Guest post by Steve Goreham
Originally published in The Washington Times
On December 5, the PBS News Hour showed a segment titled “Endangered Coral Reefs Die as Ocean Temperatures Rise and Water Turns Acidic,” with Hari Sreenivasan reporting. The story discussed the recent loss of Florida coral reefs and the possible impact on recreation and tourism if reef degradation continues. But PBS wrongly told viewers that reef degradation was due to warmer ocean temperatures and “ocean acidification,” both allegedly caused by human carbon dioxide emissions. Sreenivasan concluded with, “Time that maybe is running out for coral reefs in Florida and elsewhere.”
Scientists, environmental groups, and the United Nations promote the fear of ocean acidification. According to claims, man-made emissions of carbon dioxide are absorbed by the oceans and converted into carbonic acid, thereby changing the chemical balance of the oceans. The basic concept of acidification is correct, but hugely exaggerated.
The PBS segment is wrong in several ways. First, while today’s temperatures are the warmest in the last 400 years, oceans were warmer still during the Medieval Warm Period ten centuries ago. Peer-reviewed studies found that both the Gulf of Mexico and nearby Sargasso Sea were warmer about 1000 AD than at present. These warm temperatures were due to natural climatic changes of Earth―not man-made emissions. Caribbean reefs adapted to these warm seas to remain with us today.
Second, the segment paints a misleading picture of carbon dioxide entering the oceans, without providing perspective for the viewer. Sreenivasan interviews scientist Chris Landon who states, “And it’s enough railroad cars stacked end to end to wrap around the earth seven times. That’s how much carbon is going into the ocean every single year.” This sounds alarming, unless you know that the oceans absorb and release about 90 times that amount of CO2 every year from the atmosphere naturally. In addition, carbon dioxide is absorbed by vast deposits of limestone rock in the ocean floor, removing it from sea water.
Third, the oceans are alkaline, not acidic. We’re discussing a reduction in alkalinity. Solutions are measured as acidic or alkaline (basic) on a logarithmic 14-point scale, called the pH Scale. Battery acid has a pH of about one, while the base lye has a pH as high as thirteen. Milk is slightly acidic, as are most of the foods we eat.
Measured in the open ocean, sea water is alkaline, with a pH of about 8.2. According to computer models, doubling of atmospheric CO2 would decrease ocean pH to about 7.9, still basic, but less so. The concern is that this change would destroy the coral reefs by dissolving the carbonate shells and skeletons of reef creatures. Sreenivasan states, “Acidification acts a lot like osteoporosis does in humans. But in marine animals, it makes their shells and skeletons brittle. The more acidic the water, the harder it is for corals to grow their skeletons.”
But, empirical evidence does not show it harder for today’s marine animals to grow their shells. A study of corals at the Great Barrier Reef shows that shell calcium growth rates today are about 25 percent higher than 300‒400 years ago when both ocean temperatures and levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide were lower.
Scientists still know little about the alkalinity of today’s ocean or the oceans of past centuries. Ocean pH varies by depth, becoming less basic as one goes deeper. It varies by latitude from the equator to the poles. It varies by location, such as the open ocean, coral reef, or kelp bed.
But the PBS segment ignores this uncertainty and implies that the rate of change in ocean pH is alarming. Dr. Langdon states, “What’s really and completely unique about what’s going on now is the rate of change. And that’s what is so difficult for organisms.”
However, evidence shows that a high rate of change in ocean alkalinity is natural. A 2011 study by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography found large variations in ocean pH by day, week, and month. Changes in some locations were as high as 0.35 units over the course of a day, higher than computer models are predicting for the next century.
Scuba divers know that reef creatures already experience acidic conditions near CO2 vents in the ocean floor. These vents bubble CO2 gas amidst coral reefs and grassy ocean pastures in millions of locations. Fish and reefs appear to be doing quite well near these CO2 vents.
The coral reefs in the Caribbean and other seas may be endangered due overfishing, chemical pollution, and human abuse. But let’s not blame reef degradation on misguided fears about global warming.
Steve Goreham is Executive Director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of the new book The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania.
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I prefer the term ‘less caustic’, although caustic can be used to describe acids, it is conventionally used to describe the corrosive properties of alkalies, as opposed to ‘acidic’.
‘Less caustic’ just does not sound quite so scary, does it?
Good article, Steve. Thank you. I urge everyone to contact their local PBS station to complain about the many errors in the News Hour “Making Sense of Climate Change” series. I have told them that I am withholding my pledge because of the misinformation.
From the AGU lecture link given above by joeldshore
20 mins 45seconds:
That’s what I thought, too.
@ur momisugly joeldshore
LOL. Did you notice your so called expert makes the assumption in his presentation that carbonate saturation is the limiting factor for coral survival instead of temperature? As usual with alarmist “experts” they assume a cause and effect relationships that’s opposite of the most likely and obvious case. The saturation of carbonate distribution is due to temperature being the dominate factor in Henry’s Law. Coral distribution mimics the saturation distribution most likely because they have the same dominant factor, temperature. In other words, your expert is either foolish, fooling, or has secret knowledge that no one else on the planet does.
Many years ago, there used to be the worry of raw sewage being dumped in the oceans. (If people can remember the time when they spray painted fish stencils on all drains heading into oceans/lakes and rivers.) Now they want to worry about ocean acidification? Soon enough they are going to worry about caffeine and hormones among some of the things that are contaminating the oceans from raw sewage still being dumped into our oceans.
So why are governments still funding study after study, why hasn’t that money gone back into rebuilding sea walls, upgrading sewage systems. Improving our building codes and so on. The list is pretty much using some common sense that sh*t happens, and it’s logical to be prepared.
I believe it was part of the same series, but a few days earlier PBS had a piece on the impact of “ocean acidification” on Pacific NW oyster production. There is no doubt of changing environmental conditions having a negative impact on the industry. I emailed Dr Richard Feely, who was quoted on the piece about a particular comment referring to “corrosive” deep welling currents, pointing out that moving to a more “neutral” point on the pH scale could not really be corrosive. Dr Feely took the time to reply, providing reference papers. If one looks at research results, organisms that form shells have shown an impact that looks like corrosion. If I understand the process correctly, it has more to do with inhibiting the ability to form a shell, which is not the same as having the shell corroding. While the accuracy of the terminology from a pure science perspective can be questioned. It is not a wild distortion.
What remained unanwsered are questions about certainty with regard to human CO2 verses natural processes. The PBS piece made repeated reference to upwelling currents along the PNW. From what I can determine, no good evidence has been presented that differenciates between these deep currents and CO2 uptake by the oceans from anthropogenic sources. One of the papers Dr Feely referenced talked about changes in surface wind patterns caused by higher CO2 concentrations which would lead to greater upwelling. But if I understood the paper correctly, the connection between C)2 and changes in wind patterns was basically model derived.
So I was left with this impression – there is no doubt environmental conditions along the PNW coast are changing. The impact to the shell fish industry is real. What is not certain is the link to CO2 emissions. Up welling is a known. What is not known is the relationship between these currents and the increase in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. There appears to be a leap of faith that human CO2 emmisions are the difference. While I personally believe that such leaps are not unwarranted in life, I do have doubts when they occur in science.
In analyzing any degradation to reefs I would suppose all things have been considered? e.g the effects of anti-fouling paint, bilge water, human urine (PH 4.6 – a large recreational industry must mean a lot of people), agricultural runoff, Crown of Thorns star fish, and the unregulated removal of coral and fish for trade, In addition plants and animals are moved around the planet and let lose by idiots, such as the Lion Fish (the fish is not the idiot).
I am assuming all things have been considered.
[snip links without a description of where they lead to -mod]
Anthony— is there an assignment of stupidity we could use like a “CLUB OF BAFOONS” ? One or more persons could nominate and a dozen votes would place the offender in the club. If the moron continues to use fictitious and unfactual comments they advance through varying degrees of stupid with a winner receiving a ” Scientific Imposter of the Year Award”.
We absolutely need comic relief before our heads explode!!
I bought a Soda Stream a while back. The instructions recommend cooling the water first so that it will retain more of the CO2 the Soda Stream sprays into it. What do they know that Climate Alarmists do not?
theOtherJohninCalif says:
What the people whom you call “Climate Alarmists” (and I would call “scientists”) know and you do not is that temperature isn’t the only thing that controls the concentration of CO2 in the oceans. Another important factor is the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere above the ocean. That partial pressure has increased by ~40% since the beginning of the industrial revolution (with about half of that rise having occurred in the last ~35 years).
Can you guess which effect is dominating?
All the commentry seems to be preoccupied with the “current” warming hysteria, understandably.
However, I would bring it to attention that a young man called Eddie Hegerl came to Brisbane Queensland, Australia from the U.S.A. in 1963+- to save the Great Barrier Reef. He started the Australian Littoral Society and it was due to its efforts along with many others that the reef system is now a world heritage and under protective management with mostly positive results. My point is, he stated the reason for his coming was that the damage to Florida and Carribean reefs due to direct human exploitation was extreme and out of control(fishing,collecting,coral industries,visitation………….) ; that he thought those reefs were “finished” and that we had to protect the G.B.R. before it was too late. NOBODY WAS TALKING ABOUT AGW THEN !
joeldshore says:
“Can you guess which effect is dominating?”
No need to guess, the CO2 partial pressure of seawater is dominated by physical, chemical, and biological processes within the water not simply the partial pressure of the overlying air.
http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=kt167nb66r;chunk.id=d3_7_ch06;doc.view=print
“The partial pressure of CO2 in the surface water can be computed with sufficient accuracy when the temperature, salinity, alkalinity, and pH are known, but, before a better understanding of the CO2 exchange between the sea and the atmosphere can be obtained, a far more comprehensive study of the partial pressure of the atmospheric CO2 must be made. Buch (1939b) has reported a number of direct observations on the CO2 content of the air which indicate that polar air is relatively low in CO2 (pCO2 = 0.23 Torr), compared to continental and tropical air (pCO2 = 0.25 Torr). It has been suggested that in low latitudes the air is enriched with CO2 from the ocean and that the general atmospheric circulation carries the CO2 into high latitudes. There it again dissolves in the sea water, which in time brings it back toward the Equator.”
Note the higher concentration of atmospheric CO2 (~329 ppm or .25 Torr) is where CO2 is going from the seawater to the air and the lower atmospheric concentration (~303 ppm or .23 Torr) is where the CO2 is being dissolved, that’s because the dissolution of atmospheric CO2 into seawater is dominated by the temperature not the atmospheric CO2 partial pressure.
“Cycle of CO2 Between Sea and Atmosphere. Investigations of the partial pressure of CO2 in the ocean and the atmosphere have been made by Krogh (1904) and Buch (1939a,b). The following internal changes will increase or decrease the pCO2 in the surface layer:
Increase pco2
1. Rise in temperature
2. Rise in salinity (evaporation)
3. Respiration
4. Precipitation of CaCO3
5. Deep water brought to surface
Decrease pco2
1. Decrease in temperature
2. Decrease in salinity
3. Photosynthesis
4. Solution of CaCO3 “
Hmmm, atmospheric CO2 didn’t even make their list but temperature is the #1 factor.
I read of one study that showed lowered alkalinity made the calcium more available; dead shells dissolved faster, and living shellfish found capturing and utilizing it easier, resulting in enhanced growth. As usual, the opposite result of that touted by Warmists.
John West,
So are you trying to claim that sea water has been a net emitter rather than a net absorber of CO2 from the atmosphere in the last century?!? I believe that flies in the face of lots of other evidence, including the fact that the CO2 in the atmosphere has been rising only at about half the rate at which we have emitted CO2 into the air through the burning of fossil fuels. This means the extra CO2 has to be going somewhere, and while some of it can be going into land biomass, I think there is plenty of evidence that at least some of it is going into the oceans.
joeldshore:
Your post addressed to John West at December 17, 2012 at 11:27 am says in total
Your post – as is usual with your posts – displays a complete lack of understanding of the issue under discussion.
Please note that I don’t know what has caused the recent increase to atmospheric CO2 concentration, but I want to know. And anybody who thinks they know is mistaken because available data permits either an anthropogenic or a natural cause to be attributed
(ref. Rorsch A, Courtney RS & Thoenes D, ‘The Interaction of Climate Change and the Carbon Dioxide Cycle’ E&E v16no2 (2005) ).
I draw your attention to the several discussions of the carbon cycle on WUWT and in particular to the ongoing discussion on the thread at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/07/a-brief-history-of-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-record-breaking/
In that thread Henry P had been attempting to model changes to the carbon cycle using the ‘mass balance’ argument which you present. I pointed out that the ‘mass balance argument’ is irrelevant to an understanding of the causes of recent rise to atmospheric CO2 concentration. But I failed to adequately explain why that argument is irrelevant and he responded.
Therefore, I provided the post which I copy below (to save you and others needing to find it).
Henry P is an honest man so he read the post (which I copy below) and admitted the impossibility of a ‘mass balance’ model being informative.
I wait to see if you can muster similar honesty to that demonstrated by Henry P.
Richard
*********************
richardscourtney says:
December 13, 2012 at 8:23 am
HenryP:
At December 13, 2012 at 5:27 am you say to me
NO!
I have no idea where you got such an idea because I have not questioned and not mentioned any such thing.
CO2 is in various compartments of the carbon cycle system, and it is exchanged between them. Almost all of the CO2 is in the deep oceans. Much is in the upper ocean surface layer. Much is in the biosphere. Some is in the atmosphere. etc..
The equilibrium state of the carbon cycle system defines the stable distribution of CO2 among the compartments of the system. And at any moment the system is adjusting towards that stable distribution. But the equilibrium state is not a constant: it varies at all time scales.
Any change to the equilibrium state of the carbon cycle system induces a change to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Indeed, this is seen as the ‘seasonal variation’ in the Mauna Loa data. However, some of the mechanisms for exchange between the compartments have rate constants of years and decades. Hence, it takes decades for the system to adjust to an altered equilibrium state.
The observed increase of atmospheric CO2 over recent decades could be an effect of such a change to the equilibrium state. If so, then the cause of the change is not known.
Indeed, if – as you suggest – the cause of the recent atmospheric CO2 increase is volcanism then the most likely alteration is NOT volcanic emission of CO2: it is volcanic emission of sulphur ions below the sea decades or centuries ago.
The thermohaline circulation carries ocean water through the deeps for centuries before those waters return to ocean surface. The water acquires sulphur ions as it passes undersea volcanoes and it carries that sulphur with it to the ocean surface layer decades or centuries later. The resulting change to sulphur in the ocean surface layer alters the pH of the layer.
An alteration of ocean surface layer pH alters the equilibrium concentration of atmospheric CO2.
A reduction to surface layer pH of only 0.1 (which is much too small to be detectable) would induce more than all the change to atmospheric CO2 concentration of 290 ppmv to ~400 ppmv which has happened since before the industrial revolution.
I don’t know if this volcanic effect has happened, and I doubt that it has. But it demonstrates how changed equilibrium conditions could have had the observed effect on atmospheric CO2 concentration whether or not the anthropogenic CO2 emission existed.
Richard
joeldshore says:
I was not claiming anything as to the ocean being a net emitter or absorber of CO2 but rather was illustrating that the temperature is a more dominant factor in determining the partial CO2 pressure of seawater than the partial pressure of the overlying air.
But while we’re on the subject we might as well discuss the carbon cycle and how the ocean could be a net emitter of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere AND absorb half of our emissions. Hopefully, your brain didn’t just explode. Let me explain. Take a moment and consider the carbon cycle as being split into a biological carbon cycle and chemical carbon cycle. The biological carbon cycle includes photosynthesis and respiration among other processes that may occur in the atmosphere and in the ocean. The chemical carbon cycle includes weathering and carbonate dissolution among other processes. Where these two cycles intersect is in the surface ocean with organisms that produce carbonate shells. We also need to realize the ocean is not some homogenous blob of water, but has several distinct layers and sections. The deep ocean where there’s no light is very different from the surface ocean and similarly the surface tropical waters are very different from polar surface waters. So, as I was saying the ocean could be emitting from tropical waters more than it is absorbing from polar waters and still be absorbing half “our” emissions from the atmosphere because it’s more like a complicated web than a simple cycle.
I’ll try to illustrate: (“u” just being units and values completely hypothetical, “^” = emit to and “v” = absorbed from)
Start with atmosphere = 1,000 u; surface ocean = 10,000 u; and deep ocean = 1,000,000 u
Annually:
Respiration: 95 u ^ atmosphere & 100 u ^ surface ocean.
Combustion: 10 u ^ atmosphere.
Photosynthesis: 105 u v atmosphere & 100 u v surface ocean.
Tropical surface ocean: 10 u ^ atmosphere.
Polar surface ocean: 5 u v atmosphere.
Deep ocean 20 u v surface ocean.
Ok, yes, this is absurdly oversimplified. Still, in this example even though the surface ocean is net emitting the atmosphere is gaining at only half the combustion emission rate. Now, I’m not saying this is representative of what is actually going on, the carbon cycle is much much much more complicated than this, but what I am saying is yes it is possible for the ocean to be net emitting AND have absorbed half of “our” emissions.
richardscourtney says:
“Please note that I don’t know what has caused the recent increase to atmospheric CO2 concentration, but I want to know. And anybody who thinks they know is mistaken because available data permits either an anthropogenic or a natural cause to be attributed.”
I’ll second that!
And thanks for the backing, I almost forgot about this thread. I shudder just thinking of some AGW advocate getting the last word and possibly being come across by someone googling months or even years later who’s just started trying to figure this mess out and thinking that the AGW advocate’s point went unanswered because it was challenging to the skeptical position.