From the University of Edinburgh and the department of soda pop science, comes something we already knew. I wonder who approved the grant for this one?
Rising global temperatures could increase the amount of carbon dioxide naturally released by the world’s oceans, fuelling further climate change, a study suggests.
Fresh insight into how the oceans can affect CO2 levels in the atmosphere shows that rising temperatures can indirectly increase the amount of the greenhouse gas emitted by the oceans.
Scientists studied a 26,000-year-old sediment core taken from the Gulf of California to find out how the ocean’s ability to take up atmospheric CO2 has changed over time.
They tracked the abundance of the key elements silicon and iron in the fossils of tiny marine organisms, known as plankton, in the sediment core. Plankton absorb CO2 from the atmosphere at the ocean surface, and can lock away vast quantities of carbon.
Researchers found that those periods when silicon was least abundant in ocean waters corresponded with relatively warm climates, low levels of atmospheric iron, and reduced CO2 uptake by the oceans’ plankton. Scientists had suspected that iron might have a role in enabling plankton to absorb CO2. However, this latest study shows that a lack of iron at the ocean surface can limit the effect of other key elements in helping plankton take up carbon.
This effect is magnified in the southern ocean and equatorial Pacific and coastal areas, which are known to play a crucial role in influencing levels of CO2 in the global atmosphere.
Researchers from the University of Edinburgh say their findings are the first to pinpoint the complex link between iron and other key marine elements involved in regulating atmospheric CO2 by the oceans. Their findings were verified with a global calculation for all oceans. The study, published in Nature Geoscience, was supported by Scottish Alliance for Geoscience Environment Society and the Natural Environment Research Council.
Dr Laetitia Pichevin, of the University of Edinburgh’s School of GeoSciences, who led the study, said: “Iron is known to be a key nutrient for plankton, but we were surprised by the many ways in which iron affects the CO2 given off by the oceans. If warming climates lower iron levels at the sea surface, as occurred in the past, this is bad news for the environment.”
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Does anyone have a link to an experiment that can be done at home to show warming increases CO2 levels in the atmosphere?
Researchers found that those periods when silicon was least abundant in ocean waters corresponded with relatively warm climates, low levels of atmospheric iron, and reduced CO2 uptake by the oceans’ plankton. Scientists had suspected that iron might have a role in enabling plankton to absorb CO2. However, this latest study shows that a lack of iron at the ocean surface can limit the effect of other key elements in helping plankton take up carbon.
The authors are on unsafe ground when they assume that fossil concentrations of minerals like Si and Fe indicate the volume of carbon flux. As shown by tropical rain forests, carbon cycling can be very rapid and biomass high while nutrient inventory is very low. All the carbon is tied to rapidly cycling biomass.
It is thus not safe to make claims about carbon fluxes on the basis of nutrient deposited in fossil plankton. Depletion could even mean the opposit – faster carbon flux.
Cheshirered says:
June 9, 2014 at 5:42 am
re: Tom in Florida says:
June 9, 2014 at 4:35 am
{As someone will surely point out (Mosher?), there is so much CO2 now that more will be absorbed in the oceans and more will be out-gassed into the atmosphere so the net will be an increase in both. Yes, you can have your cake and eat it too.}
“So much”? It’s increased by oh, 1 part in 10,00. That’s it. And how does that feeble component compare with the fact oceans already contain orders of magnitude more CO2 than the atmosphere?
Thus the increase – whether human caused or not, is surely massively overwhelmed by existing ocean-borne CO2. The whole thing seems to be more propaganda-spin than ‘settled’ (or even likely) science.
“So much”? It’s increased by oh, 1 part in 10,00. That’s it. And how does that feeble component compare with the fact oceans already contain orders of magnitude more CO2 than the atmosphere?
Thus the increase – whether human caused or not, is surely massively overwhelmed by existing ocean-borne CO2. The whole thing seems to be more propaganda-spin than ‘settled’ (or even likely) science.
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Hey, I was trying to speculate on how someone might explain the contradiction of more CO2 going into the oceans to cause supposed acidification and at the same time more CO2 out-gassing from the oceans to increase temperature. My memory says that someone actually said this on this blog in another thread, it could have been Mosher or Stokes or neither. I don’t remember who.
{apologies in advance to those two if I am wrong).
Me too, Tom. I’m still stuck at the catastrophist’s ‘point’ that warming tropical oceans will ingest sufficient CO2 from the atmosphere to become acidic and obliterate tropical corals … either this study from UoE is correct or the trumped up catastrophist marine biologist that I argued the point with is just full of nachos.
Last week, I had made a comment about noting that all of the Mauna Loa highest yearly rates of co2 growth coincide with peaks of El Ninos. It can also be seen that the least growth is on a La Nina peak. The prime examples are 1987/88, 2.74 and 2,24 ppm: by 1991/92 the ppm were 0.79 and .067. Also the 1997/98 Grand El Nino of 1.97 and 2.94 ppm was followed by 1999/ 2000 at 1.34 and 1.25 ppm. Those rapid fluctuations have nothing to do with human caused co2 release. To my mind, I would call this evidence that most of the increase in atmospheric co2 is being driven by natural warming processes. It was not evident before, probably due to the need for the oceans to return to a more normal range of heat load after the LIA. Then when this last surge of natural warming entered the system the co2 release turned on and has stayed on ever since.
The above ppm numbers are showing the global co2 rate of growth. Mauna Loa shows 2.93 for 1998, which is followed by 0.93 in 1999, vs the 1.34 ppm global. Maybe sitting in the middle of the Pacific that difference is due to the vast expanse of the ocean, with greater intake of co2.
goldminor on June 9, 2014 at 6:54 pm
Last week, I had made a comment about noting that all of the Mauna Loa highest yearly rates of co2 growth coincide with peaks of El Ninos. It can also be seen that the least growth is on a La Nina peak.
No you have it quite wrong, what this shows is that ENSO is all about us and CO2. El Nino means a surge in carbon pollution from China and India, while La Ninas always coincide with mini-recession and falls in commodity prices and factory output.
You clearly have been visiting the wrong websites and require re education if you hold the inadmissible view that anything other than human inputs to the atmosphere can affect climate. Before humans theee was no ENSO, climate was static with no tides, no wind or ocean currents, no summer or winter, no night or day…
Who wants to find out which are the true causes of climate change, shall be told that he wants to get it. We discuss how to do it. REALLY IS ENOUGH discussion on CO2 as the main culprit. CO2 is sentenced to death-the electric chair, but actually, totally innocent. He does not have anything to do with climate change. CALL logic as a star witness, leave the lawyers FOR CASH accusing innocent.
Given the nearly a millennium lag between change in ocean temps and change in atmospheric CO2, this is merely a minor secondary effect, and amplifier. The base question is still: what drives ocean temperature shifts?