Don’t laugh, that’s what the Geological Society of America is pushing these days to describe the “ocean acidification problem”…from their press release:
Earth on Acid: The Present & Future of Global Acidification
GSA Annual Meeting & Exposition, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA, 4–7 November 2012
Boulder, CO, USA – Climate change and extreme weather events grab the headlines, but there is another, lesser known, global change underway on land, in the seas, and in the air: acidification.
It turns out that combustion of fossil fuels, smelting of ores, mining of coal and metal ores, and application of nitrogen fertilizer to soils are all driving down the pH of the air, water, and the soil at rates far faster than Earth’s natural systems can buffer, posing threats to both land and sea life.
“It’s a bigger picture than most of us know,” says Janet Herman of the Department of Environmental Sciences at University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
Herman and her colleague, Karen Rice of the USGS, discovered that despite the fact that they worked on different kinds of acidification in the environment, they were not well informed about the matter beyond their own specialties. So they have done an extensive review of science papers about all kinds of environmental acidification and are presenting their work in a poster session on Tuesday, 6 Nov., at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America (GSA) in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA.
Acidification is both a local and global problem, since it can be as close as a nearby stream contaminated by mine tailings or as far-reaching as the world’s oceans, which are becoming more acidic as sea water absorbs higher concentrations of carbon dioxide that humans dump into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels.
Coal gives a double whammy by being the biggest contributor of anthropogenic carbon dioxide to the global atmosphere as well as creating regional acidification. Coal burning is famous for creating acid rain, which had dramatic environmental impacts on forests, streams, and lakes in eastern North America and Europe and led to major policy changes.
“It’s not at all clear that other regions are considering such policy restrictions to be important,” Herman says, regarding places where population growth is expected to increase acidifying activities.
Normally, acids in the environment are buffered by alkaline compounds released by the weathering of minerals in rocks. The problem today, according to Herman, is that the rate of acidification by human activities has outstripped the weathering rate and buffering capacity of the planet.
In their work, Herman and Rice look at the population projections by country over the next four decades to see where the increased industrialization and agriculture will likely lead to new acidification hot spots. Their hope is that by doing this people can anticipate the problem and plan to mitigate the harmful environmental effects, says Herman.
WHAT: Acidification of Earth: An Assessment across Mechanisms and Scales
WHEN: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday, 6 Nov.
WHERE: Booth #67, Charlotte Convention Center: Hall B
ABSTRACT: https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2012AM/finalprogram/abstract_207495.htm
Source: http://www.geosociety.org/news/pr/12-89.htm
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Sparks says:
November 6, 2012 at 9:11 pm
Why should there be moderators?
[Reply: And your point is… ?]
Self explanatory, as an excellent moderator, you should understand that readers can not modify their own comments under this format, not, to edit the context, just to edit simple things like punctuation or grammar , we can’t rely on the moderators to help out all the time. but we can give suggestions. 🙂
My point is pointy.
Howskepticalment;
I support the use of the market. But the market approach needs to acknowledge that the consequences of CO2 emissions represent market failure. This could be addressed by ensuring that consequences are priced into market mechanisms
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Great idea! Let’s compare to the consequences of drastically reduced CO2 emissions and decide which is worse…
Your style kinda reminds me of someone. Where is R Gates these days anyway?
AW.
that is not the only bad acid trip in train. whats this dude and his ludites planning???
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/former-un-official-says-climate-report-will-shock-nations-into-action-20121106-28w5c.html
regards
mpainter
Howskepticalment: Got something for you. Ever hear of the so called PETM? CO2 levels were 4-5 times those of today, yet life flourished in the seas and on land, even more so than today. So where is this “ocean acidification” that you are pushing, with its attendant destruction of life? There was none, because it is all science fiction and do you dare affirm your belief in such rubbish?
You erect a strawman of live thriving under different regimes. Who is saying that it did not do so?
There have been various climatic and chemical regimes. Provided they are in some sort of equilibrium, evolutionary processes will ensure that biodiversity thrives.
Nor am I at all interested in what another poster has correctly referred to as the ‘semantic’ issue of ‘acidification’. I literally don’t care. It is all red herrings, as far as I am concerned. The issue is rate of change and degree of change in pH and the consequent changes (or not) to biodiversity in the seas.
The issue of whether it is not at all, partly, or all, anthropogenic, obviously matters.
If the rate of change is too fast, we will lose a lot of biodiversity which is providing us with such ecosystem services such as 100 million tons of wild-caught fish a year. The Great Barrier Reef in Australia is currently a major tourist attraction and also protects much of the Australian east coast from open ocean impacts. I could list endless examples of potential consequences that we need to take seriously, not because they will happen but because they might.
It is virtually axiomatic that rates of change in environmental factors can be a significant driver of extinction. Too much change too fast promotes mass extinctions. The issue we face is not whether changes in pH are changes in alkalinity or acidity. The issue is whether there are sufficient chemical changes fast enough to drive extinctions. I put it to you that we don’t have a good handle on this at the moment and that it would be foolish to relax and act as if it is all going to be OK.
If current biodiversity is much truncated, biological diversity might evolve, but it may take centuries or millenia to do so.
As usual, it is a risk management issue with policy makers having to juggle difficult issues of probability and uncertainty.
There was none, because it is all science fiction and do you dare affirm your belief in such rubbish?
This sort of sentence merely reduces the quality of WUWT discussion, IMHO. Let’s just stick to the subtantive issues.
Moderators have always been excellent here! and very fair IMHO. I have no complaint in that respect. you don’t need to post this 🙂
mpainter
And by the way, what does a farmer have to do with a paddock?
In some english-speaking countries farmers farm on paddocks. You would probably call them ‘fields’.
Hang on a fecken minute..
“Coal gives a double whammy by being the biggest contributor of anthropogenic carbon dioxide to the global atmosphere as well as creating regional acidification. Coal burning is famous for creating acid rain, which had dramatic environmental impacts on forests, streams, and lakes in eastern North America and Europe and led to major policy changes.”
As I understood it, it was the concentration of SO2 (Sulphur Dioxide) with the burning of coal that caused acid rain (Sulphuric Acid) in the olde worlde cities of Europe etc.- not CO2! Maybe that’s why they don’t mention it.
“Herman and her colleague, Karen Rice of the USGS, discovered that despite the fact that they worked on different kinds of acidification in the environment, they were not well informed about the matter beyond their own specialties.”
I guess that proves they’re disqualified. So does this:
Soda water should be loaded with far more CO2 than any ocean could ever have been, so it follows by their argument it should be so high in Carbonic Acid that Calcium Carbonate should virtually boil away in it. WRONG! Place some eggshell (Calcium Carbonate) in soda water and I’ll bet it never dissolves – not even after many months.
They’re full of cr@p!
pat says:
November 6, 2012 at 8:04 pm
Nov 2012: Reason Magazine: Ronald Bailey: The Paradox of Energy Efficiency
Why greener technology doesn’t translate into reduced energy consumption
————————————————————————————
In my area green built homes tend to use more energy. Owners think that throwing more insulation at the house is a Get Out Of Jail Free card. The fact is that more insulation provides diminishing returns as it is an inverse relationship to heat loss. Then they add grossly oversize windows and doors with at best R3 value. Also there is little understanding of controled ventilation and air changes.
The net result is a dream home that they can’t sfford to heat.
LazyTeenager says: November 6, 2012 at 9:56 pm
<>
As any kid knows, INCREASE or RISE in pH means a shift toward ALKALINITY.
Is that what you mean????
Lazyteen claims OA is a measured fact.
He lies.
davidmhoffer says:
November 6, 2012 at 10:17 pm
Howskepticalment;
I support the use of the market. But the market approach needs to acknowledge that the consequences of CO2 emissions represent market failure. This could be addressed by ensuring that consequences are priced into market mechanisms
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Great idea! Let’s compare to the consequences of drastically reduced CO2 emissions and decide which is worse…
Your style kinda reminds me of someone. Where is R Gates these days anyway?
I support the idea of comparing two broad policy settings: AGW prevention and AGW adaptation and doing so in a risk management framework. Either way, market mechanisms are the best for addressing the issues. I have somewhat of a distrust of top-down central planning – by either governments or by large corporations. The former tends to lead to reduced value for tax money and the latter tends to lead to reduced profits.
IMHO, those advocating adaptation are much the same group of people who once resisted the concept of AGW but who now accept it (for example Dr Bjorn Lomberg) which does rather lead to a sense that the resistance to doing anything about CO2 emissions has moved right along to a new staging ground.
That aside, having looked at their costings of adaptation we can say is that they are rudimentary at best. It is almost as if they really don’t care about what anyone thinks of their logic.
For example, none of them factor in the disappearance under water of most of the Netherlands some time in the next two centuries. It is the world’s 16th biggest economy and contains Europe’s largest port. It is not the sort of item that AGW adaptationists can ignore, IMHO. But they do, routinely.
At least we can cost AGW prevention with a fair degree of accuracy.
BTW, if you are testing your suspicion that I am someone called ‘R Gates’, I can put your mind at rest. I am not s/he.
Billy
The Paradox of Energy Efficiency
Why greener technology doesn’t translate into reduced energy consumption
The real test, in terms of AGW, is not whether energy consumption goes up or goes down. The real test is whether CO2 emissions go up or go down.
Lazy Teenager says:
.
“1. The global CO2 net flux is into the oceans. This is a measurement.
2. The ocean pH is rising. This is a measurement.”
1. No it is not a measurement, but a reasonable conclusion given that much of the CO2 released into the atmosphere “disappears”.
2. It does? In that case the oceans are becoming more alkaline, not less. However no-one has been able to actually measure any change in overall ocean pH, any change is completely swamped by natural variation.
Howskepticalment says:
November 6, 2012 at 11:38 pm
The real test, in terms of AGW, is not whether energy consumption goes up or goes down. The real test is whether CO2 emissions go up or go down.
————————————————————————————————–
Oh my. I forgot that clean coal emits no CO2. But then why bother to conserve energy at all?
Is it a religious ritual?
Billy says:
November 6, 2012 at 11:59 pm
Howskepticalment says:
November 6, 2012 at 11:38 pm
The real test, in terms of AGW, is not whether energy consumption goes up or goes down. The real test is whether CO2 emissions go up or go down.
————————————————————————————————–
Oh my. I forgot that clean coal emits no CO2. But then why bother to conserve energy at all?
Is it a religious ritual?
What clean coal?
Howskepticalment says:
“What clean coal?” Says El Stupido.
Climate alarmists who wail about “carbon” are scientific illiterates. Coal is not only a clean energy source, it provides harmless, beneficial CO2 to the environment. CO2 is an airborne fertilizer that has no downside. That is a fact, chump. Prove that wrong. If you can.
Ocean acidification from CO2 is obviously a complete crock. All you have to do is look at the numbers.
If you do the maths, you will find at the current rate of CO2 absorption, the ‘evil gas’ concentration in the oceans will increase by around one part per million over the next century – that’s about 1%.
Now, that’s a really scary figure from something as near neutral (very weakly acidic) as CO2 in water!
As for the other sources of acidity, these are mainly in the form of nitric and sulphuric acid and their derivatives. This type of acidity is a local phenomenon and while we can alleviate its impact, we will never be able to rid ourselves of it without going back to Stone Age economics.
There is a whole industry within the bloated Global Warming Industry dedicated to researching the “ocean acidification problem” and not one of these ‘researchers’ ever looks at the numbers for fear of proving the pointlessness of their existence/careers.
The real test, in terms of AGW, is not whether energy consumption goes up or goes down. The real test is whether CO2 emissions go up or go down.
I would suggest that depends very much on the planet. She provides over 96% of the CO² in the atmosphere.
HowSc
You write well but it’s all bull[snip], I’m afraid.
Do the models that calculate the effect of man made carbon dioxide on the atmosphere deduct the amount of man made carbon dioxide dissolved in the ocean?
I could point to a potentially real “end-of-the-world.” That will
be when all CO2 is locked up in limestone and chalk. Ever wondered
where all that CO2 back from when it was 2000 ppm in the atmosphere
went to? Have a look at the chalk deposits and limestones around the
world. There’s all the locked-up CO2. It doesn’t seem to unlock at any-
where near the speed with which it was locked up!
Y’see, there’s all these little things in the ocean called Coccolithophores and
Foraminifera—vast numbers of them. They are busy wee things, busy
breeding, growing and dying. They build themselves little “skeletons”
(plates and shells) of calcium carbonate out of the dissolved CO2.
When they die, they sink to the ocean bottom, ” …in vast numbers …”
[Wikipedia] and eventually their accumulated scales, tests, shells or
“skeletons” are pressed into chalk or limestone.
Each one sinking to the bottom takes some CO2 out of circulation. The
world is now running on less than 20% of the CO2 it used to run on.
Should the CO2 content of the atmosphere drop below about half
what it presently is, the plants will struggle. Should it drop below about 150
ppm, the plants will die. When the plants die, we will be dead too.
Ergo: End of the World.
Removing the CO2 from the oceans is a fast method of acidifying …
oops–tugs forelock in Willis’s direction—neutralising the pH of the
oceans.
(If you are not familiar with the Coccolithophores and Foraminifera, you
could always look them up on the not-to-be-trusted Wikipedia :-))
How is it a salmon can move and adapt from sea water, saline and pH 8.3, to fresh water (with reverse osmotic effect) and pH 7.0 within 24 hours?
Howscepticalment says:
The issue is rate of change and degree of change in pH and the consequent changes (or not) to biodiversity in the seas.
====================================================================
Before you worry your head about rates of change and degrees of
change you should download the latest paper from Dr Svensmark
and read it. From it, you will realise the rates of change being forced
on the environment at present are a pittance—tiny, of no real
consequence; totally insignificant compared to the rates which
have been forced upon earth-life by the galaxy over the past 500
million years.
You can acquire a free copy of the paper from:
ftp://ftp2.space.dtu.dk/pub/Svensmark/MNRAS_Svensmark2012.pdf
(it’s an anonymous ftp site so use “ftp” as your login user and your
email address as the password … use an ftp client as web browsers
don’t handlethis site at all well—including but not limited to IE, Firefox,
Chromeetc. for their standard configurations…)
Download the paper.
Read it.
REALLY read it. (It’s fascinating … 🙂
It reduces all the present symptoms, beliefs. debates, quarrels, papers
for and against AGW, all the graphs and ideas, climate hypotheses,
and theories about the present soup into total insignificance, over-
shadowing them all.
Yes: CO2 changehappens all the time— get used it as it won’t hurt you
nor our environment. It’s too insignificant except when it becomes too
low—then it’s really dangerous.
You may also realise the real drivers of evolution, climate and all life
on the third rock from the Sun are out there—galactic—not down
here and most definitely not anthropogenic. While it’s not the gods,
it may as well be. The galaxy is a bit larger and more powerful than
the human species.
And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?
StephenP says: November 7, 2012 at 1:40 am
How is it a salmon can move and adapt from sea water, saline and pH 8.3, to fresh water (with reverse osmotic effect) and pH 7.0 within 24 hours?
Is the fresh water Ph 7.0? I live a few miles from the continental divide in W. Colorado on a stream. The Ph of the stream runs 8.0-9.0. I know because I measure it, and lower it to Ph 5.0 for my blueberry bushes. I would have expected mountain spring water to be closer to 7.0, but then there must be a reason for the moniker of ‘mineral water’.