CO2, is there anything it can’t do? Add it to the list.
Over at WaPo, they call them “supersized”. From Counsel and Heal News (h/t to Gene Doebley):
Carbon To Blame for Oversized Blue Crabs
The use of genetic engineering or steroid enhancements to enlarge certain food products has been popular but highly controversial in the history of the food industry. Based on new research, it seems like certain animals, such as the blue crabs, have found another way of growing that does not require a lab setting. According to research, the side effects of pollution, particularly the emission of carbon dioxide, can lead to oversized blue crabs. Researchers found a link between the growing size of these crustaceans and the growing rate of carbon found in the waters. Although these crabs are growing bigger and faster without the help of scientists, this trend might not be safe for the marine environment.
Hmmm. They seem a little unclear on the giant crab mechanism:
Although carbon dioxide is emitted into the air, it dissolves into the water and saturates the oceans with carbon, which can change how these marine ecosystems work. Saturated waters become acidic, which is detrimental for certain marine animals, such as oysters and corals. These living creatures have calcium carbonate shells, which forms at a much slower rate when the waters become acidic, even if it is only by a small amount. Meanwhile, other creatures, particularly the blue crabs, thrive on the carbon in the water.
…
“Higher levels of carbon in the ocean are causing oysters to grow slower, and their predators – such as blue crabs – to grow faster,” said marine geologist, Justin Baker Ries from the University of North Carolina.
Full story here
Lessee, oysters grow slower, so they won’t reach breeding maturity and replace themselves as fast, and somehow this makes the crabs grow faster?
Maybe this is why it doesn’t make sense, from WaPo, it is recycled news:
The research showing the effects of carbon on marine organisms was published in the journal Geology in 2009. The study, led by Ries and co-authored with Anne L. Cohen and Daniel C. McCorkle, and found that crabs, lobsters and shrimp grew bigger more rapidly as carbon pollution increased. Chesapeake blue crabs grew nearly four times faster in high-carbon tanks than in low-carbon tanks.
Seafood lovers rejoice!
But, ah, another “not in the real world, aka ocean” experiment conducted in tanks. No mention of “giant, oversized, or supersized crabs” in the paper it seems. We’ve been down this road before with “tanked” experiments where they try to extrapolate captive life experiments to the real ocean.
Marine calcifiers exhibit mixed responses to CO2-induced ocean acidification
Abstract
Anthropogenic elevation of atmospheric carbon dioxide (pCO2) is making the oceans more acidic, thereby reducing their degree of saturation with respect to calcium carbonate (CaCO3). There is mounting concern over the impact that future CO2-induced reductions in the CaCO3 saturation state of seawater will have on marine organisms that construct their shells and skeletons from this mineral. Here, we present the results of 60 d laboratory experiments in which we investigated the effects of CO2-induced ocean acidification on calcification in 18 benthic marine organisms. Species were selected to span a broad taxonomic range (crustacea, cnidaria, echinoidea, rhodophyta, chlorophyta, gastropoda, bivalvia, annelida) and included organisms producing aragonite, low-Mg calcite, and high-Mg calcite forms of CaCO3. We show that 10 of the 18 species studied exhibited reduced rates of net calcification and, in some cases, net dissolution under elevated pCO2. However, in seven species, net calcification increased under the intermediate and/or highest levels of pCO2, and one species showed no response at all. These varied responses may reflect differences amongst organisms in their ability to regulate pH at the site of calcification, in the extent to which their outer shell layer is protected by an organic covering, in the solubility of their shell or skeletal mineral, and in the extent to which they utilize photosynthesis. Whatever the specific mechanism(s) involved, our results suggest that the impact of elevated atmospheric pCO2 on marine calcification is more varied than previously thought.
- Received 7 March 2009.
- Revision received 16 July 2009.
- Accepted 21 July 2009.
PDF here: http://www.unc.edu/~jries/Ries_et_al_09_Geology_Mixed_Responses_to_Ocean_Acidification_full.pdf
JK:
At April 9, 2013 at 12:00 pm you ask
The short answer to your question is, Yes.
But I don’t think idling your car will make any difference.
I think you will obtain all the information you want at
http://www.co2science.org/subject/f/forests.php
Richard
JK says:
April 9, 2013 at 12:00 pm
I’ve read where trees are growing 30% faster now than they were 50 years ago so you have reason to be optimistic. However, your token contribution to atmospheric fertilizer would be better spent on another shaper cutter or similar tool–let power plants in China and India stimilate tree growth for you.
“‘Carbon’ to blame for giant crabs”
Methinks they who accuse really ought to find out what their girlfriends have been doing behind their backs.
I was kidding actually, but thanks. And thanks for the motivation to buy another tool. LOL
Point taken Martin.
It can be cold n fizzy or flat n warm: Beer.
.
The yearly C02 cycle is said to drop with the Northern hemispheres plant growth due to land area but it also marks the Southern Hemispheres cooling sea’s.
So what’s the yearly variation on C02 max/min changes year on year? Does amplitude reflect seasonal weather patterns and what causes that funny little step in the cycle?
Chad Wozniak says:
April 9, 2013 at 11:24 am
Well said. I prefer the agnostic’s position that any god is unknowable by me. but I was raised Catholic, and still maintain many Christian values, in particular Commandments 6 – 10, with special emphasis on #9.
Golden Rule #1
Golden Rule #2
The plain, simple fact of the matter is that we don’t really know how the universe works; our current models are about 27% Cosmic Fudge + 68% Magical Mystery Force + 5% “ordinary” matter .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy
Watcher, with all your study, you surely must know that for AGW to be a valid theory, it must be falsifiable. Since you seem to fancy yourself an expert on such matters, would you care to share with us what it would take to falsify the AGW conjecture?
I am a bit confused about this. I thought that warm water held less CO2 than cold water. I also thought that generally the seas held the maximum CO2 that they could at any time and released it as the temperature became warmer and would absorb it when cooler. So why are the crabs getting bigger due to global warming. I really would like an explanation if anyone would be so kind as to explain it to me. I will look back for an answer.
I’ve got VERY big pots.
In a lab they raised the level of CO2 to 10 times higher than today and find some marine shells calcify faster and some shells calcify more slowly and one didn’t change at all, and somehow this mutant Chesapeake bay crab story evolves? No wonder some say global warming is a hoax because this story certainly is. Additionally the study finds there is almost no change in shell calcification rates for doubling CO2 (606 ppm) or tripling CO2 (903 ppm)
May have to upgrade my seafood utensils , what do you use for bait ?
Only partly done but the poet in me makes me post. No good place to put it but certainly on this thread humor is not off-topic.
Trenberth
Now in his home beneath the waves
There lives a man who’s seeking heat
The missing heat the ocean saves
While green house gases still accrete
The heat down there accumulates
A growing Kraken yet serene
But skies that now it moderates
Will later turn the seas to steam
Trenberth lives in a yellow submarine
A yellow submarine, a yellow submarine
Trenberth lives in a yellow submarine
A yellow submarine, a yellow submarine
Watcher says:
April 8, 2013 at 5:07 pm
“…..I don’t claim to be an expert in anything but writing and editing.
……….Are you truly expert enough on blue crabs and ocean carbon absorption to make an educated comment? Or preaching, on a pulpit glaringly empty of evidence, to a choir of those who also refuse to believe in the overwhelming evidence of AGW?…”
Watcher, I suggest you may need to do a little more reading and a little less writing, editing and watching.
You will find most here agree the world has been warming a bit the last century or so. Many of us would fully accept mankind is probably having some influence: ie AGW, but not necessarily CAGW. But, questions which arise are; “By how much?” and “Is that normal?” Both questions are surprisingly difficult to answer, and the evidence of this difficulty is that the vast majority of research which has been carried out and is ongoing is attempting to accumulate further data on the matter.
So, we have a vast array of weather stations, endless analyzing, adjusting, and modeling of data from said weather stations, we have the Argo float network, we have the GRACE satellite and GOES, Jason, ICESAT, we have massive budgets allocated to climate change research and climate change mitigation…..
….. and yet, other than modeled doom scenarios, we still have a very scant understanding of our few hundred years of instrument records and our scattered and imprecise proxy records of the past.
We have publications popping up from time to time “proving” it is now hotter than ever before, but sadly not holding up under scrutiny… (Marcott et al) being a recent example, Mann’s “hockey stick” being an earlier case. Marcott interestingly also showing perhaps 25% of the Holocene was warmer than today.
What we have here is a plausible theory, in the early stages of data collection. My own view is that we don’t know enough about it yet, and I suspect some of those making all the claims also know they don’t know, while some on peripheral research (ie , probably all who are not atmospheric physicists), just go with the doctrinal flow.
It takes a kind of blind, dedicated belief to hold your position: “CAGW must be true because they said so”.
You may need to more realistically support your case without using the phrases “97% of climate scientists”, “the majority of climate scientists”, “creationists/creationism”, “overwhelming evidence”, “Skeptical Science.com”, “cherry picking”, “oil company shills” .etc.
Robert L says:
April 9, 2013 at 10:08 pm
“May have to upgrade my seafood utensils , what do you use for bait ?”
Ostrich wings, er, maybe their legs.
Emus will do in a pinch.
So far, what this paper reads like is good news for prospective blue crab (and possibly Australian yabbie–crayfish) farmers.Maybe even lobster farmers. A higher C02 content apparently means bigger crabs and higher yields to the farmer, if these findings prove out in larger trials. Sometimes the most parsimonious reading of a scientific paper is best.
I wouldn’t worry too much about oysters. Somehow they survived the Permian and Cretaceous extinctions and the Paleocene warming.
If there is anything that we truly do need to watch, it’s the creation of large stretches of “dead ocean” that have been depleted of both O2 and CO2 by etrophication. Especially near the coasts. But if we can use wave powered reverse osmosis to produce fresh water from seawater, we can use wave powered reverse osmosis to (or normal, fossil or nuclear fuel powered water heating for reverse osmosis) to produce fresh or fresher water going into estuaries and concentrate farm runoff nitrates and phosphates for recycling. As well as more toxic salts. Just because the scientific evidence does not necessarily support anthropogenic global warming as a problem (and may even point to anthropogenic global warming as a possible prevention for the next Ice Age the Earth appears to be sliding into), does not mean that there are not real ocean pollution issues that need to be addressed, just as it does not mean that chloroflourocarbons were not a problem. (And if environmentalists, grasping at straws to shoot down supersonic transport had not forced a look at emissions in the stratosphere, scientists might not have serendipitously noticed the damage chloroflorocarbons were doing in time to avoid real and lasting damage to the Earth’s ozone layer. Sometimes in barking up the wrong tree, environmentalists can call attention to something important going on in a neighboring tree).
On the credulous side, Stephen King is undoubtedly chortling in his coffee. The “lobstrosities” he wrote about in his Dark Tower novel “Drawing of the Three” may actually be feasible!
Richard of NZ says: April 8, 2013 at 10:04 pm
My short look at this paper makes me wonder how it was approved for investigation in the form given let alone approved for publication.
I hope everyone has had a good look at Richard’s excellent analysis.
There are a huge range of factors which were not considered by the researchers which could have affected the results of this trial.
Some being – the effect of source of species, suitability of acclimatization periods, suitability of feed sources, methods of feeding, suitability of nutrients to species involved, suitability of temperature regime, suitability of sudden on/off light source, suitability of a constant temperature regime, suitability of filtrated water, effect of constant exposure to UV light vs normal gradual change, effect of constant non varying pH and temperature vs normal diurnally varied levels, effect of constant dissolved CO2 and O2 levels vs normal diurnally varied levels, presence or absence of viral pathogens in the water, presence or absence of other pathogens in sourced species, suitability of the aquarium environment for the species involved.
Overall, apparently an appalling bit of so called science.
Um, we have an existence proof that clam and shellfish live happily in acid water. As low as the 4-5 pH range. Basically any freshwater shellfish in the continental USA are such a proof:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/03/08/clams-do-fine-in-acid-water/
The basic thesis that shell formation and shell material can not proceed in acid water is broken.
A second attempt.
Trenberth Live In A Yellow Submarine
Now, in a boat beneath the waves
There lives a man who’s seeking heat
The missing heat the ocean saves
As green house gases still accrete
The missing heat’s the missing key
To melting ice and rising tides
The Kraken that he knows must be
That Davy Jones’s locker hides
(Our soul’s more heavy than we think
A truth that everyone must face
And to what depths our soul may sink!
O’ To what dark and dismal place!)
Our Captain Trenberth can’t withstand
The weight of twenty thousand leagues!
He shuffles in his restless hand
The three steel balls that once were Queeg’s!
His thinking ever deeper moves!
And finds the heat! And gains renown!
His geometric logic proves
ITS IN MODELS! —
All the way down
Eugene WR Gallun