From NOAA’s department of acidic wordsmithing: New study shows Arctic Ocean rapidly becoming more corrosive to marine species
Chukchi and Beaufort Seas could become less hospitable to shelled animals by 2030
New research by NOAA, University of Alaska, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the journal Oceanography shows that surface waters of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas could reach levels of acidity that threaten the ability of animals to build and maintain their shells by 2030, with the Bering Sea reaching this level of acidity by 2044.
“Our research shows that within 15 years, the chemistry of these waters may no longer be saturated with enough calcium carbonate for a number of animals from tiny sea snails to Alaska King crabs to construct and maintain their shells at certain times of the year,” said Jeremy Mathis, an oceanographer at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory and lead author. “This change due to ocean acidification would not only affect shell-building animals but could ripple through the marine ecosystem.”
A team of scientists led by Mathis and Jessica Cross from the University of Alaska Fairbanks collected observations on water temperature, salinity and dissolved carbon during two month-long expeditions to the Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort Seas onboard United States Coast Guard cutter Healy in 2011 and 2012.
Sampling Arctic waters
These data were used to validate a predictive model for the region that calculates the change over time in the amount of calcium and carbonate ions dissolved in seawater, an important indicator of ocean acidification. The model suggests these levels will drop below the current range in 2025 for the Beaufort Sea, 2027 for the Chukchi Sea and 2044 for the Bering Sea. “A key advance of this study was combining the power of field observations with numerical models to better predict the future,” said Scott Doney, a coauthor of the study and a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
A form of calcium carbonate in the ocean, called aragonite, is used by animals to construct and maintain shells. When calcium and carbonate ion concentrations slip below tolerable levels, aragonite shells can begin to dissolve, particularly at early life stages. As the water chemistry slips below the present-day range, which varies by season, shell-building organisms and the fish that depend on these species for food can be affected.
This region is home to some of our nation’s most valuable commercial and subsistence fisheries. NOAA’s latest Fisheries of the United States report estimates that nearly 60 percent of U.S. commercial fisheries landings by weight are harvested in Alaska. These 5.8 billion pounds brought in $1.9 billion in wholesale values or one third of all landings by value in the U.S. in 2013.
Lowering sensors
The continental shelves of the Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort Seas are especially vulnerable to the effects of ocean acidification because the absorption of human-caused carbon dioxide emissions is not the only process contributing to acidity. Melting glaciers, upwelling of carbon-dioxide rich deep waters, freshwater input from rivers and the fact that cold water absorbs more carbon dioxide than warmer waters exacerbates ocean acidification in this region.
“The Pacific-Arctic region, because of its vulnerability to ocean acidification, gives us an early glimpse of how the global ocean will respond to increased human-caused carbon dioxide emissions, which are being absorbed by our ocean,” said Mathis. “Increasing our observations in this area will help us develop the environmental information needed by policy makers and industry to address the growing challenges of ocean acidification.”
Go online here to read the research paper, Ocean Acidification in the Surface Waters of the Pacific-Arctic Boundary Regions, in Oceanography
So what is the pH of the water?
Models again: “…combining the power of field observations with numerical models to better predict the future…” How many times have I said that based on the performance of models since 1988 none of them worked and the operation should be shut down. Those supercomputers they use to play their computer games on are the most expensive toys in the world. It would be a considerable relief to the taxpayers to get rid of this source of misinformation.
It appears that climate science again has the chemistry backwards. CO2 is necessary to create shells:
Calcium Carbonate Minerals in Water
Calcium carbonate chemistry is more complicated when it comes to understanding which polymorph will crystallize out of solution. This process is common in nature, because neither mineral is highly soluble, and the presence of dissolved carbon dioxide (CO2) in water pushes them toward precipitating.
http://geology.about.com/od/minerals/fl/calcite-vs-aragonite.htm
God, will it never stop?! “Could”, “may”, “if”, “our models”. I’m just so sick of this propaganda.
Let’s take a shell from a dead animal and see how long it takes to decompose, then project our results onto live animals and assume the PH value will change and cause catastrophe! What a joke!
God, will it never stop?!
Just ask the Pope.
Do the salarymen at NOAA have no purpose in life other than to generate this infantile dystopic fiction, and perfect their horrified and concerned “I’m trying to stay cool but we’re all going to die” affectation?
Presumably this report will be followed up by one which produces evidence that during the massive Saharan-Andean ice age at the end of the Ordovician era, during which atmospheric CO2 was at 2000-3000 ppm, the oceans were covered in frozen carbonic acid.
The sea? Corrosive? Never. Really?
Wot? Oceans eroding coastlines? Who’d would have thought of that!
I’ve seen claims elsewhere that ocean acidification will cause existing coral to be corroded away, rather like carbonic acid (or any acid) would cause metal in the water to corrode faster. But, wait a minute, the reef isn’t metal, or anything remotely like it, it’s made of calcium carbonate, which is a salt of carbonic acid.
A different and stronger acid would be able to rob the calcium from out of the salt, leaving the carbonic acid on its own (and usually to dissociate into CO2 ‘fizz’ and water since it has only limited solubility) but the same acid that formed the salt cannot do that. At least, I’m reasonably sure it can’t. Perhaps some of the chemists in here would like to confirm or refute that point as chemistry isn’t my main subject.
If so, just shows how they dream these things up which sound plausible until you look at what they are saying more closely. You then realise it is junk science.
I’m reasonably sure it can’t.
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you are correct. adding CO2 will precipitate more CaCO3. CO2 cannot dissolve CaCO3 in seawater, because that would produce even more CO2, which would dissolve more CaCO3, which would produce more CO2.
If things worked the way climate science suggests, there would be no CaCO3 in the oceans as the smallest amount of CO2 would lead to a runaway reaction.
Ian Macdonald June 18, 2015 at 6:03 am
A different and stronger acid would be able to rob the calcium from out of the salt, leaving the carbonic acid on its own (and usually to dissociate into CO2 ‘fizz’ and water since it has only limited solubility) but the same acid that formed the salt cannot do that. At least, I’m reasonably sure it can’t. Perhaps some of the chemists in here would like to confirm or refute that point as chemistry isn’t my main subject.
This is incorrect, addition of CO2 to seawater causes a reduction in pH and a reduction in [CO3–]. The solubility of CaCO3 is governed by its solubility product: Ksp=[Ca++]*[CO3–]
In seawater [Ca++] is constant so CaCO3 solubility decreases as [CO3–] decreases. Because the solubility of CaCO3 increases as temperature decreases and as pressure increases, below a certain depth CaCO3 dissolves, this depth is shallower for aragonite (the form mostly used in shellfish) than for calcite. Due to the lower temperature in the arctic you’d expect this to occur nearer the surface.
http://www.nature.com/scitable/content/ne0000/ne0000/ne0000/ne0000/25853439/2-626w_1_2.jpg
Figure 2: How ocean carbonate chemistry and pH are related.
Bjerrum plot showing the relative proportions of [HCO3-], [CO32-] and [CO2] to DIC in seawater with different temperature, salinity and pressure (heavy curves are for S=35‰, T=25ºC, P=0bar, narrow curves are S=35, T=0ºC, P=0bar, dashed curves are S=35, T=0ºC, P=300bar). The shaded region reflecting the range of modern (annual average) ocean surface, with the hashed region reflecting the corresponding projected year 2010 range: taken from the global ocean geochemistry model projections of Turley et al. (2010). To put ocean chemistry into some perspective, some common substances and their respective pH are shown at the bottom (scale is same as upper panel). pH values for foodstuffs are from Bridges & Mattice (1939), and for household products from (Hoffman et al. (1989). Note that different brands and preparations can give different pH values (up to ±0.5 pH units) — typical measured values are shown.
Don’t the carbonate and H promptly get together, forming bicarbonate and thus buffering pH change?
Since the seas are alkaline, they are already somewhat corrosive. Any so called acidification will simply move them towards neutrality, making them less corrosive.
More corrosion, then why according to the BBC and this is a direct quote” the great barrier reef has been spared and is not on the endangered environment list” BBC speak for no problems with acidity in the oceans
The short of it is this.
They have no science or measurements showing it is happening and haven’t detected any impacts from anything remotely corrosive, but their programmed models show it could happen.
And as usual they push out the time when we will be able to detect this corrosion to years beyond their careers and out of reach of any consequences or accountability.
Marvelous.
Proving the theoretically possible is easy. Proving what is just most likely using assumptions is impossible. They left out most other theoretical physical possibilities while also ignoring adaptation – a proven aspect of all life. Other than that, conjectural quasi-science at a third grade level.
Meanwhile back in the actual Arctic…
Ice conditions have been unusually severe along the west coast of Greenland, affecting fishing in that area:
http://www.undercurrentnews.com/2015/06/09/high-coldwater-shrimp-prices-help-royal-greenland-overcome-harsh-winter/
Royal Greenland expects profits for the year on a slightly higher level than in 2013/2014, despite the fact that the results for April and May were “very adversely affected by the ice situation along the west coast of Greenland”. The company expects to be able to compensate for the lost income when the ice is gone, it said.
This could be a further indication of strengthening Arctic ice and a possible robust minimum this year.
Ort maybe those Greenland shrimp dislike swimming around in acid – I know I would.
Arctic ice does not seem to be strengthening: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
But the NOAA are still forecasting an above normal September minimum:
http://origin.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/people/wwang/cfsv2fcst/imagesInd3/sieMon.gif
Precisely! This is exactly why there are no gastropods or bivalves in fresh water (which has a much lower pH than seawater). This is also the reason why CaCO3 shell building organisms didn’t evolve until the Miocene when atmospheric CO2 levels decreased. /sarc
Not true. There are plenty of fresh water clams and mussels.
Which claim is correct, “the heat is hiding in the oceans” or ” the oceans are becoming more acidic” . They both can’t be true at the same time. If the oceans are getting warmer then they are less able to hold co2 and as a result release more co2. And if they are becoming more acidic, then the oceans are getting cooler. So what’s causing the reefs to die? Warmer water as reported in some journals or more acidic ocean water? Does CAGW know when they publish contradictory claims? Or claims that don’t square with observations, predictions, or relevant data ? I think they will just ignore this slight inconvenient argument (as many others) and slog ahead or answer with some totally ridicules new claim…. like warmer weather causes more snow.. no mention of where or how it’s cold enough to snow in the first place. (which invalidates the claim that “when water vapor releases latent heat the heat is retained, because it is a feedback system which causes it to get warmer still “) .
rishrac June 18, 2015 at 1:23 pm
Which claim is correct, “the heat is hiding in the oceans” or ” the oceans are becoming more acidic” . They both can’t be true at the same time. If the oceans are getting warmer then they are less able to hold co2 and as a result release more co2.
If the oceans are warming at too low a rate to keep up with the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere (which is the case at present) then the flux of CO2 is into the ocean and as a consequence the oceans are warming and pH is reducing at the same time.
The problem is, as been shown by the IPCC, is that a little bit of heat makes a big difference. The amount of heat per them overwhelms any amount of co2 presently in the atmosphere. Which is in their view also responsible for sea level rise. Do the math, the statements can’t be both true at the same time. Doing the math, if the ocean has warmed as much as claimed, the level of rise should be dramatic not in millimeters per decades. In the year 2002, the alarm was exactly correct for CAGW. Canal St in NYC should be underwater, not 15 years from 2015.. NOW. What happened? What is perplexing is that at least half or more of the co2 currently being produced is disappearing somewhere, which is in comparison overwhelming when compared to the amount of co2 produced 50 years ago. Additionally, the amount of sink have decreased. You have a warmer more acidic ocean, tropical rainforest have diminished greatly. Which also brings me to another topic, the amount of time co2 remains in the atmosphere. If, well not if, it is that half of the co2 in the last 10 years has disappeared, man made co2 that is, so if so much co2 is being eliminated somewhere, how was co2 not completely gone form the atmosphere before man made co2? How do we know half of the co2 in the last 10 years has disappeared? It would have showed up in the ppm. In fact I have the rate of co2 going somewhere much higher that 50 %. The sink looks like it is accelerating
Baking soda- have every person on the planet buy a box of baking soda and dump it into an ocean.
I thought corrosive means something that corrodes. If Aragonite is already corroding in seawater now the term should apply? What am I missing?
Aragonite dissolves in seawater when its solubility product (Ksp) falls below 6X10^-9 (at 25ºC), in the current ocean this occurs typically below a certain depth where pressure and temperature result in a higher Ksp, CaCO3 increases solubility at lower temperature and higher pressure.
The Ca++ concentration of 0.01mol/L is constant in the ocean and any reduction of pH leads to a lower concentration of CO3– therefore a pH of 7 is more corrosive than the present composition of seawater.
In fact in the N Pacific at present the pH at 500m depth is about 7.2 by which point aragonite has dissolved.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vjOnK9c1fSc/UFBa17NXeQI/AAAAAAAAAAc/CYy3tRD2uKE/s1600/Omega-A.png
TPG June 18, 2015 at 6:40 pm
With the ocean at ~8.1 pH adding more CO2 will make the ocean less corrosive. Seriously, these reporters should talk to somebody with some science background before they publish their stories.
As shown above this is not true, perhaps you should talk to someone with a science background.
Words do mean things…but not always the same thing in a different context.
A “caustic comment” may come from an “acid tongue”. Both result in damage and so mean basically (8-)) the same thing in that sentence.
But if the context is chemistry, then “caustic” and “acidic” are opposites in terms of pH.
“Corrosive” as in “oxidized”? Is that with or without Oxygen?
Corrosive, as in ‘to eat away a substance by chemical action’.
Wait a minute, the shells of King Crabs are made out of chitin, a polysaccharide, not calcium carbonate. Not only that but both acidic and alkaline solutions are corrosive. With the ocean at ~8.1 pH adding more CO2 will make the ocean less corrosive. Seriously, these reporters should talk to somebody with some science background before they publish their stories.