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Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A new study published by Adelaide University, claims that ocean acidification and global warming will cause a major collapse of ocean food chains.
The abstract of the study (the fully study is paywalled);
Global alteration of ocean ecosystem functioning due to increasing human CO2 emissions
Ivan Nagelkerken1 and Sean D. Connell
Significance
People are not only concerned about climate change and its effects on plant and animal diversity but also about how humans are fundamentally changing the globe’s largest ecosystem that sustains economic revenue and food for many countries. We show that many species communities and ocean habitats will change from their current states. Ocean acidification and warming increase the potential for an overall simplification of ecosystem structure and function with reduced energy flow among trophic levels and little scope for species to acclimate. The future simplification of our oceans has profound consequences for our current way of life, particularly for coastal populations and those that rely on oceans for food and trade.
Abstract
Rising anthropogenic CO2 emissions are anticipated to drive change to ocean ecosystems, but a conceptualization of biological change derived from quantitative analyses is lacking. Derived from multiple ecosystems and latitudes, our metaanalysis of 632 published experiments quantified the direction and magnitude of ecological change resulting from ocean acidification and warming to conceptualize broadly based change. Primary production by temperate noncalcifying plankton increases with elevated temperature and CO2, whereas tropical plankton decreases productivity because of acidification. Temperature increases consumption by and metabolic rates of herbivores, but this response does not translate into greater secondary production, which instead decreases with acidification in calcifying and noncalcifying species. This effect creates a mismatch with carnivores whose metabolic and foraging costs increase with temperature. Species diversity and abundances of tropical as well as temperate species decline with acidification, with shifts favoring novel community compositions dominated by noncalcifiers and microorganisms. Both warming and acidification instigate reduced calcification in tropical and temperate reef-building species. Acidification leads to a decline in dimethylsulfide production by ocean plankton, which as a climate gas, contributes to cloud formation and maintenance of the Earth’s heat budget. Analysis of responses in short- and long-term experiments and of studies at natural CO2 vents reveals little evidence of acclimation to acidification or temperature changes, except for microbes. This conceptualization of change across whole communities and their trophic linkages forecast a reduction in diversity and abundances of various key species that underpin current functioning of marine ecosystems.
The obvious question – why didn’t this hypothesised collapse occur during previous epochs with high CO2 levels, such as the Cretaceous Age? According to Wikipedia, the Cretaceous age enjoyed CO2 levels of around 1700ppm. Yet the Cretaceous was also the age of the Dinosaurs – the period was characterised by large tropical jungles, shallow warm seas, and a vast abundance of life, both marine and terrestrial. I suggest it takes a pretty robust food chain to support a predator like the Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Regarding the alleged impact of acidification on calcifying species like corals, it seems a shame the Adelaide boffins didn’t compare notes with their colleagues down the road in Perth, who recently discovered that corals have the ability to manage their internal pH levels – they grow just fine in a wide range of naturally occurring CO2 levels. Or the recent Woods hole study, which demonstrated coral reefs have astonishing resilience and ability to thrive, even in the most extreme conditions.
As for the direct effect of warming – even if warming occurs, the net result in most cases would surely be a slight shift in geographic habitat. For example, the range of temperatures on offer as you travel along say the Australian East Coast far exceeds temperature changes most alarmists predict will occur in the next century, due to global warming.
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There will be a never ending steam of unproven catastrophic headlines that lack scientific support but those headlines are aimed at scaring people from the Pope to the common man to maintain the meme of catastrophic CO2 warming, so we must act now. In 2010 headlines hyped a paper by Boyce 2010 claiming “Phytoplankton Population Drops 40 Percent Since 1950 ” But the Boyce study was thoroughly debunked for its poor methodology. Yet the scary story gets burned into people’s minds. I just had to people argue we are all going to climate hell and that false 40% drop was their evidence.
But the peer reviewed literature that debunks those false claims never make headlines. For example Chavez (2011) in Marine Primary Production in Relation to Climate Variability and Change write “Recent in situ and satellite time-series of primary production can be clearly linked to interannual ocean variability. Global marine primary production appears to have increased over the past several decades in association with multi-decadal variations”
Then in “Is there a decline in marine phytoplankton?” McQuatters-Gollop (2011) specifically debunked Boyce’s conclusions writing, “Boyce et al.1 compiled a chlorophyll index by combining in situ chlorophyll and Secchi disk depth measurements that spanned a more than 100-year time period and showed a decrease in marine phytoplankton biomass of approximately 1% of the global median per year over the past century. Eight decades of data on phytoplankton biomass collected in the North Atlantic by the Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) survey2, however, show an increase in an index of chlorophyll (Phytoplankton Colour Index) in both the Northeast and Northwest Atlantic basins3, 4, 5, 6, 7 (Fig. 1), and other long-term time series, including the Hawaii Ocean Time-series (HOT)8, the Bermuda Atlantic Time Series (BATS)8 and the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI)9 also indicate increased phytoplankton biomass over the last 20–50 years. These findings, which were not discussed by Boyce et al.1, are not in accordance with their conclusions and illustrate the importance of using consistent observations when estimating long-term trends.”
In “Impact of a shrinking Arctic ice cover on marine primary production” (2008) Stanford’s Arrigo reported, “Annual primary production in the Arctic has increased yearly … Should these trends continue, additional loss of ice during Arctic spring could boost productivity >3-fold above 1998–2002 levels” Further study was published in 2015 concluded, “Here we investigate changes in sea ice between the years 1998 and 2012 at regional and basin scales and how these have impacted rates of phytoplankton net primary production (NPP). Annual NPP increased 30% over the Arctic Ocean during our study period, with the largest increases on the interior shelves and smaller increases on inflow shelves.”
The real racketeers that Whitehouse should pursue are those pushing unsupported catastrophes.
“…pushing unsupported catastrophes.”
‘Not far removed from falsely yelling fire in a crowded theater, is it?
Rather than being crushed by the fleeing mob, the penalty with the CAGW false alarm is being crushed by rising prices needed to pay for the towering, spinning, inefficient whirlygig contraptions whose main function is to suck money from everyone’s pockets.
“…pushing unsupported catastrophes.”
‘Not far removed from falsely yelling fire in a crowded theater, is it?
Rather than being crushed by the fleeing mob, the penalty with the CAGW false alarm is being crushed by rising prices needed to pay for the towering, spinning, inefficient whirlygig contraptions whose main function is to suck money from everyone’s pockets.
Steve
I’m not in Britain and am having a hard time finding accurate reports on the increase in energy prices there. Could you please point me to an objective source ?
Thanks in advance.
Knute, I’m not in Britian either, but I see from a quick Goorgle the Gruaniad reported on 11-16-2013 that energy prices rose 37% in 3 years, not to suggest, mind you, that the Gruaniad is an objective source, nor Goorgle.
Thanks, I saw the same b4 I asked. Seems a tad extreme. I can find gigawatt price comps but not household rates of increase.
Maybe the Brits are embarrassed.
A colleague has been working to create an algorithm that would advise wind energy companies when to shut down their windmills during periods of greatest risk that has been massacring bats and birds. But the wind companies are not willing to do so because even with their subsidies, such actions would further minimize profits. Taxation for bad subsidies is what sucks money from your pockets.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10204875608230679&set=a.10201786469284136.1073741827.1253832247&type=3
How much were they paid for the study, and who paid them.
Stop asking questions that you are not allowed to know !!!
It is so depressing to learn that the science that I once believed in as a child has become the ” Monster under the Bed” !!!
More evidence that the boffins know that the global warming scam has just about run it’s course.
Now they are trying to find a new scare on which to hang their give us all your money and all your freedom train on.
Mark W, I think you are right. Acidification may be the one remote hope they have in the CO2 scary story. If David Evans’ soon to be released peer reviewed paper demonstrates the IPCC models are greatly over estimating the climate sensitivity then acidification will become the big story (sorry, beat up) in this endless saga of follow the money, not to mention power and control.
Cheeeeldren just aren’t go to know what food is.
Dinner will be a rare and exciting event…
Dinner will be a rare and exciting event…
Esp. if it includes steak.
Since the paper justifies making gross assumptions based on metaanalysis of others experiments, I will do the same.
I’ll assume the authors are complete idiots based on my metaanalysis of dozens of papers like theirs that make tiresome, poorly supported but certain dire forecasts.
Yeah, if it climbs on Google it’s true, right ?
WUWTs Mr Watts is right to be really worried about the “truth” algorithm that Google is introducing. So far it’s for medical related searches. Which science field will be next ?
Where will you have to go to get validated, free of the Google search engine info ?
http://www.salon.com/2015/03/06/anti_science_advocates_are_freaking_out_about_new_google_truth_rankings/
Its probably more of a problem for Google. People love Google because it delivers the results they want. They’ve dominated the search engine space, because generally they have been very good at delivering the results people want. If Google starts delivering poor quality results, people will switch to other search engines.
Ah, comparison fun.
So I compare the two.
I searched for wuwt funding.
This is yahoo.
Got to go down a bit to get to the Heartland claim.
https://search.yahoo.com/mobile/s?p=wuwt+funding&fr=yfp-hrmob-900&fr2=p%3Afp%2Cm%3Asb&.tsrc=yfp-hrmob-900
This is google
Second one under Wiki
https://www.google.com/search?q=wuwt+funding&oq=wuwt+&aqs=chrome.3.69i57j0l3.9873j0j4&client=ms-android-verizon&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8
I’ll do that more often.
Is there a browser that compiles all the search engines and ranks based on popularity ?
If the algorithm works, it will disprove CAGW.
If it does not disprove CAGW, it is worthless.
Hey, if it confirms CAGW, it is not an algorithm, it is an algoreism.
I want to know what “Ivan Nagelkerken2”, his clone I assume, thinks!
An interesting paper about coccoliths.
What are coccoliths ? Little single celled plant plankton that plate themselves with calcite.
They are responsible for about 30% of the limestone on the planet so they do a bit of work.
http://people.earth.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Pagani/6_2008%20Henderiks_EPSL.pdf
According to this report they have declined in size since the Eocene due to declining atmospheric carbon dioxide. Of note also is that the Eocene epoch [56 to 34 million years ago] was substantially warmer than at present yet eco-systems did not collapse.
Perhaps Mr Nagelkerken and Mr Connell should study some history [when it’s related to rocks it’s called geology].
Global warming will cause Kim Kardashian’s butt to shrink.
Ha ha
Well we know global warming is a hoax, so there is no chance of that happening. Pleases me on both counts!
“Temperature increases consumption by and metabolic rates of herbivores, but this response does not translate into greater secondary production, which instead decreases with acidification in calcifying and noncalcifying species”
Does this make any logical sense to anyone?
“Temperature increases consumption by and metabolic rates of herbivores, but this response does not translate into greater secondary production, which instead decreases with acidification in calcifying and noncalcifying species”
Should likely be
Temp increases consumption and metabolic rates of herbivores, but this response does not translate into greater secondary production (of what ? likely in the context of the paragraph … ), which instead blah blah.
A tad sloppy no doubt.
What interests me is how a 10% increase in CO2 (down to biota level only) can produce a 30% reduction in alkalinity). I’ve corresponded with NOAA on this, suggesting that dumping, drainage, and dredging are larger contributors. Acidification is said to have begun ~1750, and that’s ~200 years too early for a significant CO2 impact. The answer I got not only agreed that this probably plays a factor, but pointed out that such activities produce acid via biota output, i.e., the same mechanism that applies to CO2.
The “3 Ds” correlate better with the pH data better than does CO2.
I guess the recent paper revealing that most experiments on ocean acidification were badly designed and therefore yielded results of minimal use. I wonder if the 632 experiments cited were among the useless ones? Imagine 632 (!!!) ocean acidif experiments. This number alone is a symptom of a mental disorder in this science.
“Claim: Global Warming will cause ocean food chains to collapse”
And for proof of that, they can point to the massive ocean die offs at the end of the ice age, comparable to the Permian and Mesozoic extinctions. I wonder how people, elephants, cows, antelopes, whales, etc managed to survive.
Alan
Two prongs
1. You are right. Flimsy critical thinking. Bad science. Hold em to task.
2. They are appealing to the 10% chance of catastrophe part of risk management. They “hey, we are doing this (increasing CO2) and there’s a chance it may be fine or even beneficial, but also a end of the bell curve chance we may be destroying ourselves.”
And so the crowd yelled
“Save us from that 10% monster”.
It’s a dastardly mind_____. It’s the act of the cultist. To fix it, you do number one and you have to figure out something more appealing for number 2.
Sex & drugs ??
You want to target the silent majority.
The fringe, as evidenced by a previous post on the makeup of Atlantic readers, is fairly highly educated and relatively wealthy. They are not your silent majority (SM).
So what does the SM want ?
Mostly, they want to be left alone to be safe economically, politically and socially. They don’t want conflict and they just want to be liked by whatever circle they are in.
Worrying them (sorry SM) about how much this wave is going to cost them will scare them. They want to provide for theirs first. If you scare them that they can’t do that they we get mad. Start listening.
I hear that the English are hurting, but I rarely see a concerted effort to get that out. Either it’s not bad or the skeptic is missing an opportunity.