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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I am sure there is nothing to worry about.
pH (Marine) – Canadian Environmental Quality Guidelines
ceqg-rcqe.ccme.ca/download/en/203
The pH of marine waters is usually quite stable (between. 7.5 and 8.5 worldwide) and is similar to that of estuarine … Cell aggregation of sea urchin embryos.
Exactly. Estuarine pH varies more than coastal, which varies more than deep ocean. Even the Southern Ocean seasonally varies 0.5. See more detailed posts upthread.
Nitpick Alert!!
While water being alkaline (basic) or acidic is tied to a pH above or below 7.0, the term “alkalinity” is not.
“Alkalinity” refers to the capacity of the water, because of the compounds dissolved in it, to resist a change in pH. The pH may be above or below 7.0.
Here are a couple of references.
https://extension.umass.edu/floriculture/fact-sheets/water-quality-ph-and-alkalinity
http://water.me.vccs.edu/exam_prep/alkalinity.html
(PS Knowing the salinity of the water will not tell you the water’s ability to resist a change in pH. You’d have to know what the salts are. Not all salts will buffer pH.)
You could study science or you could have a saltwater pool to learn things like this.
“The pH of marine waters is usually quite stable (between
7.5 and 8.5 worldwide) and is similar to that of estuarine
waters because of the buffering capacity provided by the
abundance of strong basic cations such as sodium,
potassium, and calcium and of weak acid anions such as
carbonates and borates (Wetzel 1983). Higher pHs are
usually found in near-surface waters because of solar
radiation. The effect of solar radiation on pH is twofold: it
promotes photosynthesis and increases surface temperatures, both of which decrease the amount of free carbonic
acid and consequently raise the pH”
. Higher pHs are usually found in near-surface waters because of solar radiation….
Also aeration/exposure to air…….
As far as I can tell, much of the anecdotally-reported instances of “ocean acidity” events appear to be caused by local acidic water emissions. Curiously, none of the reports of problems with oysters, lobsters, corals (the new global warming poster-children?) relate the nature of the acid substances allegedly responsible for the demise of all those edible/cute little critters.
It would be an almost perfunctory task to obtain and analyze samples of the offending seawater. So the fact that this data is not reported, or not done suggests that the results would not be in keeping with the AGW story line. If the culprit is any acid other than carbonic acid, CO2 is off the hook, and the torch & pitchfork crowd should look elsewhere for scapegoats for their own poor husbandry,
The universal use of the term “acidification” to describe decreased alkalinity is also a sure sign of journalistic hyperbole. Offenders say it’s the same thing, but I never heard of weak alkaline solutions dissolving oyster shells.
There is also much deception bordering on, if not actual, academic misconduct. The Milne Bay stuff is litterally poisoned by volcanic hydrogen sulphide. See essay Shell Games. Australia’s BGR and Florida’s Atlantic reef have been poisoned by pollution (mainly just runoff containing organic matter) which when decomposing also produces hydrogen sulfide, to which many sea organisms are exquisitely sensative. Works like cyanide on humans
Fix pollution. Fix overfishing. No need to fix CO2..
So… we should believe that satellite observation is the most correct way to determine the oceans’ alkalinity, but we should not be so quick to believe the satellite derived land surface temps over the other data sets? Takes a long ladder to pick cherries that high up.
Hi there,
I did read all the comments (yet), just wanted to point out two clear errors:
– not the oceans, but the ocean surface water is changing it’s pH-value, thus the title is wrong
– the caption under the figure is incorrect, since the image seems to show the CO2-concentration in the surface sea water not alkalinity
Cheers,
LoN
Firstly, acidification does not have the same meaning as “increase in acidity”. Acidification refers to a transition, not a measurable, net reduction in pH.
Secondly, the pH of a solution is temperature dependent, even without change in concentration of solutes. So if the surface pH is to measured by satellite, assisted by salinity information, then the surface temperature should be used to adjust pH to a that at a nominal standard temperature. My impression is that the proposed method involves the converse operation- in which case it it designed to mislead.
Why don’t they ever call it “causticness”?
An caustic comment is not as bad as an acid tongue?
Small typo.
“A caustic comment…”
A caustic comment is more effective when the humor is dry, my friend.
An acid tongue is more empowered by a rain of ire.
Irurghh!
I should have realized that!
Yet another reason why scientists who claim to be client scientists are losing credbility. Is anyone projecting that the oceans will become acidic? Then why present findings as ocean acidification instead of ocean alkalinity? Oh, I know, acids are much scarier than alkalis. Battery acid has a pH of 1.0, Coke about 2.5, Coffee about 4.0, fresh milk about 6.7, pure water 7.0, and the oceans? About 8.1, a decrease of 0.1 over the last 200 years.
“pure water 7.0”
Should be distilled, de-gassed water 7.0. Pure rainwater is about 5.0-5.5.
Just the sheer volume of bs papers (which are usually followed by the media report: “scientists say”) makes me wonder if we will ever have time to debunk them all. It’s like trying to get rid of an infestation of tiny ants in homes here in Australia. No sooner have you stopped them at one place than they have wriggled their way through another tiny opening.
One satellite image makes you larger
And one image makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don’t do anything at all
Go ask ESA
When it’s ten meters tall
And if you go chasing funding
And you know you’re going to fall
Tell ’em a hookah-smoking alarmist
Has given you the call
Call ESA
When it was just small …
“Pioneering technique” or “kludge?”
Choices, choices…
Maybe the AuthorNaughts will have their “Sparta” moment on camera! Ha ha 😉
There is no such thing as “ocean acidification” And if is past time we stopped using that pointless term
It’s not at all pointless- but effective recruiting propaganda helping to swell the ranks of the zombie apocalypse of CAGW believers and activists.
The paper seems to expand on a previous study that it cites as reference 18:
Global relationships of total alkalinity with salinity and temperature in surface waters of the world’s oceans
Kitack Lee, Lan T. Tong, Frank J. Millero, Christopher L. Sabine, Andrew G. Dickson, Catherine Goyet, Geun-Ha Park, Rik Wanninkhof, Richard A. Feely and Robert M. Key
Article first published online: 5 OCT 2006 | DOI: 10.1029/2006GL027207
From the abstract of that paper:
A simple function of sea surface salinity (SSS) andtemperature (SST) in the form AT= a + b (SSS – 35) + c (SSS-35)^2+ d (SST- 20) + e (SST -20)^2 fits surface total alkalinity (AT) data for each of five oceanographic regimes within an area-weighted uncertainty of ±8.1 micromol kg^(-1).
So they don’t really measure pH — only changes in buffer capacity.
Yea – maybe they should send up a satellite to image pH , detecting all those high speed protons radiating out to space from the sea surface. Real data might tell them something unexpected – like the results they got from the OCO orbiting carbon observatory. But hey – it doesn’t even matter if such real world data contradicted their chattering class pseudoscience dystopia. Just write it off as another lying eye in the sky. Like OCO that showed that more CO2 is emitted by forests and deserts than cities. Or Envisat that showed sea level is falling.
Lots of uninformed nonsense in these comments. As several have correctly noted, akalinity is not pH, it is the capacity of a solution to neutralize acid. As such, total alkalinity is the sum of all weak bases in the solution. For seawater, that means 2*[carbonate] + [bicarbonate] + a number of minor contributors.
You can not calculate pH from total alkalinity. You can calculate it if you know the alkalinity, the relative amounts of the various weak bases, the salinity, the temperature, and the vapor pressure of CO2 in the seawater. If you want to calculate the effect of CO2, you would need the other items on the list, as well as the extent to which CO2 vapor pressure in solution differs from partial pressure in the atmosphere. I have only glanced quickly at the paper; it seems to be an effort to get global data on some of these parameters, which is perfectly reasonable. It does look like there is a lot of hype in the press release.
The relative amounts of the various salts in seawater are quite constant. So if you measure salinity, you can get pretty good numbers for total alkalinity and the distribution of that alkalinity among the various bases. We have measurements of temperature and CO2 partial pressure. So if the degree of CO2 disequilibrium can be estimated, pH can be calculated. The CO2 disequilibrium is, I think, mostly due to biological activity, and the authors seem to think that can also be determined remotely. In that case this might be useful for taking the measurements made at places like Station Aloha, and extending them globally. Of course, any such methodology would have to be validated by in situ measurements; a point the authors appear to appreciate.
Scientific papers should be judged by their contents, not by hype in a press release. That is a point that most of the commenters here seem to have overlooked.
See above. Everything you say is directionally correct. But Station Aloha cannot be extended globally because ocean biology is not just on the surface, where chloropyll ‘greenness’ can also be sat measured. Aloha is barren. Surface relects what is below. Almost nothing. Not true in many other ocean regions.
It’s rather more complex than that. For one thing satellites measure the “skin temperature” of the sea and the surface salinity, while the chlorophyll measurement is a (depth-skewed) average over the photic zone, the depth of which varies a great deal, mostly due to the local transparency of the water.
Also the CO2 disequilibrum is not only due to the current biological activity, but also to the past history of the watermass. For example upwelling deep water has a very high CO2 content because it has been isolated from the surface for up to 1000 years or more and biological activity has consumed much of the dissolved O2 and transformed it int CO2.
Now, I don’t say that it is impossible to model ocean pH, as a matter fact I rather think it probably is possible, but it will require an enormous number of direct pH measurements from all parts of the oceans over a period of many years to create and validate the required algorithms.
And even then it will be useless for major parts of the ocean much of the time. Chlorophyll measurement can only be done by reflected visible light, so it is impossible at high latitudes (>45-50 degrees lat) in winter and also in ice-covered and cloud-covered areas. The latter incidentally includes the entire northern Indian Ocean during the monsoon season.
As our oceans are basically saturated with CO2, (they absorb more when cold and outgas when warm) any decrease in PH must mean ocean cooling.
Baby oysters prefer estuary’s, no place does salinity change more wildly than an esturary, twice a day with tides and hugely during floods and droughts, I cannot imagine how they can be sensitive to PH if they like estuary’s.
Yes. See essay Shell Games for how NOAA PMEL deceptively manipulated that simple fact into evidence of global warming ocean acidification alarm in a published paper AND to this day their US government website.
“Satellite images reveal ocean acidification from space”
that one line is the whole and only ‘value’ of this paper , as that is what the press will run with,
the rest is merely in-fill for further grants .
Its the usual par for the course, creation of so-called fact out of thin air. The facts don’t matter, the science doesn’t matter, all that matters is that they prove global warming yet again threatens the catastrophe to end mankind.
I don’t know about everybody else that I am catastrophed out right now.
The sheer audacity is enlightening. To be this audacious at this point of so many things showing that climate change is really a natural process without much to do with man, it shows the desperation of the climate change alarmist.
But notice they never say anything about their failed current predictions they only now point to 50 years in the future. To one with even a minimal statistical education predicting anything that far in the future with any certainty is patently impossible.
When they actually show some chemistry, it might be worth commenting on. But probably not.
Seems to be a function of precip and to a lesser extent influx of fresh surface waters. The Horse Latitudes are the most alkaline, and the tropics and parts of upper latitudes are less so.
Another man-made fabrication… ocean acidification.
I challenge anyone to show me even one location around the globe where the sea has turned acidic, excluding situations like humans intentionally and unintentionally discarding acid in the sea.
Is this going to be the new battleground? And will they change the silly label they’ve given it from “Ocean Acidification” to something like “Ocean Change”, as more learned professionals take issue and blow their PR-language out of the water (so to speak).
This “ocean acidification ” nonsense completely misses the point.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/02/11/national-academy-of-science-demands-equal-access-to-the-climate-trough-for-geoengineering/#comment-1859354
[excerpt]
“Furthermore, increased atmospheric CO2 from whatever cause is clearly beneficial to humanity and the environment. Earth’s atmosphere is clearly CO2 deficient and continues to decline over geological time. In fact, atmospheric CO2 at this time is too low, dangerously low for the longer term survival of carbon-based life on Earth.
More Ice Ages, which are inevitable unless geo-engineering can prevent them, will cause atmospheric CO2 concentrations on Earth to decline to the point where photosynthesis slows and ultimately ceases. This would devastate the descendants of most current life on Earth, which is carbon-based and to which, I suggest, we have a significant moral obligation.
Atmospheric and dissolved oceanic CO2 is the feedstock for all carbon-based life on Earth. More CO2 is better. Within reasonable limits, a lot more CO2 is a lot better.”
I see two problems for humanity and the environment in the next very few thousand years:
1. Another Ice Age
and
2. CO2-deficiency (if not in this next Ice Age, then in the following ones).