I’m a bit skeptical of this claim, “Satellite images reveal ocean acidification from space” but it may be mostly due to how the press release is written, for example, nowhere is the term pH used in the press release, though it is in the abstract. Curiously, the caption for the graphic provided with the press release says it is “total ocean alkalinity from space” which is actually correct, since the ocean pH is not below 7.0, and not acidic, it is simply less alkaline. Then there’s the statement “The new techniques use satellite mounted thermal cameras to measure ocean temperature while microwave sensors measure the salinity.” This makes the measurement appear more like a proxy for OA than direct measurement. Dr. Roy Spencer comments on this and the technology below.
From the University of Exeter:
Pioneering techniques that use satellites to monitor ocean acidification are set to revolutionize the way that marine biologists and climate scientists study the ocean.
This new approach, which will be published on the 17 February 2015 in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, offers remote monitoring of large swathes of inaccessible ocean from satellites that orbit the Earth some 700 km above our heads.
Each year more than a quarter of global CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels and cement production are taken up by the Earth’s oceans. This process turns the seawater more acidic, making it more difficult for some marine life to live. Rising CO2 emissions, and the increasing acidity of seawater over the next century, has the potential to devastate some marine ecosystems, a food resource on which we rely, and so careful monitoring of changes in ocean acidity is crucial.
Researchers at the University of Exeter, Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Institut français de recherche pour l’exploitation de la mer (Ifremer), the European Space Agency and a team of international collaborators are developing new methods that allow them to monitor the acidity of the oceans from space.
Dr Jamie Shutler from the University of Exeter who is leading the research said: “Satellites are likely to become increasingly important for the monitoring of ocean acidification, especially in remote and often dangerous waters like the Arctic. It can be both difficult and expensive to take year-round direct measurements in such inaccessible locations. We are pioneering these techniques so that we can monitor large areas of the Earth’s oceans allowing us to quickly and easily identify those areas most at risk from the increasing acidification.”
Current methods of measuring temperature and salinity to determine acidity are restricted to in situ instruments and measurements taken from research vessels. This approach limits the sampling to small areas of the ocean, as research vessels are very expensive to run and operate.
The new techniques use satellite mounted thermal cameras to measure ocean temperature while microwave sensors measure the salinity. Together these measurements can be used to assess ocean acidification more quickly and over much larger areas than has been possible before.
Dr Peter Land from Plymouth Marine Laboratory who is lead author of the paper said: “In recent years, great advances have been made in the global provision of satellite and in situ data. It is now time to evaluate how to make the most of these new data sources to help us monitor ocean acidification, and to establish where satellite data can make the best contribution.”
A number of existing satellites can be used for the task; these include the European Space Agency’s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) sensor that was launched in 2009 and NASA’s Aquarius satellite that was launched in 2011.
The development of the technology and the importance of monitoring ocean acidification are likely to support the development of further satellite sensors in the coming years.
###
The research is published in the scientific journal Environmental Science and Technology.
Source: Eurekalert http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-02/uoe-sir021315.php
Salinity from Space Unlocks Satellite-Based Assessment of Ocean Acidification
Land et al.
Synopsis
Approximately a quarter of the carbon dioxide (CO2) that we emit into the atmosphere is absorbed by the ocean. This oceanic uptake of CO2 leads to a change in marine carbonate chemistry resulting in a decrease of seawater pH and carbonate ion concentration, a process commonly called “Ocean Acidification”. Salinity data are key for assessing the marine carbonate system, and new space-based salinity measurements will enable the development of novel space-based ocean acidification assessment. Recent studies have highlighted the need to develop new in situ technology for monitoring ocean acidification, but the potential capabilities of space-based measurements remain largely untapped. Routine measurements from space can provide quasi-synoptic, reproducible data for investigating processes on global scales; they may also be the most efficient way to monitor the ocean surface. As the carbon cycle is dominantly controlled by the balance between the biological and solubility carbon pumps, innovative methods to exploit existing satellite sea surface temperature and ocean color, and new satellite sea surface salinity measurements, are needed and will enable frequent assessment of ocean acidification parameters over large spatial scales.
Dr. Roy Spencer, a remote sensing specialist himself, comments to me via email:
The technique for measuring salinity with low-frequency microwave
measurements is nothing new, although we haven’t had satellites to do it
globally until relatively recently. But I’m not aware of how you get pH
from salinity and temperature…never heard of that before.
I did find this paper on satellite instrumentation designed to measure salinity:
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20050139772.pdf
So if they are using temperature and salinity to come up with pH, how can they determine that the “ocean acidification” they claim in the PR is truly a function of dissolved CO2, and not just part of the normal regional and seasonal salinity pattern? That concern is backed up by one of the images in a photo collage they present with the paper, which shows what seems to be a salinity image from the Aquarius instrument, note the arrow:
I found NASA’s press release on the first full year of salinity measurements using the Aquarius instrument and an interesting image similar to what is presented in the Land et al. press release.
Putting that image next to the one they provide with the press release suggests they are simply measuring a a dominant effect of seasonal and regional salinity variation, and not CO2 driven “ocean acidification”:
Note how similar the ocean regional patterns are. NASA writes of the salinity image:
One of the features that stand out most clearly is a large patch of highly saline water across the North Atlantic. This area, the saltiest anywhere in the open ocean, is analogous to deserts on land, where little rainfall and a lot of evaporation occur. A NASA-funded expedition, the Salinity Processes in the Upper Ocean Regional Study (SPURS), traveled to the North Atlantic’s saltiest spot to analyze the causes behind this high salt concentration and to validate Aquarius measurements.
So it seems Land et al. (2015) isn’t actually measuring CO2 driven OA.
And more importantly, how did Land et al. (2015) calibrate the proxy for pH? Have they sent ships to do in situ sampling as NASA did? There seems to be no mention of it…except that calibration of their algorithms is sorely needed. From page 3 of the paper:
Wow. Their own paper emphasizes the need for in situ measurement, and that the algorithms aren’t calibrated.
It seems to me that they are still a long way from the claims made in the press release that they can reliably measure ocean pH via satellite remote sensing over time. I wonder if Dr. Land is happy with how the press release makes claims about the work?
Sadly, this press release seems to fit the hype pattern discussed yesterday: From #AAAS Why Some (Many?) Scientists Tend to Hype their Findings
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As long as a synopsis of a “paper” begins with emotive words like Acidic they should rightly consigned to the “round file cabinet” in the corner.
Sweeping statements like nn.nn% of all the CO2 emitted by mankind…
ALSO pH measurement of all the oceans at once?- absurd.
When a description of paper begins “Satellites reveal …”, then it should be properly used and flushed. Wash yourself carefully afterwards, body and mind.
The paper is here
http://ccg.sr.unh.edu/pdf/Land_etal_EST_2015.pdf
This paper looks like a lot of double speak. It keeps talking about Alkalinity (waters ability to resist changes in pH) then referring to pH as if it is the same. pH in aqueous solution is a measure of available Hydrogen (Hydronium vs. Hydroxyl ions). Alkalinity (expressed in mg/L of Calcium Carbonate equivalents) is more akin to hardness. This paper seems to be deliberately confusing the two.
I thought this was simply wunnerful
“””””…..Routine measurements from space can provide quasi-synoptic, reproducible data for investigating processes on global scales;……”””””
A shorter synonym for this is “gobbledegook.”
Like Dr Roy, I have some queries about this “new” capability.
They talk about “total ocean alkalinity from space.”
Now where I come from “total” means “total” as in everything; top to bottom, side to side, end to end.
So how do you read the salinityalkalinityacidity at 36,000 feet deep ??
And what effect does surface evaporation have on the pH right at the surface. I’d be surprised if surface and bulk salinityalkalinityacidity were exactly the same.
Also I’m a bit puzzled by the from space measurements of the ocean surface Temperature.
Since the ocean varies from very highly transmissive (lambda = 1E-4 cm^-1) to very highly absorptive (lambda = 1E+4 cm^-1) then you can hardly argue that the ocean is anything like a black body radiator; or at least the surface can’t be.
Konrad of course is constantly beating this drum.
But for the black body spectrum that is appropriate for 288 K BB Temperature, with 98% of the radiated energy lying between 5.05 and 80.8 microns, the 99% (of 98%) absorption thickness is less than one millimeter.
So the surface might be a fair representation of a Planck radiator at 288 K.
But I don’t think that is how satellites measure ocean surface Temperature; is it ??
g
PS I don’t doubt that the satellists really can measure ocean surface Temperatures; but it begs the question. Just how deep below that silly millimeter can they measure ??
Just asking. And yes the PR boiler plate on this publication is a complete mockery of factual reporting.
I’d rather they said “dealkalinity” instead of acidity, which is completely false. And the ocean and its pH is anything but well mixed. We now know from the satellite that the CO2 is not even well mixed in the atmosphere as has been tacitly assumed all these years. Well The agenda is not about CO2 uniformity in the atmosphere.
I think the term “ocean acidification” needs to be done away with. There can be varying levels of salinity/alkalinity – but something cannot become “more acidic” unless it’s acidic to start with. It’s my understanding that the oceans cannot become acid because they simply cannot do so.
george e smith wrote “They talk about “total ocean alkalinity from space.” Now where I come from “total” means “total” as in everything; top to bottom, side to side, end to end. So how do you read the salinityalkalinityacidity at 36,000 feet deep ??”
I have often seen budgets with a “total” at the bottom. Is that all the money in the world?
“total alkalinity” means the alkalinity resulting from all the bases in the solution. It varies from point to point in the ocean. The word “total” in this context has nothing to do with the amount in the ocean as a whole, as you would know if you new what what you are talking about.
I’ve looked through the paper. The method requires assuming that the background oceanic salinity remains constant. That means sodium potassium, magnesium, and calcium (cations), along with chloride, sulfate, and bromide (anions); all the ions of concentration greater than or about equal to carbonate.
There may be a marine chemist out there who knows whether anyone has measured the variation in ion concentration and salinity across the ocean surface, but I’m unaware of such. Salinity certainly does not remain constant in any upwelling zone (all along the Eastern Pacific, for example), or within many kilometers of any significant river delta. It probably does not remain constant diurnally in the equatorial oceans, because of evaporation, and likewise probably varies annually in the temperate oceans for the same reason.
If the concentrations of all the backgrounds salts are thoroughly constant, then any change in water conductivity is due to the change in carbonate, presumably driven by dissolution of changing atmospheric CO2. They’re getting conductivity by the transmittance of 11 mM microwave radiance from the ocean surface. They suppose a 1 cm penetration depth, which is about 1 wavelength. I haven’t tried to calculate the mean free path (the attenuation length) of 11 mM radiation through saline but it’s likely pretty short because saline water is very lossy (very absorbent of microwaves). So, I’d wonder about the 1 cm depth.
The paper is more about the possibility of making the measurement, and setting forth what would have to be accomplished. The problem is with the communication, of course — the false color images of Earth that lend such superficial visual credence to what are extremely uncertain numbers. The same visually compulsive falsehood is common to false color presentations of global temperatures.
The NASA site doesn’t provide error bars, or make any statement about the uncertainty in the satellite measurements. Neither does the paper, nor about the expected error in the final computational methodology.
Generally, the paper seems like a lot of pie-in-the-sky at this point.
Pat Frank,
No the paper does not assume that salinity is constant. The whole point is that measurements of salinity are needed. They also acknowledge, in section 2, that “The ratio between ions (the constituents of salinity) will tend to remain constant anywhere in the global oceans, resulting in a strong relationship between TA and salinity. Unfortunately, a universal relationship between TA and salinity does not apply in certain regions …”
It does seem that the paper is rather thin.
I suggest this paper is misleading nonsense.
I agree, the Red Sea has much higher salinity, as does the Mediteranean, neither have very low pH.
AND how much CO2 is out gassed by oceans?
If ocean temperatures rise, will oceans out gass even more CO2/
Yes, it is probably this that they assume drives down pH, so not a good paper.
Yes, I have always thought the acidifcation of the ocean under warming was impossible. Firstly, the partial pressures react as you say, becoming less soluble in water as temperature rises. Secondly, the ocean is buffered with phosphate and borate in addition to carbonate, and is a saturated solution of many ions such as calcium and magnesium. Addition of a CO2 molecule ends up as insoluble carbonate, not as soluble HCO3 acid. Or am I wrong? Please tell me my high school chem makes nonsense of this acification hype.
If they can sell the idea of measuring ocean acidity, I want their help in selling this really great bridge I have.
Oops, ocean acidity from space …………
You just need a really long handle on your sampling dipper.
“……..really great bridge I have.”
Is it in New York?
As a climate scientist, I do not have to disclose facts only my conclusions.
It is my bridge, it is in good condition and when I get paid I will tell you where it is.
Is that the bridge to nowhere? [UN IPCC?]
Never mind. I do not want a bridge. Have you got any good Florida real estate?
They love their proxies with large errors so that they have ‘data’ to back up their claims of calamity. With clear mathematical statements as well: ” I am 99% sure that in the next 100 flips of this coin we could get more heads than tails.” Now we are in real trouble.
How accurate is the study’s satellite based ‘observation’? Have things improved much since 2012?
Jimbo here is another one to add to your extensive listing.
Adjustments galore. Went looking for accuracy and just what they are able to measure after Bob’s last post and had a real awakening. Seems that overall measuring of ‘sea surface’ has problems. Original bucket & thermometer (no depth control), ship intake (well below surface), buoys (seem to rock in the wave with depth resolution of a meter), then IR satellite (cannot get thru the clouds) to microwave (get thru the clouds, but not the rain & surface mist). Oh and did I mention one of the satellites was doing reasonable until they had to boost the altitude, then had problems with pitch, yaw and just what was the height. The number of adjustments to correct is staggering. Includes (but not limited to); wind speed, rain, cloud amount/percent and cloud water vapor, daytime diurnal warming, high latitudes, aerosols, SSTs 10C, columnar water vapor, higher latitudes show a slight warm bias, seasonal cycle wind direction for SST retrieval, fast moving storms and fronts, wind direction error and instrument degradation.
http://images.remss.com/papers/rsspubs/gentemann_jgr_2014.pdf
Still their abstract reads –
Errors were identified in both the MW and IR SST data sets: (1) at low atmospheric water vapor a posthoc correction added to AMSR-E was incorrectly applied and (2) there is significant cloud contamination of nighttime MODIS retrievals at SST <10C. A correction is suggested for AMSR-E SSTs that will remove the vapor dependency. For MODIS, once the cloud contaminated data were excluded, errors were reduced but not eliminated. Biases were found to be 20.05C and 20.13C and standard deviations to be 0.48C and 0.58C for AMSR-E and MODIS, respectively. Using a three-way error analysis, individual standard deviations were determined to be 0.20C (in situ), 0.28C (AMSR-E), and 0.38C (MODIS).
“Salinity from Space Unlocks Satellite-Based Assessment of Ocean Acidification”
“Remote-sensing observations relevant to ocean acidification”
The titles of these abstracts/papers show an immediate bias. If they had say “Ocean PH” instead, then maybe I could begin to accept them as objective science, but it’s abundantly clear they are anything but objective.
The key word is “estimating.” The only way they can obtain a pH from salinity and temperature is to correlate them to real measurements based on real seawater. There is no causal relationship between salinity and pH, NaCl solutions are neutral and have no buffering capacity. Carbonate, bicarbonate and CO2 will affect the pH but they are not being measured. And if atmospheric CO2 is increasing, from whatever source, then the correlations between CO2 and salinity in seawater are being changed and therefore contain increasing amounts of error.
And to make their algorithm work, they have to plug in “biological activity”—which is hardly a constant since it would vary, depending on available nutrients and environment. Don’t tell me methanogens and sulfur-based microbes would respond with the same level of biological activity to the same nutrients and environment as carbon-based organisms.
Without any validation of their algorithms, I’ll take their claims with a grain of salt.
Maybe BOX OF SALT………………;^D
How does pH vary with depth? … or does it?
pH measured from space seems like Star Trek fantasy, but I am willing to be surprised.
pH declines below the euphotic zone (roughly first hundred meters) due to decomposition of organic matter. See essay Shell Games.
The algorithm also requires knowing biological activity. How is their satellite measuring that?
Hmm. Maybe they’ve used a formula such as implied below, and trying to derive pH from the other factors:
“The environmental influences that prevent individual organisms, their populations or multi-species communities from attaining as high rate of productivity as they could potentially achieve under optimal condition is called the limiting factors. Three of the most universally significant limiting factors are the temperature, pH and salinity.”
http://www.academia.edu/5872430/Temperature_pH_and_Salinity_as_Limiting_Factors_Affecting_Growth_Development_and_Survival_of_different_organisms
There is a general assumption that being
more acidicless alkaline is always a bad thing and critters don’t respond. ‘Observations’ should not only be done from space but from below the ocean surface.Here’s a chart from the Bethan M. Jones paper, with images of the Emiliania huxleyi algae and the coccolith disks they generate.
http://www.rockyhigh66.org/stuff/coccolith_2013.png
As soon as I saw “making it more difficult for some marine life to live”, I thought, “Evidence?”
Mission achieved: more research (and grant money) needed
Some of their reasoning which is most likely flawed.
Will CO2 outgas as the oceans warm and decrease ocean acidification?
Basic: Increasing temperature decreases CO2 solubility in the surface ocean and might slow CO2 uptake by the ocean slightly. But the excess CO2 will still be present in the atmosphere and continue to cause warming and acidification.
Intermediate: The CO2 content of the surface waters of the oceans responds to both changes in CO2 content of the atmosphere and changes in temperature. For example, if ocean temperatures were not changing, a doubling of preindustrial CO2 levels (from 280 to 560 ppm) would cause an increase in the total amount of dissolved inorganic carbon in the surface ocean from about 2002 to 2131 micromoles per kilogram of seawater (assuming salinity = 35, temperature = 15°C, and alkalinity = 2300 micromoles per kilogram of seawater). If ocean temperatures warmed by 2°C over that period, then less carbon would be taken up (the increase would be from 2002 to 2117 micromoles per kilogram of seawater). Thus, a 2°C increase in temperature results in about a 10% decrease in carbon uptake in surface waters. The expected warming of the oceans also may alter ocean circulation, further reducing their capacity to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, but the excess CO2 will still remain in the atmosphere and drive further acidification (and atmospheric warming). For pH, the net effects of climate warming on atmospheric CO2, CO2 solubility, and chemical speciation approximately cancel out. — S. Doney, J. Kleypas
The only measureable “warming” that CO2 causes is in the lining of the pockets of the Grant recipients.
I only can agree with Dr. Spencer: while temperature and salinity do influence pH and pCO2, I don’t see how they can deduce these two parameters from only temperature and salinity. Salinity depends of evaporation and precipitation plus river discharge and ice melt. pH and pCO2 also depends of bio-life which does influence DIC (total dissolved inorganic carbon – CO2 + -bi-carbonates), independent of salinity but of course depending of temperature, but I don’t see that they measure bio-life directly or any other parameter which can be used to calculate DIC.
All things being equal this article tells me if the oceans cool going forward ph might actually drop (more acidic ) which would be in response to global cooling rather then global warming.
Boy just in the paragraph plus above they just pound away with “acidity”, “acidification”, OA, “ocean acidification” ad nauseum. Isn’t the proper scientific term alkalinity or change in PH? They sound like activists instead of scientists. More doom and gloom.
If I had submitted this as a college research paper my professors would have graded it as incomplete speculation at best. All they really do is suggest that satellites might be used for global assessment that so far has been deficient for some parameters such as salinity. It’s tied to “acidification” to make it sound more important. Yawn.
I can do you one better.
The EPA requires me to test both pH and conductivity of water streams in my units. If I submitted a stack test with conductivity and temperature as a surrogate for pH, it would be rejected wholesale at best, even if I had a strong correlation curve.
If it didn’t have a strong correlation curve with minimal deviation, they wouldn’t just reject it. I’d be arrested.
Anybody else notice the new addition to the mantra lately?
“Each year more than a quarter of global CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels and CEMENT PRODUCTION are taken up by the Earth’s oceans.”
This resembles the gun control strategy. If you can’t take the guns, make ammunition difficult to find/afford. So the green shirts want to take away our roads.
lotta “CEMENT PRODUCTION” in bases of bird and bat beaters, but that doesn’t count
I rarely ever see cement roads anymore. But we do use a lot of cement in bridges, buildings, and houses. It may be time for me to go stake out a good cave to live in.
China used more cement in the last 3 years than the US did in the entire 20th century.
http://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Making-the-Modern-World
“nowhere is the term pH used in the press release, though it is in the abstract. Curiously, the caption for the graphic provided with the press release says it is “total ocean alkalinity from space” which is actually correct, since the ocean pH is not below 7.0, and not acidic, it is simply less alkaline.”
I think people are missing the meaning of the words. They aren’t measuring pH. They claim to measure total alkalinity. That is defined as the total acid that you would have to add to get the pH down to 4.5. It is a measure of the total effect of reactive basic ions, offset by the tiny amount of H+. I don’t know how they measure it, but TA is a standard measure from the past, since it is stable and involves fairly abundant species. So it is certainly more plausible that they could infer it from space observations.
Ah, at last, a man who wants to buy my bridge.
As usual, defending the indefensible.
Nick:
So you’re not defending the research or the research paper. Just defending an abstract concept as ‘possible’, maybe, sure…
Posit a straw man and then defend the straw man?
I don’t see how anyone can usefully discuss the research without knowing what they are actually trying to measure. And perhaps, even, reading the paper…
I haven’t read it, so I don’t know if they have been successful. Nothing abstract about that, I just don’t know. But I can read what they are trying to measure.
Well hooves, your reading skills ain’t to good obviously.
They use the term “ocean acidification” instead of “ocean neutralisation”.
That right there sums up the likely quality of the contents and definitely answers the purpose of the paper. Propaganda.
Nick Stokes: “I think people are missing the meaning of the words”
####
Nick, I think these capable, articulate scientists understand the meaning quite well.
Now, let’s talk about your ability to understand, shall we?
“Pioneering techniques that use satellites to monitor ocean acidification” is in the press release.
How else am I supposed to read this, Nick? They write their own press release and it clearly implies a measure of how much the pH has dropped (below 7!).
And while it might be plausible to infer TA from space, a scientist is more concerned with how useful any results might be. This would require considerable effort and skill to assess so if you’re a little lazy, you look at the paragraph
“Each year more than a quarter of global CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels and cement production are taken up by the Earth’s oceans. This process turns the seawater more acidic, making it more difficult for some marine life to live.”
and decide that they are probably talking out of their arse.
Nick, you have to titrate to get TA, whether it be total (titratable) acidity or alkalinity. They are sooo not titrating.
But, but titrating is soooooo tiresome. (That’s why I dumped chemistry for physics).
“How else am I supposed to read this, Nick? They write their own press release and it clearly implies a measure of how much the pH has dropped (below 7!).”
No, as the post notes, the PR does not mention pH. The graphic shows TA.
“You have to titrate to get TA”
Their claim is that TA is associated with salinity, since ratio of ions tends to be constant. pCO2 comes from SST and air concentration. They only need two to determine the carbonate chemistry, but they look for another in DIC, which is associated with chlorophyll activity.
The PR says “monitor ocean acidification”. Now you’re getting even more absurd when you claim that a reduction in total alkalinity without a drop in pH is “ocean acidification’.
It’s impossible to measure pH or alkalinity from temperature and salinity……
..and deriving pH is a lot more complicated than just measuring alkalinity
You know, with the proper adjustments this could be a nice little money maker!
When is the memorial service for Science to be held? Based on this paper, it’s clearly dead.
“But I’m not aware of how you get pH from salinity and temperature…never heard of that before.” –Dr. Roy Spencer
This is Globular Warning Psiunts. You simply make it up, then send out press releases and wave your hands about.
If Land, et.al’s, assumptions were true the Great Salt Lake would just be a big acid pit by summer, since its temperature and salinity are extremely high compared to oceans, but the Salt Lake is about as alkaline as anything on the planet.
Exactly. People float in the Great Salt Lake and the Dead Sea all the time just to experience the weightlessness that kind of salinity causes. None of them get acid burns from doing it.
My first thought was “what happens next year and the year after when the results don’t follow the script”.
Also how does this tie in with the satellite readings of CO2 in the atmosphere (or am I being too skeptical)
James Bull
It’s easy you adjust past ph upwards and present ph downwards. Like the temperature stuff only opposite. What a joke.
This was just on local Seattle TV last night.
The Wendy Schmidt Ocean Health XPRIZE
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21642777-latest-xprize-better-way-monitoring-oceans-ph-acid-test
Brad: It seems to me the CAGW crowd have decided the “warming” wasn’t scaring folks enough and needed to find something scarier. My first thought this morning when I saw this post was, two days in a row for the OA drumbeat. This link was the front page story yesterday (2/16) in the print edition.
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2025709135_oceanxprisexml.html?syndication=rss
W, don’t trust Seattle Times on this. Their whole series on ocean acidification is based on bad papers (including academic misconduct. I wrote the paper and reporter Welch, providing the evidence. See essay Shell Games in ebook Blowing Smoke. Pretty stunning the extent and depth of the misrepresentations.
thanks Rud, maybe they will listen to you. Not holding my breath on it ….
Never got the courtesy of a reply. So put that fact in a footnote to the essay before sending the book to the publisher. Also, Prof. Cliff Mass U. Washington picked up on the oyster part I test posted over at Judith Curry. He checked my references for himself, then started pestering Seattle Times. For his efforts, he got banned from their comments sections. So he blogged his ban. Don’t trust the Seattle Post or anything written by Welch.
“This makes the measurement appear more like a proxy for OA than direct measurement. Dr. Roy Spencer comments on this and the technology below.”
Spencer doesnt measure temperature directly. It’s an indirect measure.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_temperature_measurements
“Satellites do not measure temperature. They measure radiances in various wavelength bands, which must then be mathematically inverted to obtain indirect inferences of temperature.[1][2] The resulting temperature profiles depend on details of the methods that are used to obtain temperatures from radiances. As a result, different groups that have analyzed the satellite data have produced differing temperature datasets. Among these are the UAH dataset prepared at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and the RSS dataset prepared by Remote Sensing Systems. The satellite series is not fully homogeneous – it is constructed from a series of satellites with similar but not identical instrumentation. The sensors deteriorate over time, and corrections are necessary for orbital drift and decay. Particularly large differences between reconstructed temperature series occur at the few times when there is little temporal overlap between successive satellites, making intercalibration difficult.”
1. Not a direct measurement.
2. Inhomogeneous data with adjustments for changing location, changing sensor,
3. Relies on Radiative theory
[REPLY: Mr. Mosher in his irrational anti-satellite trash talk mode for all data that that aren’t his beloved and highly adjusted, and highly uncertain surface “BEST” temperature record fails to notice that the OA remote sensing claim is a product of TWO indirect measurements, making it even less reliable. The surface temperature has far more problems than the satellite record, IMHO, but of course, Mr. Mosher thinks he’s always right, much like Gavin Schmidt. -Anthony]
Steven, any time someone wants to adjust data collected by competent, dedicated observers, I think politics. If the data isn’t suited to purpose, then get better data.
Really?
UHA has done adjustment to their series in 1994,97,98,98,2003,2004,2005.
The fact of adjustment tells you nothing.
right now, Leif Svalgard is fixing the SNN record.
we adjust data all time.
One most famous way of adjusting data was pioneered by Dyson and Happer.
Mosh, there is a big difference between the scientific adjustment of data..
… and the adjustment of data to purposely create a trend.
Steven, there is a big difference between the original authors making revisions to their data in a timely manner and outsiders jumping in to rewrite history.
Steven, do you know what “New Horizon” is? Or perhaps Voyager 1&2. They seem to work quit well,
Nasa can keep 35 year old space probes operational on other planets and at the outer reaches of the Sol system. I think the minor system tweaking that is needed to to keep satellites operating properly is not a factor in their temperature measurement collections. After all, the satellites that provide you and I with internet, cable TV, and cell phone communication operate under the same detriments. As long as they function A-OKAY so will the temperature gathering satellites. I hope this calms your apprehensions about satellite measurements.
michael
Steve
A thermometer does not measure temperature directly. It measures the thermal expansion of some material, often mercury.
An electrical temperature sensor does not measure temperature directly. It measures the thermal change of the electrical resistance of the sensor
1. Not direct measurement
2. Inhomogeneous data with adjustments for changing location, changing sensor
3. Relies on several realms of physical theory
So satellite sensing is NOT a DIRECT measurement of Temperature.
Now that is a cool concept.
I’m not aware of any kind of measuring equipment that is capable of DIRECTLY measuring Temperature, by any means.
ALL known “thermometers” INFER the Temperature from some proxy, such as the Temperature coefficient of expansion of Mercury for example, or the Temperature coefficient of frequency of that unique doubly rotated quartz crystal cut that has a linear Tc. or from the non linear but rather well characterized electrical resistivity of Platinum, as a function of Temperature.
It’s been a while since I checked the latest and greatest exact SI definition of precisely what Temperature is, but I know it is not easy to measure directly, rather than by proxy.
I’m with Anthony, in being queasy about the reliability of satellite temperature sensing of ocean surfaces. I’m sure they do what they can, but it sounds iffy to me.
g
“Proxy” is used where the exact correlation is unknown. You can’t calculate an average temperature for the growing season from a tree ring but you might assume that any trends in tree rings reflects trends in the average temperature (which means cherry picking is a big no-no).
They can’t measure the TA but they will assume (insist) that any pH trend will be reflected in some function of SST and salinity. This will then confirm the Law of Government Grants.
But he’s fun to watch and has something useful to do about harmful insects, I’m sure. Yay, Mosh!
Surface temperature record:
1. A thermometer in a box, about human nose height (usually).
2. Inhomogeneous data with [and without] adjustments for changing location, changing sensor.
3. Relies on systematically biased locations.
Sorry Mosh, that pig won’t fly.
Your link to wikipedia discussion trying to criticise satellite sensing of microwave emissions from oxygen molecules has been edited by the Wiki Weasel,William M. Connolley. (AKA the Winston Smith of Wikipedia).
The Wiki Weasel has the reverse Midas touch. You can’t polish whatever he’s touched, but you can try rolling it in glitter.
Smelt your smeared hands recently Mosh? We can 😉
and this is what the WMO say about ground stations, well apart from giving urban stations a zero for quality-
“A station that is or will be affected by the growth of vegetation, including even limited tree growth near the sensor, growth of tall crops or woodland nearby, erection of buildings on adjacent land, or increases (or decreases) in road or air traffic (including those due to changes in the use of runways or taxiways) will provide neither broadly representative nor homogeneous data”
and more from the WMO for Mr Mosher-
“The nature of urban environments makes it impossible to conform to the standard guidance for site selection and exposure of instrumentation required for establishing a homogeneous record that can be used to describe the larger-scale climate”
from the WMO-
“The aim of the homogenization procedures is to detect the inhomogeneities and to correct the series. In practice there are absolute and relative methods applied for this purpose. However the application of absolute methods is very problematic and hazardous since the separation of climate change signal and the inhomogeneity signal is essentially impossible”
Thanks, Anthony, Dr. Spencer.
NASA continues to sink into a hole of their own making. How sad.
In their way science is morphed into a propaganda machine that no one can trust.
I wouldn’t pin this one on NASA. There seem to many other bad actors pushing this.
A global agenda ABSOLUTELY relies on there being a warming trend.
The 18+ year NON-warming trend is killing them !
You can imagine the immense pressure on Gavin, Hadley Centre, Best etc to actually find SOME warming from SOMEwhere, SOMEhow !!
The coming cooling trend will really make their job very difficult.
but I’m sure that Gavin, Phil and especially Richard .. will find a way.
From the graphics, looks like that started with, “when salinity is lower, ocean pH is more acidic”. Oh wait, when freshwater mixes with salt, salinity goes down and so would the pH as the intruding water is more acidic. Correlation Causality and they missed it? And funny, I thought the Mississippi outflow would show up on the salinity map a bit more (as less of course).
And the fresh water signature from the Amazon is much smaller in area than I expected.
Figure 1: Area of interest. The northwestern Tropical Atlantic. On land, the Amazon River and its major tributaries within our region of interest are shown, as are the Orinoco, Xingu and Tocatins (Toc.) Rivers. The location of the Obidos, Brazil discharge gauge is indicated as a solid circle. In the ocean, major currents are indicated: North Brazil Current (NBC), Northern Equatorial Current (NEC), North Equatorial Counter Current (NECC), Guyana Current and Caribbean Current. The small flow vectors show the mean surface current direction and relative velocity during September. These were created from climatological drifter float trajectory data
Amazon water enters the Western Tropical Atlantic near the equator (Figure 1) and is carried northwestward along the Brazilian Shelf by the North Brazilian Current (NBC), (Muller-Karger et al., 1988; 1995). Although some of the Amazon’s water continues northward into the Guyana Current (Hellweger and Gordon, 2002), a sizable fraction reaching 3-10ºN is carried eastward by the North Equatorial Counter Current (NECC) (Muller-Karger et al., 1998; 1995; Fratoni and Glickson, 2002), which reaches maximal velocities during the boreal summer-to-fall period (Fonseca et al., 2004; Richardson and Reverdin, 1987). Along the Brazilian shelf, up to 200km offshore, the plume formed by the Amazon’s discharge lies at the surface with a depth ranging from 3-10 meters (Lentz and Limeburner, 1995). Beyond the shelf, freshwater within the plume gradually attenuates with depth as it travels away from the source, with a penetration depth of 40m to 45m as far as 2600km offshore (Hellweger and Gordon, 2002; Hu et al., 2004). Along with the freshwater, the Amazon provides the largest riverine flux of suspended (1200 Mt y-1) and dissolved matter (287 Mt y-1), which includes a dissolved organic matter (DOM) flux of 139 Mt y-1 (Meybeck and Ragu 1997). These fluxes can have a dramatic effect on regional ecology as they represent potential subsidies of organic carbon, nutrients, and light attenuation into an otherwise oligotrophic environment (Muller-Karger et al., 1995).
Satellite remote sensing data is known to provide several means to visualize the wide surface dispersal the Amazon plume, with ocean color data being the first to illustrate its reach to well beyond 1000 km (Muller Karger et al., 1988). Since these first observations, the application of ocean color, altimetry, and SST satellite mapping in this region has increased in its sophistication, showing the ability to track surface plume area (e.g. Hu et al., 2004; Molleri et al., 2010), fronts along the shelf to the NW (Baklouti et al., 2007), and northward propagating eddies or waves shed near the North Brazil Current (NBC) retroreflection region, the so-called NBC rings (Ffield, 2005; Goni and Johns, 2001; Garzoli et al., 2004). In each case, the satellite data are able to provide time-resolved information on advective processes up to certain limits that include cloud cover, limited/weak SST and ocean color gradients, non-conservative dilution processes for the ocean color to salinity conversions (Salisbury et al., 2011), and baroclinicity and subgrid variability for the altimetry SSHA tracking of the NBC rings. The new sea surface salinity products from satellite plateforms such as SMOS allow to gain a significant insight into the advection paths of the freshwater Amazon plume by surface currents. The SSS product derived from SMOS data for year 2010 is described in detail in a previous news here.
In the present post we tentatively illustrate the strength of these new satellite products to bring added value information on the freshwater transport in this important ocean area. The SMOS estimate for SSS evolution along with geostrophic surface currents estimate from altimeters from April to December 2010 is shown in the animation here below:
Another schematic diagram of flow from this page:
http://www.salinityremotesensing.ifremer.fr/news/amazonplumefreshwateradvectionbysurfacecurrentsfromaltimetry
Which has several plots, and this interesting gif of floating sensors:
http://www.ifremer.fr/naiad/salinityremotesensing.ifremer.fr/virtual_drifter_east.gif
I’m skeptical: The initial sharp bright blue “plume” of 100% fresh water expected to be present by those who watch the Amazon seems matches this paper, but the long current of almost-no-salinity out into the Atlantic is … well, missing.
I often read that ocean pH has been relatively constant at 8.2 for the past 300 million years. The data I encounter covers only the past 30 million years or so and takes a consistent pattern, looking much like the data from Pearson and Palmer, but it is scaled vertically and shifted up and down in various ways. All variations combined, pH seems to vary from 8.05 to 8.45. The shifting up and down and scaling make me uncomfortable about how the data presentation. If one goes about looking for the current ocean pH, what one finds is one graphic after another in which the pH is “estimated.” No where do these graphs quantify the error of the estimate. There are, here and there, time series of actual measurements, which shows substantial variation from one measurement to another. About all I can conclude is that the current state of knowledge here is less than it is for atmospheric CO2 content.
However, the authors of this paper are suggesting that they can determine ocean pH from temperature (which affects CO2 solubility), pCO2, and “salinity” which must act some proxy for carbonate alkalinity. Yet, we know that pCO2 has been very much higher than present at times in the past. I would then conclude that ocean surface pH must have varied greatly in the past. There is an enormous amount of buffering capacity in the deep oceans, but mixing between deep and shallow ocean takes perhaps a thousand years or more. If there truly is a problem is it more one of time scales than anything else?