, the author of the study and oceanographer at WHOI, as inextricably linked to the flow of whirlpools circulating the plants through the water and keeping them afloat.
“[The study’s] results show that the bloom starts through eddies, even before the sun begins to warm the ocean,” said Ms. Mahadevan.
This study explains the causation of phytoplankton’s phenology—the reasons behind the annual timing of the microscopic plant’s natural cycle—as it is influenced by the ocean’s conditions.
“Springtime blooms of microscopic plants in the ocean absorb enormous quantities of carbon dioxide, much like our forests, emitting oxygen via photosynthesis. Their growth contributes to the oceanic uptake of carbon dioxide, amounting globally to about one-third of the carbon dioxide we put into the air each year through the burning of fossil fuels. An important question is how this ‘biological pump’ for carbon might change in the future as our climate evolves,” said researchers.
WHOI describes the study as being conducted by a specially designed robot that can float just below the surface like a phytoplankton (only much, much larger). Other robots, referred to by WHOI as “gliders” dove to depths of 1,000 meters to collect data and beam it back to shore. Together, the robots discovered a great deal about the biology and nature of the bloom. Then, using three-dimensional computer modeling to analyze the data, Ms. Mahadevan created a model that corresponded with observation of the natural phenomena.
Full story:
http://www.thebunsenburner.com/news/cause-of-north-atlantic-plankton-bloom-is-finally-revealed/
==================================================================
Eddy-Driven Stratification Initiates North Atlantic Spring Phytoplankton Blooms
Abstract
Springtime phytoplankton blooms photosynthetically fix carbon and export it from the surface ocean at globally important rates. These blooms are triggered by increased light exposure of the phytoplankton due to both seasonal light increase and the development of a near-surface vertical density gradient (stratification) that inhibits vertical mixing of the phytoplankton. Classically and in current climate models, that stratification is ascribed to a springtime warming of the sea surface. Here, using observations from the subpolar North Atlantic and a three-dimensional biophysical model, we show that the initial stratification and resulting bloom are instead caused by eddy-driven slumping of the basin-scale north-south density gradient, resulting in a patchy bloom beginning 20 to 30 days earlier than would occur by warming.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
PS: your absolute faith in proxy measurements which cannot be verified is irrational. But, there is no need to look past the modern era, anyway. That is when CO2 rose most. That is when the relationship holds beyond any doubt. That disqualifies significant human impact since at least 1958.
You can claim something else dominated before then, supremely unlikely as that would be. But, so what? CO2 hadn’t risen vary far, so it doesn’t matter.
I said I’d give you the last word, but your response was too awful to let pass. Correlation stays the same? Not in this universe.
Bart says:
July 13, 2012 at 6:11 pm
PS: your absolute faith in proxy measurements which cannot be verified is irrational.
Bart, 13C/12C measurments are modern measurements taken in the atmosphere since the 1970’s and in the oceans since the 1980’s. That is when CO2 levels in the atmosphere rose most. These exclude the oceans as source of the extra CO2 in the atmosphere beyond doubt. To the contrary, they prove that the ocean surface was a net sink for CO2 and the deep oceans exchanges dilute the human emissions “fingerprint” and probably count for the balance of the CO2 removal after the biosphere and the ocean surface.
Oxygen measurements since 1990 prove beyond doubt that the biosphere as a whole is a net sink for CO2. Thus not the source of the increase in the atmosphere.
Thus how much you like your theory that temperature is the only driver for the increase in the atmosphere, there is no source in nature which can deliver that. Thus your theory is falsified, however nice the correlation is for the variability part, it is a spurious correlation for the trend part.
Bart says:
July 13, 2012 at 6:04 pm
If you detrend the temperature, then the exact same trend in the dCO2/dt series no longer correlates!
That’s the beauty of the whole thing – when you scale the temperature so that the varying stuff matches, so do the trends!
As I said before: one can have the same fit with about the same fine nuances with temperature alone as good as with the emissions causing the trend and temperature causing the variability around the trend. Here the result:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/co2_T_dT_em_1960_2005_3.jpg
The difference between your approach and mine:
– no need to let all the human emissions disappear in an unknown location.
– no need for an unknown natural process that mimics the human emissions.
– absolute temperature needs no arbitrary offset, as that has no influence on the long term CO2 increase rate.
– only the temperature changes have a short time (here one year, in reality 2-3 years) influence.
– the human emissions are by large responsible for the trend, temperature changes for the variability.
The difference in correlation is mainly from the 12-month smoothing of the monthly change in temperature (to remove much of the noise and the seasonal influences) and the lag that it causes. The human emissions over a year were linearly interpolated inbetween.
Ferdinand,
At present, the oceans are a net source and not a net sink. The southern equatorial pacific is emitting more CO2 than the Arctic and Antarctic can consume and the atmospheric concentrations are rising. These rates are much greater than anthropogenic emissions and are allways changing in natural cycles of different wave lengths and amplitudes (look at proxie data). Global averaging to filter out “noise” also erases this informative rate data. This is why your mass balance method is giving you missleading information. Thermodynamics only tells you the direction of a reaction. It does not tell you the rate. Your mass balance should be done with rates at the sources and sinks.
In addition, if you take into account a 6 months lag in CO2 level, the correlation between observed CO2 levels and calculated from emissions + temperature changes increases to 0.64.
Fred, I don’t see that the oceans are a net source of CO2.
Measurements at different places over several years and a lot of ocean areas show an increase of DIC (dissolved inorganic carbon) in the surface layer and calculations of the fluxes per area in the different seasons show that the average weighted fluxes are higher from the atmosphere into the oceans than reverse. The difference is about 2 GtC/year larger for the sink fluxes than for the source fluxes (which each are around 90 GtC, partly continuous, partly seasonal). See:
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/feel2331/mean.shtml
Per mass balance: if the oceans should be a net source of CO2, one need another sink which absorbs the extra releases from the oceans + halve the human emissions. That could be the biosphere, but the oxygen balance only shows a net uptake of about 1.5 GtC/year by the biosphere. Other possible sinks (rock weathering, chalk deposits,…) are much slower…
Ferdinand,
Again, most of the “flux” data that I have seen are based on partial pressure differences (thermodynamics) which tells you little about actual rates. Where do you expect that increase in DIC will go as the surface water warms up crossing the equatorial south pacific? It will either emit to the atmosphere or precipitate as solid calcium carbonate. These rates are what we need to know. Also we need to know transport mechanisms and rates between sources and sinks. These are more likely the controlling factors.
Fred,
flux = partial pressure difference x flux rate.
The latter is experimentally measured in seawater filled tanks. Thus that gives a rough idea of the total flux rate, if the partial pressure difference over a certain area and the wind speed is known. There are of course lots of problems with that approach, but the first term, the partial pressure difference is clear: if that doubles, then the flux doubles at the same wind speed.
The point is that DIC increased everywhere, including the warm Pacific parts. Thus whatever the temperature did, more CO2 was retained there, thus less was emitted into the atmosphere. At the cold side, more CO2 was pushed into the oceans. Thus even without any knowledge of the basic fluxes, we know that the oceans were increasing sinks for CO2…
Ferdinand,
You can’t do a proper mass balance without knowing actual exchange rates, and as you point out what you are using as fluxes are rather shaky. It is even more shaky to assume that natural exchange rates have not changed over year to year when we know they change greatly within a year. There are too many ways that we know they change. About the DIC. Don’t you think that partial pressure of CO2 should rise along with a increase in DIC? At the equator you should expect DIC to be coming from upwelling off the cost of Peru in a la Nina.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
July 14, 2012 at 5:49 am
“As I said before: one can have the same fit with about the same fine nuances with temperature alone as good as with the emissions causing the trend and temperature causing the variability around the trend.”
Ferdinand, that is scientifically illiterate. You cannot just pick and choose which parts of the temperature you use and which you do not. There is no mechanism in nature which can magically apportion things like that. Nature does not detrend the temperature.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
July 14, 2012 at 1:51 am
“… 13C/12C measurments are modern measurements taken in the atmosphere since the 1970′s and in the oceans since the 1980′s.”
Modern measurements, sure. But, the model for what they mean cannot be verified. You just have an interpretation, a narrative, of what they mean, but no proof.
Bart says:
July 14, 2012 at 11:19 am
Ferdinand, that is scientifically illiterate. You cannot just pick and choose which parts of the temperature you use and which you do not. There is no mechanism in nature which can magically apportion things like that. Nature does not detrend the temperature.
First an error in the description: I detrended the temperature changes, not the temperature itself.
Bart, what you don’t see is that the oceans don’t react as a continuous sink or source on a step change in temperature (an absolute temperature difference). The reaction is fast but limited and ends when a new equilibrium is reached. For the oceans, that is when the atmosphere reaches a change of ~16 ppmv for an average change of 1°C in the oceans surface (and opposite for vegetation). It is the change in temperature which gives a change in CO2 level and thus a temporary (2-3 years) change in the derivative, which then falls back to zero. Thus except for a temporary reaction on temperature changes, the absolute temperature influence on the CO2 increase rate is essentially zero.
I am not the one which detrend the temperature changes, nature does that itself…
Thus in summary: absolute temperature has zero effect on the CO2 increase rate and only temperature changes have a temporary effect.
That is the difference between your approach and mine. My approach is what is observed over months to many millennia, your approach fits only the past 50 years, but is only curve fitting for the part that describes the trend.
Bart says:
July 14, 2012 at 11:22 am
Modern measurements, sure. But, the model for what they mean cannot be verified. You just have an interpretation, a narrative, of what they mean, but no proof.
Nothing to do with models. The oceans have a positive d13C level of 0 to +1 per mil for the deep oceans and +1 to +5 per mil for the ocean surface. The atmospere is at -8 per mil. Thus any substantial addition of CO2 from the (deep) oceans would increase the d13C level of the atmosphere, but we only see a sharp decline, in ratio with the human emissions… Thus it simply is impossible that the oceans are the cause of the increase in the atmosphere.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
July 14, 2012 at 12:23 pm
“Bart, what you don’t see is that the oceans don’t react as a continuous sink or source on a step change in temperature (an absolute temperature difference). The reaction is fast but limited and ends when a new equilibrium is reached.”
Of course it does not have a continuous response when the input is discontinuous (a step change). This is trivial.
“Thus in summary: absolute temperature has zero effect on the CO2 increase rate and only temperature changes have a temporary effect. “
Directly and irrefutably contradicted by the data.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
July 14, 2012 at 12:31 pm
“Nothing to do with models.”
And, you then proceed to explain the model. Please, Ferdinand, THINK!
Bart says:
July 14, 2012 at 1:30 pm
Of course it does not have a continuous response when the input is discontinuous (a step change). This is trivial.
Neither does that give an over 100 ppmv/°C response over time while the direct response to short and very long changes is not more than 4-8 ppmv/°C…
Directly and irrefutably contradicted by the data.
Pff, pure and irrefutable curve fitting of a trend based on an arbitrary offset, that doesn’t work for other periods of time…
And, you then proceed to explain the model. Please, Ferdinand, THINK!
Well, if you expect that if you add a base to an acid solution that the solution becomes more acid, then you need more than explaining that such a “model” will not work…
“…what you don’t see is that the oceans don’t react as a continuous sink or source on a step change in temperature…”
Perhaps what you meant was that you do not think that a step change in temperature causes a permanent shift in the rate of change of CO2. That is probably true, over a long timeline. But the overall reaction, including oceans and land, is not “fast” and, on a short time scale, not “limited”. It takes a long time for a new equilibrium to be reached, assuming it is at some point.
That is what the data tell us. You can proclaim what you suppose nature ought to do until you are blue in the face. But, when the data contradicts your hypothesis, you are not describing the real, observable world around us.
“Thus any substantial addition of CO2 from the (deep) oceans would increase the d13C level of the atmosphere, but we only see a sharp decline, in ratio with the human emissions…”
THAT, Ferdinand, is a model. It assumes uniform distribution in the oceans, with no other effects, and an extremely simple diffusion model in which every region of the oceans, atmosphere, and land are instantly equilibrated.
It’s pure speculation, even if you do not recognize it as such.
Bart says:
July 14, 2012 at 2:59 pm
THAT, Ferdinand, is a model. It assumes uniform distribution in the oceans, with no other effects, and an extremely simple diffusion model in which every region of the oceans, atmosphere, and land are instantly equilibrated.
Bart, the take away message is that any substantial addition from the deep oceans would increase the d13C level of the atmosphere. That is not a “model” but simple logic, as good as adding a base to an acid solution will make that less acid or even basic, whatever the mixing speed.
That has nothing to do with diffusion out or distribution in the oceans, as all parts of the oceans have a higher d13C level than the atmosphere. Thus any extra release of any part of the oceans would increase the d13C level of any part of the atmosphere. And the atmosphere shows a measured near steady decline in d13C, over a 30+ years span, everywhere it is measured. Thus whatever happens with diffusion or mixing speed in the oceans or the atmosphere (which is less than a few years), the oceans can’t be a substantial source of the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. That is what the data say.
Bart says:
July 14, 2012 at 2:45 pm
Perhaps what you meant was that you do not think that a step change in temperature causes a permanent shift in the rate of change of CO2. That is probably true, over a long timeline. But the overall reaction, including oceans and land, is not “fast” and, on a short time scale, not “limited”.
Look again at what your curve fitting does:
The short term variability in the order of months to 1-2 years gives a variability in CO2 levels of 4-5 ppmv/°C as transient change over these time spans. The overal temperature change over the period 1960-2005 is 0.7°C with as result some 70 ppmv increase over the same time span and the end still is not in sight. With an average speed ranging from 0.75 ppmv per year in 1960 to 2.0 ppmv per year in 2005. Even with a relative constant temperature over the past 15 years, the CO2 increase still increases, which is quite remarkable.
Thus at least two different processes are at work: a fast limited one that gives the fast swings around the trend and a slower one that gives quasi unlimited changes over time for a small change in temperature.
Then we have the ice cores and several other proxies which show that the overall reaction on temperature changes over periods from 50 years to many millennia is limited to maximum 10 ppmv/°C, to take a wider margin. Thus a third reaction should reduce the overal rate back to about the same magnitude as the first one now, as we are already in the time frame as seen in ice cores.
Then we have the problem that human emissions are double what is seen as increase in the atmosphere, thus should go somewhere, we have the oceans which can’t be the source, we have the biosphere which is not the source…
Thus in my informed opinion, the second reaction doesn’t exist and is only an artifact of the arbitrary offset and a misinterpretation of the real processes in nature. Your approach doesn’t fit other periods in time and doesn’t fit a lot of other points, has no known sources and a missing sink for the human emissions. Thus completely spurious for the trend part.
My approach is based on known processes and fits all known observations over all time periods…
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
July 14, 2012 at 3:37 pm
When you cannot even recognize when you are using a model, with all manner of implicit assumptions built in, and cannot readily admit to or point to which assumptions you have made so you can defend their weaknesses, then you are in the position of those pitiful dictators in the East Bloc who came to believe their own propaganda, and never expected to fall.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
July 14, 2012 at 4:40 pm
“The short term variability in the order of months to 1-2 years gives a variability in CO2 levels of 4-5 ppmv/°C as transient change over these time spans. The overal temperature change over the period 1960-2005 is 0.7°C with as result some 70 ppmv increase over the same time span and the end still is not in sight. With an average speed ranging from 0.75 ppmv per year in 1960 to 2.0 ppmv per year in 2005. Even with a relative constant temperature over the past 15 years, the CO2 increase still increases, which is quite remarkable.”
Not remarkable at all. In fact, monumentally typical of the performance of dynamic systems, which respond with different gain to different frequency components of driving inputs. That is part of what makes me so certain I am right – I see this type of behavior every day in the systems I design which do, in fact, function as designed in the real world. It is what makes me so certain you are wrong – you are completely unmoored from the mathematically constrained functioning of real world systems. You do not realize, for example, that a stable system which responds to variations, but not to steady inputs, is a high pass system which must exhibit frequency dependent dispersion and will not line up 1:1 in perfect synchronicity with its driving force. It simply cannot replicate correlations of this remarkably high fidelity.
This is your problem, Ferdinand, even though you do not recognize it as such, because you do not have experience at this level with real world systems. You are imagining how you would like things to be, but they simply cannot be that way in the real world.
You have no idea what it is like for me to argue with you, and see these mind-numbingly blinkered statements you make, knowing there is no way I can explain to you why they are impossible in a way which you will understand. But, it’s not just you. The greater mass of people who call themselves “climate scientists” have no experience with dynamical systems, and have no clue why they are so far removed from reality that their hypotheses are virtually guaranteed, at some point in time, to fail and be swept aside. I’d feel sorry for them if they were not so overwhelmingly a bunch of clueless know-it-all jerks who have it within their power to adversely impact so many lives, and are insouciantly happy to do so.
Bart says:
July 14, 2012 at 6:38 pm
When you cannot even recognize when you are using a model, with all manner of implicit assumptions built in…
When you can’t use simple logic to conclude that, whatever the processes involved, the oceans can’t be the source of extra CO2 in the atmosphere, because of too high in d13C, then you suffer from the same problem I have encountered with a lot of very highly intelligent people: masters in theoretical solutions, but very poor in recognizing that the practical implications are quite different from theory…
Not remarkable at all. In fact, monumentally typical of the performance of dynamic systems, which respond with different gain to different frequency components of driving inputs.
I am sufficient aware of the implications of different reponses from different processes. That includes that a combination of processes which give a small response on high frequency changes, a huge response on medium frequency changes and again a small response on low to extremely low frequency changes is very unlikely, if not impossible. Further, my remark was that the response increases over time, thus it looks like a runaway reaction, if temperature was the cause of the increase.
It simply cannot replicate correlations of this remarkably high fidelity.
I did show you that the same high fidelity in replication can be obtained with a combination of the two driving variables: temperature and emissions. That doesn’t use a near impossible high response to medium frequency temperature changes and is based on known fast processes in the ocean surface layer and the mass balance, without including pure theoretical phantasies with no known corresponding processes in nature. Further that fits all other time periods. See:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/co2_T_dT_em_1960_2005_3.jpg
This is your problem, Ferdinand, even though you do not recognize it as such, because you do not have experience at this level with real world systems.
Another phantasy? I have worked 34 years, halve of the time as chemical process engineer, halve as process automation engineer, implementing processes invented by very intelligent theoretici into the real world. Processes with response times ranging from fractions of seconds to 8 days (the latter the most problematic one to manage). I have encountered about every practical problem one can’t even imagine, including a few runaway reactions… My theoretical knowledge has faded a lot over time, especially since I am retired, but my logic still is sharp enough to recognize where the practical problems are…
You have no idea what it is like for me to argue with you.
Oh, yes, I have some idea about your problem: you are so stuck in the real nice theoretical solution that explains the variability of the temperature-CO2 response that you don’t see that the practical implications for the trend part are illogic and near impossible, including non-existing processes that remove the other, more plausible variable which can easely explain the trend…
A similar problem as that I have encountered many times in discussions with very intelligent people during the implementation of theoretical sound processes where the practical side didn’t follow the theory…
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
July 15, 2012 at 2:45 am
“When you can’t use simple logic to conclude that…”
That’s your problem, Ferdinand. Your logic is simple, or more accurately, simplistic. You say one type of behavior cannot be possible, when you do not have enough information to make that conclusion, and you say other types of behavior are the only alternative, when those latter types are, in fact, physically impossible.
“…thus it looks like a runaway reaction, if temperature was the cause of the increase.”
Only over a long timeline. We know that over a long time interval, other limiting factors must come into play. We do not have enough data yet to determine what those limiting factors are. As I have stated before, the coupled differential equations
dCO2/dt = (CO2 – Co)/tau1 + H
dCo/dt = -Co/tau2 + k*(T-To)
with tau1 relatively short and tau2 relatively long is an analogous system description which does not run away, but for which we do not have enough reliable data to resolve tau2. This is a common and ordinary type of system description.
“I did show you that the same high fidelity in replication can be obtained with a combination of the two driving variables: temperature and emissions. “
And, as I have tried to explain, it is physically impossible, given the data.
“Oh, yes, I have some idea about your problem: you are so stuck in the real nice theoretical solution that explains the variability of the temperature-CO2 response that you don’t see that the practical implications … are illogic and … impossible…”
That about sums up my response to you, the difference being that your pet theory is physically impossible.
Bart,
I tried to explain you that your solution is physically impossible, to no avail.
It doesn’t make any sense to go on with this discussion, only the future will show who is right, if the temperature stays flat or goes down during a few years, we will see the real response of the CO2 rate of change…
The difference is, when you say “physically impossible,” you mean “inconsistent with other parts of the narrative which I believe are true”. When I say “physically impossible,” I mean “physically impossible.”
Bart says:
July 15, 2012 at 7:37 pm
When I say physically impossible, that means that it is physically impossible that:
– human emissions (some 300 GtC) disappear in a black hole without leaving a trace, as you believe.
– ocean emissions are an important source of the CO2 increase, as you believe, while its d13C levels are much higher than anywhere in the atmosphere and the d13C levels of the atmosphere are constantly declining.
– that the reaction of CO2 increase to temperature consists of a small response on temperature changes for high frequency changes, a huge response on medium frequency changes, as you believe, and again a small response to low and very low frequency changes, where the low frequency changes largely reduce the medium frequency responses.
– that any natural process exists that can deliver 140 GtC extra in the atmosphere over 45 years time, the equivalent of burning down 1/3rd of all land vegetation, as you believe, without being discovered.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
July 12, 2012 at 5:40 am :
[I advise that new readers go to the post, and the previous related posts and read through them.}
Thank you, Ferdinand for your explanation. The only way that it makes sense, in your terms, is if one assumes that the conditions which move the relative numbers of C3 and C4 metabolism plankton around are not new. I think. If one is changing the numbers, as I believe is happening, then you are making no sense.
Let me try again. Here is my postulate.
Pollution has changed the plankton population. There are now more C4 plants. These have displaced some 3C plants. C4 plants push less C into the deep ocean, but what they push is heavier, on average. So, total less, isotope weight more. This leaves more C in the atmosphere. Since the export is relatively heavy in the 13C and 14C isotopes, a light signal is left in the atmosphere. More C, light C signal in the atmosphere. In the oceans, less C, relatively more heavy C.
I cannot make it any simpler.
JF
Oh, look, my hypothesis is testable. How often do you see that in climate science?
JF
Julian Flood says:
July 16, 2012 at 4:32 am
C4 plants push less C into the deep ocean, but what they push is heavier, on average. So, total less, isotope weight more. This leaves more C in the atmosphere. Since the export is relatively heavy in the 13C and 14C isotopes, a light signal is left in the atmosphere. More C, light C signal in the atmosphere. In the oceans, less C, relatively more heavy C.
Julian, the article suggests that the diatom blooming exports more C from the atmosphere to the deep oceans, that is the opposite of what you expect. But that is not the only problem with your reasoning, the main problem is in the relative 13C/12C ratios.
Compared to the surrounding oceans, both C3 and C4 plants take relative more 12C out of the water than 13C (or 14C). Thus both are lighter in heavy isotopes than the surrounding waters and thus enrich the surface waters, permamently when they drop out and aren’t recycled by other species. The difference is that C3 plants enrich the surrounding waters more in hevy isotpes than C4 plants, for the same C uptake. Thus IF there was a release from the surface waters to the atmosphere, that would enrich the atmosphere with 13C and 14C, be it more from C3 plants than from C4 plants. But we see a steady decline in 13C (and 14C), both in the atmosphere as in the oceans surface waters. Thus the algal blooms are not the cause of the increase in the atmosphere, but may be part of the increasing sink rate, which removes about halve the increase caused by the human emissions…
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
July 16, 2012 at 2:55 am
“When I say physically impossible, that means that it is physically impossible that…”
I believe that is what I said: you mean inconsistent with other parts of the narrative which you believe are true.
When I say it, I mean physically impossible as in not possible according to the Laws of Nature in this Universe.