Climate Craziness of the Week: 'Global warming disaster could suffocate life on planet Earth'

From the UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER and the department of doom modeling comes this press release that suggests that somehow Earth would lose all (or most of) it’s oxygen due to global warming. However, it seems the Earth has been through this before and life survived, as this graph from Dr. Vincent Gray shows.:

Oxygen_earths_atmosphere_historical


Global warming disaster could suffocate life on planet Earth, research shows

University of Leicester researchers reveal how Earth’s oxygen could dramatically fall due to change in ocean temperature of just several degrees

Falling oxygen levels caused by global warming could be a greater threat to the survival of life on planet Earth than flooding, according to researchers from the University of Leicester.

A study led by Sergei Petrovskii, Professor in Applied Mathematics from the University of Leicester’s Department of Mathematics, has shown that an increase in the water temperature of the world’s oceans of around six degrees Celsius — which some scientists predict could occur as soon as 2100 — could stop oxygen production by phytoplankton by disrupting the process of photosynthesis.

Professor Petrovskii explained: “Global warming has been a focus of attention of science and politics for about two decades now. A lot has been said about its expected disastrous consequences; perhaps the most notorious is the global flooding that may result from melting of Antarctic ice if the warming exceeds a few degrees compared to the pre-industrial level. However, it now appears that this is probably not the biggest danger that the warming can cause to the humanity.

“About two-thirds of the planet’s total atmospheric oxygen is produced by ocean phytoplankton – and therefore cessation would result in the depletion of atmospheric oxygen on a global scale. This would likely result in the mass mortality of animals and humans.”

The team developed a new model of oxygen production in the ocean that takes into account basic interactions in the plankton community, such as oxygen production in photosynthesis, oxygen consumption because of plankton breathing and zooplankton feeding on phytoplankton.

While mainstream research often focuses on the CO2 cycle, as carbon dioxide is the agent mainly responsible for global warming, few researchers have explored the effects of global warming on oxygen production.

###

The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference will be held in Le Bourget, Paris, from Nov. 30 to Dec. 11. It will be the 21st yearly session of the Conference of the Parties to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 11th session of the Meeting of the Parties to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The conference objective is to achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on climate, from all the nations of the world.

The paper ‘Mathematical Modelling of Plankton-Oxygen Dynamics Under the Climate Change’ published in the Bulletin of Mathematical Biology is available here: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11538-015-0126-0

0 0 votes
Article Rating
133 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
XYZZY11
December 1, 2015 10:59 pm

A study led by Sergei Petrovskii, Professor in Applied Mathematics from the University of Leicester’s Department of Mathematics, has shown that an increase in the water temperature of the world’s oceans of around six degrees Celsius — which some scientists predict could occur as soon as 2100 — could stop oxygen production by phytoplankton by disrupting the process of photosynthesis.

Really??? – how are the oceans going to increase temperature by SIX degrees?

Reply to  XYZZY11
December 1, 2015 11:17 pm

25,000 delegates + 15,000 hangers on, all from 190 countries, have been creating an enormous carbon footprint to and from Paris, which no one seems to have noticed. The main object of the Paris convention is to plan the whereabouts of the next one. And the next.
Maybe that would bring it on.

William Fox
Reply to  kenmoonman
December 2, 2015 2:08 am

Indeed an estimated 300.000 ton of CO2 and a lot of hot air-

oeman50
Reply to  kenmoonman
December 2, 2015 9:32 am

Did they realize that water will remove more heat by evaporation at higher temperatures?

Mjw
Reply to  kenmoonman
December 2, 2015 10:42 am

Hangers-on? The word you are looking for is parasites.

Sally
Reply to  kenmoonman
December 2, 2015 1:51 pm

Yep – the next conference which will be the last chance ever to save the planet from catastrophic warming due to fossil fuel emissions…

commieBob
Reply to  XYZZY11
December 1, 2015 11:26 pm

The ocean temperatures are not going to increase by six degrees. Ocean temperatures warm by much much less than air temperatures. Even the alarmists aren’t promoting a six degree increase in air temperatures as a realistic possibility. These guys are idiots. Their paper should be retracted.

Paul Mackey
Reply to  XYZZY11
December 2, 2015 2:59 am

Only yesterday I read a post describing how scientists failed to understand how plankton operates for calcification. Do we, or they, think their assumptions for this model are any better?

RWturner
Reply to  Paul Mackey
December 2, 2015 2:00 pm

Real scientists, called carbonate sedimentologists, understand how bio-calcification works in plankton, but climatstrologists not so much.

Reply to  Paul Mackey
December 2, 2015 10:11 pm

The paper ‘Mathematical Modelling of Plankton-Oxygen Dynamics Under the Climate Change’,
once I read modelling the only thing I thought of was muddling.

Samuel C. Cogar
Reply to  XYZZY11
December 2, 2015 4:45 am

Really??? – how are the oceans going to increase temperature by SIX degrees?
By ignoring the fact that water (H2O) is the earth’s “temperature” regulating thermostat.

george e. smith
Reply to  Samuel C. Cogar
December 2, 2015 1:28 pm

According to Frank Wentz, et al SCIENCE for July 13 2007 (I think). “How much more rain will global warming bring ? ”
A six deg C. rise in ocean Temperature would result in a 42% rise in ocean water evaporation, and a 42% rise in global atmospheric water content, and a 42% increase in Global precipitation, which probably requires about a 42% increase in global cloud cover.
Since NASA/NOAA claims that the earth currently has about 60% global cloud cover, that would mean an 85.2% global cloud cover.
Or to put it a more useful way, the earth’s global cloud uncover, would drop from its present 40% cloud uncover to only 14.8 % cloud uncover, or about 37% of now.
Gee that is 1/e if I am not mistaken.
So with 37% of the present clear skies, we can get a 6 deg. C increase in the total earth ocean Temperature.
Who knew ??
g

Gerry, England
Reply to  XYZZY11
December 2, 2015 6:04 am

Give it to some bloke named Karl, he will add what is required to show warming of 6 degrees and hand it back.

RHS
Reply to  XYZZY11
December 2, 2015 7:56 am

They will start pre-heating the buckets to measure the engine inlet water temps.

Reply to  RHS
December 2, 2015 11:19 pm

They won’t bother doibg that, they’ll just give the data to the NASA GISS folk to ‘adjust’. “6 degrees? There you go. Easy”.

Reply to  XYZZY11
December 2, 2015 8:03 am

XYZZY11 makes a good point. Assuming the hydrosphere would need to absorb and store 1100 times as much heat as the atmosphere to warm by the same amount Earth would need to receive and retain enough energy as heat to warm said atmosphere by 6600 degrees. These clowns missed the decimal point.
More to it, of course, but the energy has to come from someplace. Their model is off. Since all IPCC following models are off maybe just the natural progression of human imagination. Sure be nice if some data intruded in their thought process.

Tom in Florida
Reply to  XYZZY11
December 2, 2015 9:29 am

The Gulf of Mexico water temps fluctuate around 30+ degrees F every year. Of course that’s from insolation changes due to Earth’s obliquity.

george e. smith
Reply to  XYZZY11
December 2, 2015 12:45 pm

“””””….. A study led by Sergei Petrovskii, Professor in Applied Mathematics from the University of Leicester’s Department of Mathematics, …..”””””
Wow! Had me worried for a bit.
For a while I thought he was an applied Physicist or an applied Chemist, dabbling in real world observations.
But he’s just an applied mathematician, so he just makes it all up in his X-box; and he’s not observing anything real.
g

george e. smith
Reply to  XYZZY11
December 2, 2015 12:53 pm

Well Vince Gray, would never draw a historical graph that was double valued anywhere along it, so it only looks to be getting really steep at 280 million year BC.
The vertical downdraft of vanishing Oxygen must have been quite an event to observe.
g

cassidy421
Reply to  XYZZY11
December 2, 2015 1:07 pm

Global oceans may need assistance from computer modeler Gavin Schmidt at GISS.

Jimbo
Reply to  XYZZY11
December 3, 2015 2:53 pm

Plants are being destroyed by global warming and co2. The biosphere is ‘dying’ (greening) due to ‘toxic’ co2. Make sense of this and take necessary actions to ‘fight’ global calamity. We must act now!!!!
https://youtu.be/P2qVNK6zFgE

Charles Nelson
December 1, 2015 11:00 pm

It’s almost like a sickness now, the longing for doom. I wonder do they have enough self awareness to recognise this?

Old'un
Reply to  Charles Nelson
December 2, 2015 1:30 am

‘End of times’ is an obsession of Homo Sapiens, being the cause of the mass hysteria that we saw in the climate marches around the world last weekend and the gathering of the forty thousand souls in Paris this week.

Auto
Reply to  Old'un
December 2, 2015 1:54 pm

Oldie
Do politicians actually have souls?
Actually, really, demonstrably?
I can’t suggest what they may have as substitute souls – although others may do so . . . .
But shed loads of politicos flew to Paris, so your “forty thousand souls” may, perhaps, be a bit high.
Auto, with a (non-political) cat o my lap.

Dawtgtomis
December 1, 2015 11:03 pm

Wow… just wow…

Dawtgtomis
Reply to  Dawtgtomis
December 1, 2015 11:06 pm

…just how far can they push this nonsense?

Dawtgtomis
Reply to  Dawtgtomis
December 1, 2015 11:28 pm

richard verney
Reply to  Dawtgtomis
December 1, 2015 11:49 pm

Dramatic stuff

Nylo
December 1, 2015 11:07 pm

The team developed a new model of oxygen production […]
Hmmmm…

Dawtgtomis
Reply to  Nylo
December 1, 2015 11:33 pm

New and improved oxy-clean!

Ancient Mariner
December 1, 2015 11:15 pm

My first thought was, “Wow! This takes the prize.” But then I remembered Hansen with his “Oceans will boil.” He still holds the crown.

Ian D.
Reply to  Ancient Mariner
December 2, 2015 2:42 am

And Hansen is not one to rest on his laurels. Now he brings us ‘flying boulders’ http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/experts-say-climate-change-may-spawn-giant-flying-boulders/60596/ He’s aware of the criticisms of his newest delusion but he’s sticking by his “climate change has magical powers” position.

chris moffatt
Reply to  Ian D.
December 2, 2015 6:03 am

Did Hansen estimate how far those two enormous boulders floated before being deposited by a big wave on the Bahama shore? Does he have any information regarding huge boulders that are currently floating around the world that would be candidates for wave deposition? So many questions, so few answers.

cassidy421
Reply to  Ian D.
December 2, 2015 1:15 pm

“Evelyn and Lynn de Rothschild recently purchased over 70% of the Weather Network.”;
http://aangirfan.blogspotdotcom/2014/02/rothschilds-and-weather.html
an addition to Weather.com and Lynne de Forest Rothschild’s geoengineering company – don’t recall the name.

Damon
December 1, 2015 11:23 pm

Remarkable how scientific papers now usually commence ‘Assuming a temperature rise of x degrees, our models predict (insert your preferred disaster) in about 100 years time’.

Hilary Ostrov (aka hro001)
December 1, 2015 11:27 pm

The team developed a new model […]

Oh, good for the “team”! The world has been practically starved of “models” ever since those with common sense have been dealing with … wait for it … reality!
And they call all these “model” based “coulds” and “likelies” research?!
Amazing. Simply amazing!

chris moffatt
Reply to  Hilary Ostrov (aka hro001)
December 2, 2015 6:10 am

Nah, research would have been putting phytoplankton in a tank in the lab and seeing what its oxygen production is and then heating the tank and monitoring any changes. Models are nothing more than thought experiments at best unless accurately calibrated against a fully-understood reality. Studies based only on unvalidated models are just guesses and the modelers can guess anyway they like – and they do.

MarkW
Reply to  chris moffatt
December 2, 2015 6:35 am

Of course such an experiment doesn’t give the plankton time to adapt to the new conditions, they way they do in the real world.
Plankton thrive from the artic to the tropics. A mere 6 degrees, even if it actually occurred wouldn’t bother them.

MarkW
Reply to  chris moffatt
December 2, 2015 6:42 am

Most waters have temperature swings way more than that just going from winter to summer.

Alleagra
December 1, 2015 11:27 pm

“. . . somehow Earth would lose all (or most of) it’s oxygen due to global warming.”
Small point but please! “….its oxygen” not “it’s oxygen”.

Reply to  Alleagra
December 1, 2015 11:37 pm

If science, the Constitution, the law, truth, and reality no longer matter, why should grammar?
…but I feel your pain.

Dawtgtomis
Reply to  Alleagra
December 1, 2015 11:39 pm

People nowadays bypass grammar (and science) rules for the sake of convenience.

Dawtgtomis
Reply to  Dawtgtomis
December 1, 2015 11:43 pm

By the way, Alleagra, can you help with my allergies?
(sorry, sometimes I’m compelled to low-grade humor…)

chris moffatt
Reply to  Dawtgtomis
December 2, 2015 6:12 am

surely you mean “allergie’s”. You know like those signs that say “cantaloupe’s”.

jones
Reply to  Alleagra
December 1, 2015 11:57 pm

So It’s worserer than we thought?

H.R.
Reply to  jones
December 2, 2015 2:29 am

Worsererer, jones, worsererer.

Reply to  Alleagra
December 2, 2015 10:22 am

This will drive you mad. There is a subdivision in Naples, Florida that is named “Blue Sky’s”. It even says so on the entrance. Every time I see it, I want to shout, “Blue Sky’s …. WHAT??”

Reply to  Alleagra
December 2, 2015 10:32 am

Forgive the guy. That particular rule in English makes no sense, and lots of people don’t know it.

george e. smith
Reply to  Jeff in Calgary
December 2, 2015 12:59 pm

You mean that Blue Sky’s residential resort place ??

george e. smith
Reply to  Jeff in Calgary
December 2, 2015 1:01 pm

So Sky’s possessive and skies plural can be simplified somehow ??
Do tell ??

daved46
Reply to  Jeff in Calgary
December 4, 2015 6:07 am

Actually the rule is simply that personal pronouns don’t use the apostrophe to form a plural, My, your, his, her, its, our, your their. The thing that’s confusing is that “its” has an “s” at the end. But notice that “his” also ends in an “s” but is not confusing since “hi” is not a pronoun and isn’t pronounced the same as “he’s” the contraction for “he is”.

Reply to  Alleagra
December 2, 2015 1:28 pm

Small point but please! “….its oxygen” not “it’s oxygen”.

Wrong! The oxygen is possessed by the earth, therefore the correct form is it’s oxygen.

MarkW2
Reply to  Roy Denio
December 2, 2015 2:07 pm

Wrong again, I truly hope you were jesting there. “it’s” is an abbreviation for “it is”, the apostrophe is NOT used for the possessive “its” No wonder people are confused.

December 1, 2015 11:30 pm

I wonder how the folks in Leicester reconcile the findings of their new model with the observed (but apparently unexpected) phytoplankton overgrowth reported last week?
And why should anyone care about the predictions of some unverified model of a very clearly misunderstood organism? Was it picked up and repeated anywhere but here?

Reply to  Bartleby
December 2, 2015 1:10 am

+1 your first para.

michael hart
Reply to  Oldseadog
December 2, 2015 4:51 am

It’s a sad day for Northamptonshire.
We have to share a border with Leicestershire.

Reply to  Bartleby
December 2, 2015 10:34 am

Any why is a Math guy doing modeling of phytoplankton? And obviously, the guy hasn’t a clue about reality. 6°C ocean warming? I have heard a lot of crazy predictions, but I have never heard that one.

george e. smith
Reply to  Jeff in Calgary
December 2, 2015 1:05 pm

When in climate speak they say ocean warms 6 deg. C, they DO mean the entire global ocean warms 6 deg. C (on average), don’t they ??
Because if they don’t mean that; they shouldn’t say that, because that IS what they are saying.
g

December 1, 2015 11:36 pm

This looks like another case where a scientist ginned up a model where increased temperature causes phytoplankton to reduce oxygen production and then die through the failure of photosynthesis. Phytoplankton are the same temperature as the water that they are in, thus any increase in water temperature would necessarily cause the phytoplankton to warm up as well. There is one little problem with this hypothesis. The Arrhenius equation describe the dependency of chemical reaction rates on temperature. Increasing temperature causes an exponential increase in the reaction rate. Therefore, Dr. Petrovskii seems to have developed a new form of the Arrhenius equation which has an inverse relationship between temperature and reaction rate.
Now certainly there would be a point at which the ocean surface temperatures rise too high for phytoplankton to survive and that would certainly cause a reduction in oxygen production by phytoplankton in those locations. I am not certain that 6 C is the right temperature to cause this to happen. I am certain however, that surface water temperatures are not uniform around the planet, therefore even it the average surface water temperature increase by 6 C, some areas might have water which became too warm for phytoplankton to survive while other parts of the oceans would have warmed to temperatures that phytoplankton would find to be in their optimal temperature zone. Therefore, I hypothesize that higher surface water temperatures would not cause extinction of phytoplankton, but would cause a the phytoplankton to thrive in areas which had formerly been too cold for them.

Keto Genic
Reply to  isthatright
December 2, 2015 1:42 am

Excellent point!

Tom in Florida
Reply to  Keto Genic
December 2, 2015 9:34 am

A right on the freaking money excellent point!

Reply to  isthatright
December 2, 2015 7:19 am

isthatright December 1, 2015 at 11:36 pm
This looks like another case where a scientist ginned up a model where increased temperature causes phytoplankton to reduce oxygen production and then die through the failure of photosynthesis. Phytoplankton are the same temperature as the water that they are in, thus any increase in water temperature would necessarily cause the phytoplankton to warm up as well. There is one little problem with this hypothesis. The Arrhenius equation describe the dependency of chemical reaction rates on temperature. Increasing temperature causes an exponential increase in the reaction rate. Therefore, Dr. Petrovskii seems to have developed a new form of the Arrhenius equation which has an inverse relationship between temperature and reaction rate.

Another example of ‘a little knowledge is a dangerous thing’, your application of the Arrhenius equation would be correct if we were considering a single chemical reaction, however natural processes such as photosynthesis involve multiple steps in a network (both parallel and series). In the case of photosynthesis the crucial step is the binding of CO2 to a protein called rubisco (C3 photosynthesis), unfortunately rubisco isn’t very good at distinguishing between CO2 and O2 so a competing reaction with O2 takes place (photorespiration). This competing reaction is favored by increased temperature and therefore the efficiency of photosynthesis goes down as temperature goes up. Some land plants have evolved an alternative photosynthesis mechanism which doesn’t use rubisco (C4 and CAM plants).
As far as I am aware phytoplankton only use the C3 mechanism and therefore their photosynthetic activity will decrease with increasing temperature.

Reply to  Phil.
December 3, 2015 12:21 am

When people went looking for C4 genes in phytoplankton they started finding them. It turns out that quite a few plankton species can do both C3 and C4 photosynthesis. This suggests that land plants using C4 inherited it rather than evolving it.

Janus
Reply to  isthatright
December 5, 2015 1:27 pm

Tomato vine stops photosynthetizing at around 35C
Those who grow tomatoes in hothouses can attest to this fact.
They actually cool the hot houses to prevent reduction in production.
Just a comment

Reply to  Janus
December 5, 2015 1:51 pm

Depends on the cultivar. Heat resistant tomatoes can be grown in temps exceeding 40C, but the requirements likely preclude large-scale production.
http://www.gardenguides.com/98229-grow-tomatoes-temperature-over-105.html
On further reflection, working out methods to allow for commercial crops of tomatoes in extreme temperature seems to me to be less problematic than large-scale alternative energy production that might result in more moderate temperatures.

Lewis P Buckingham
December 1, 2015 11:38 pm

Curious to know what is in this model.
Presumably a lot of land would be inundated as a result of glacial melting leading to an increase in shallow seas.
Plankton growth would move to more temperate areas and boom in the warmer shallow seas.
Increased humidity and rainfall would open up huge inland lakes such as Lake Eyre, inducing more bio diverse green plants as well as rich warm water algal blooms.
The tropical zone would not heat as much as the rest of the planet giving time for opportunistic evolution of thermally adapted algae with rich CO2 substrate.
CO2 from burning fossil fuels is going to run out in a couple of hundred years anyway, so even if you believe CO2 can heat the ocean to such an extent, it won’t be from CO2 if it runs out.

Nylo
December 1, 2015 11:45 pm

I see from the graphic that those super-fast looking oxygen concentration changes in the distant past, the fastest of them, actually take 1 to 3 million years to happen. A 20% drop in oxygen concentration along 2 million years would mean 0.002% per century, that is, 20ppm per century. Color me unimpressed. We are currently losing way more than that, assuming that any ppm gain in CO2 is a ppm lost from O2, And yet it is about impossible to notice because of how much O2 there is.

Nylo
Reply to  Nylo
December 1, 2015 11:47 pm

That should read 0.001% and 10ppm per century

RoHa
December 2, 2015 12:07 am

Oh, good. We’re doomed again. That’s comforting to read. I like to know where I am in the scheme of things.

December 2, 2015 12:10 am

Very good information. One questions, what about human beings?

tango
December 2, 2015 12:21 am

total BS

December 2, 2015 1:00 am

So increased CO2 leads to less photosynthesis?
How ever did they get this published?
Ah, they are conveniently releasing it around the hype for COP21 in Paris.
Cunning foxes.

Jim Turner
Reply to  MCourtney
December 2, 2015 9:56 am

‘Cunning foxes’ – is that deliberate wit or coincidental? ‘The Foxes’ are Leicester City Football Club, and are doing quite well at the moment!

mikewaite
December 2, 2015 1:04 am

The first point that comes to mind is that one would expect that biologists have been measuring the rate of photosynthesis by phytoplankton genera and species since at least the days of the Challenger expedition .
Google scholar reveals many such investigations , that indicate , as one might expect , that light levels and nutrient concentration are also critical parameters .
One paper (from the UEA interestingly ) , 1972 vintage is readable online for free:
http://lgmacweb.env.uea.ac.uk/green_ocean/publications/Nano/Eppley72.pdf
and shows that there is a temperature optimum which varies from 10C to >40C for different species.
Did the paper referred to above mention the species of most concern?
Did the authors quote any reference to experimental biological work , of which there seems to be plenty.

knr
December 2, 2015 1:13 am

From the UNIVERSITY OF ‘yes its steaming sh*t but right now there is funding to be had from the production of steaming sh*t , so why not grab some’

Rheath
December 2, 2015 1:16 am

I have made a model which shows everything is going to be fine unless we do something stupid at Paris, like sign up to CO2 reductions based on zero evidence. But I need a few million to perfect the model just in case. Where do I apply? Bill Gates has that in his back pocket surely.

gnome
December 2, 2015 1:16 am

This is beyond parody. What would we have to burn to use up all the oxygen after they stopped recycling it?
Does the model have a provision for collecting the oxygen from the atmosphere, bottling it and putting it into landfill? If not, I can’t see where the oxygen could go.

gary turner
December 2, 2015 1:17 am

Apparently is a journal of such low prestige that they have to beg for articles. Certainly no reputable journal would publish such bulsh.
Right? Please?

gary turner
Reply to  gary turner
December 2, 2015 1:19 am

s/b Apparently Springer is

pat
December 2, 2015 1:17 am

a must-watch:
multiple links below the video. mention of Strong dying 3 days prior to COP21 is somewhat incorrect, as he apparently died 28 Nov and COP21 began a day early on 29 Nov:
Youtube: 21mins06secs: James Corbett: Maurice Strong is Dead
https://www.corbettreport.com/maurice-strong-is-dead/
1 Dec: NYT: Sam Roberts: Maurice Strong, Environmental Champion, Dies at 86
Maurice Strong, a former industrialist and confessed ecological sinner who was in the vanguard of placing environmentalism on the world’s agenda as a high-ranking United Nations official, died Saturday. He was 86.
His death came on the eve of the United Nations negotiations in Paris on global warming, attended by President Obama and other world leaders.
Achim Steiner, United Nations under secretary general and executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, announced the death but did not say where Mr. Strong, a Canadian, died or give the cause.
He credited Mr. Strong with making “history by launching a new era of international environmental diplomacy.”
For years Mr. Strong, a self-made oil and gas billionaire, sounded the alarm on climate change and tried to goad the governments of developed countries to take responsibility for the ecological degradation wrought by industrialization…
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/world/americas/maurice-strong-environmental-champion-dies-at-86.html?_r=0

Chris Hagan
Reply to  pat
December 2, 2015 11:30 am

Mr. Strong was put in charge of raping western canada of its oil and selling it through Petro canada. Created by Trudeau Sr. the result was 20 years of depression in Alberta. We are about to go through it again this time it will be Trudeau Jr. and his NDP allies. He was self made by the the Canadian Liberal party and the UN/Club of Rome

Dodgy Geezer
December 2, 2015 1:27 am

…A study led by Sergei Petrovskii, Professor in Applied Mathematics from the University of Leicester’s Department of Mathematics, has shown that an increase in the water temperature of the world’s oceans of around six degrees Celsius — which some scientists predict could occur as soon as 2100 — could stop oxygen production by phytoplankton by disrupting the process of photosynthesis….
That’s NOTHING!
I’ve used my superior Applied Maths skills to work out that if the world’s oceans increased in temperature by around 96 degC (which could happen as soon as 10 minutes from now) we’d all be boiled.

Marcus
Reply to  Dodgy Geezer
December 2, 2015 1:38 am

Only if you go swimming !!!

Robin Hewitt
December 2, 2015 1:37 am

If oxygen depletion is a problem, carbon capture must be out of the question.

Carl Friis-Hansen
December 2, 2015 1:45 am

I made a brief look-up of the historic ocean temperature and found this graph:
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/temperature/100Myr.jpg
on the web page:
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/temperature/temperature.html#4600Myr
referenced from:
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/temperature/
So, to me it looks like oceans are cooling in a long term perspective, and according to that graph, we are very far away from anything that even in upper ocean temperatures can be serious, compared to the past.
I am more into electronics and the thermal resistance in small subjects. However, I presume that there is a certain thermal resistance, degrees/watt, between surface and deep ocean temperature, and that this is of a value in relationship to capacity and heat source from over the surface, which makes up a time constant in the order of 800years or there about.
The above may be ignorant crab from my side, but logically thought: Is it really realistic that a few degrees increase in the above surface, will cause any significant increase in upper ocean temperature within such a short period as 100years?

Mardler
December 2, 2015 2:11 am
DD More
Reply to  Mardler
December 2, 2015 8:27 am

Mardler, please remember, because the boys from University of Edinburgh did not, Scotland-then was not where Scotland-now is.
Close to 45 Lat and off the No.Am. plate.
http://www.scotese.com/jurassic.htm
http://www.scotese.com/late1.htm

December 2, 2015 2:26 am

You have to laugh. In the SAME WEEK we have this report..
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2015/12/1/phytoplankton-love-carbon-dioxide.html
showing that phytoplankton are simply lapping up excess CO2, and then this other report predicting that they will all die from meat exhaustion – surely they would just migrate to higher latitudes?
Or some other species take over that likes warmer water?
This climate conference stuff is amazing. I cant remember anything like it since Nuremberg 1933!

Remind me again what they were saving the planet from again? Back Then?

MarkW
Reply to  Leo Smith
December 2, 2015 6:40 am

“die from meat exhaustion ”
That would make the vegetarians very happy.

Reply to  MarkW
December 2, 2015 10:28 am

Hence the picture of Hitler who was a strict vegetarian. 🙂

Reply to  Leo Smith
December 2, 2015 3:22 pm

Ah, Leo…
…it’s a good thing I’m too lazy to learn how to post captions in videos. I could have so much fun with that one, equating the climate alarmist crowd with those 1930’s folks!

Tom Harley
December 2, 2015 2:53 am

Is this wishful thinking, but “a massive hack attack on BoM by Chinese interests”, is now able to be called ‘BoMgate’?
Haha, just pressed the spell check on that word, and it came out as abominate.
http://pindanpost.com/2015/12/02/bom-gate/

Harry Passfield
December 2, 2015 3:09 am

I took a look at the abstract, but as I couldn’t find it there I wasn’t bothered to spend $40 getting the whole paper to find out: Just where these two mathematicians got their funding in order to build their model and write the paper? And, had they not managed to pick up a ‘green’ grant, how would they have been otherwise employed?

December 2, 2015 4:09 am

Plants photpsynthesize even more with warmer oceans. They miss the point that six degrees of warming does not mean what they think. It simply means longer slightly warmer summers and shorter milder wingers. That means a long er growing season for everybody, Where do they think the oxygen will go?
As usual, computer models are only as good as the round file next to them. Models are not science and only do what they are programmed to do.

Patrick MJD
December 2, 2015 4:33 am

We know atmospheric content has changed over time, many times without climate change driving it. One event, lots of oxygen, laid iron rich deposits in the bottom of oceans. It will happen again and there is SFA we can do about it!

Bruce Cobb
December 2, 2015 5:45 am

Really. Well my climate model shows that if we don’t immediately destroy our economies and go back to living in mud huts in the dark and cold and eating twigs the following will happen:

Now, where’s my climate check?

Bernie
December 2, 2015 5:53 am

6 degrees/100 years….I wonder how many Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs per second that will take.

H.R.
December 2, 2015 6:50 am

That team should have modeled “Gassy Larry” where I work, He has apparently evolved into a new species that can live without oxygen and thrives in a methane environment, or at least that appears to be the case to anyone who dares to enter his office.
I don’t think Larry would be particularly alarmed by the prospect of a world stripped of oxygen. I’m sure there are others out there who, like Larry, have already evolved to survive in a methane environment.

G. Karst
December 2, 2015 7:35 am

Why oh why are we therefore considering plans to sequester O2 in the form of CO2 permanently into the ground? Obviously no one considers O2 as a pollutant but somehow O2 in it’s CO2 form is the biggest threat to life its-self and needs to be buried at twice the rate of carbon. GK

December 2, 2015 7:53 am

Maybe he got the equation for photosynthesis wrong (-:
Instead of:
6CO2 + 6H2O ——> C6H12O6 + 6O2
He has:
6CO2 + 6H2O ——> C6H12O6 – 6O2

The Original Mike M
Reply to  Mike Maguire
December 2, 2015 10:45 am
Ralph Knapp
December 2, 2015 7:54 am

Take all of the computers away from these dolts and see if they can generate the same nonsense with pencil, paper and erasers.

December 2, 2015 7:56 am

An increase of six degrees C during the next 85 years! How much would the atmosphere warm by 2100 in that scenario? I don’t know, but suspect (guess) it would be a multiple of six degrees. 12? 18?
Who has predicted such a scenario?

RCS
December 2, 2015 8:15 am

This from a professor of Mathematics. It’s another fine example of “if that’s what the equations say, then that’s what is happening”!

December 2, 2015 9:11 am

Professor of Applied Mathematics. What’s his experience in chemistry, physics, physical chemistry, biochemistry, zoology, microbiology, oceanography or climatology? His study would require a more than passing knowledge of all these disciplines. Or at least collaboration with specialists in all of them, which he apparently has not, or surely one or other of them would have pointed out the problems (and they might also have pointed out the benefits of a bit of data from real-world observations like palaeo-atmospheric composition studies).
Sad commentary on the state of science in the 21st century when stuff like this can get published.
“Real-world data? Who needs that, it’s soooo twentieth-century! We’ve got models now!!”

Tom in Florida
Reply to  Smart Rock
December 2, 2015 9:45 am

Yeah but you probably don’t get much grant money by solely writing a lot of Applied Mathematics papers.

Reply to  Smart Rock
December 2, 2015 11:56 am

Just read the paper and it seems like a pretty good analysis, it does refer to ‘real world data’.
“Therefore, we arrive at the conclusion that sustainable functioning of the plankton–oxygen system is only possible in a certain intermediate range of the oxygen production rate A. Since A is known to be a function of temperature, it suggests that sustainable functioning is only possible in an intermediate range of temperatures. Even if the current state of the system is safe, a sufficiently large warming (roughly estimated as 5–6 ∘C, see Robinson 2000) would inevitably lead to an ecological disaster resulting in a complete depletion of oxygen.”

Tom in Florida
Reply to  Phil.
December 2, 2015 1:25 pm

Goobledegook. They should know through experimentation what the maximum temperature would be to stop the plankton-oxygen production. Why don’t they just give us that number? Then you could apply that to every area of the oceans to see how much warming would it take specifically to that area to cause harm.

Jerry Henson
December 2, 2015 9:38 am

On Aconcagua, highest mountain in the Andes, at high camp,~20,000 ft, I tied my tent
ropes to fossilized coral. In the vicinity, there were spires of carbonaceous rock
more than 15′ high.
Some rock simply erodes faster than others.
To this point, it has been my understanding of atmospheric history that the extreme rise
of oxygen was due to the rise in plant life in an extremely high CO2 level.

Tom in Florida
Reply to  Jerry Henson
December 2, 2015 9:47 am

Lot’s not forget that there is plenty of O2 sequestered in the Earth’s crust.

george e. smith
Reply to  Tom in Florida
December 2, 2015 1:17 pm

If I’m not mistaken (often am) there is nothing more abundant on earth than Oxygen. And silicon is next, followed by Aluminium. Just the right proportions to make integrated circuits.
g
g

george e. smith
Reply to  Tom in Florida
December 2, 2015 2:40 pm

We have yet to see, let alone obtain any of the iron that is ” IN ” the earth.
We can only get at (currently ) what is ” ON ” the earth; as in crustally.
g

george e. smith
Reply to  Jerry Henson
December 2, 2015 2:36 pm

Notsoolnwise
O 46.1 wt %; Si 28.2 wt%; Al 8.23 wt% Fe 5.63 wt%. from CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics.
So Oxygen is way out in front of everything else in mole percent, and Al is more than double the mole percent of iron, and easily beats it on weight percent.
g

Reply to  george e. smith
December 2, 2015 3:01 pm

george,
Pay no attention to ^that^ site pest. He’s not here to learn, he’s just here to run interference.

Moderately Cross of East Anglia
December 2, 2015 10:03 am

Since it won’t happen I can’t be bothered to check, but I strongly suspect that a 6 degree rise in sea temperature would at least offer us the consolation of Leicester sinking beneath those gloriously warmer waves of the North Sea. Sort of natural justice.

The Original Mike M
December 2, 2015 10:44 am

So shouldn’t there be ~some~ sort of correlation to temperature or CO2: http://geocraft.com/WVFossils/PageMill_Images/image277.gif
Ain’t seeing one…

Adam Gallon
December 2, 2015 10:47 am

I’m embarrassed to say I got my Chemistry degree from Leicester.

willhaas
December 2, 2015 1:48 pm

But the Earth has been considerably warmer than it is today for hundreds of millions of years and none of what they predict ever happened. The Earth’s climate has been stable enough over at least the past 500 million years for life to evolve. We are here.

Richard
December 2, 2015 2:04 pm

Interesting graph. It shows that oxygen content most recently peaked in the Cretaceous. Looking at other graphs, I see that CO2 was 3 to 4 times higher than now, and the temperature was more than 10C higher. Going back farther, the other obvious peak was about 300 million years ago, when temperature was colder and CO2 about the same as now. Is there a pattern?

Jack Permian
Reply to  Richard
December 2, 2015 6:34 pm

A very informative graph – the sharp rise of O2 levels starting from about 350my BP corresponds nicely with the Carboniferous geological period – when terrestrial plants first evolved and then grew like crazy into the Permian (my favourite period), resulting in the creation of massive coal deposits. The end Permian conflagration certainly depleted the plant life (and oxygen levels) towards 230 my BP. The )2 levels subsequently recovered with the plant life, only for climate change to freeze the plants into submission. It would appear that terrestrial plants certainly have had a major effect on global oxygen levels. Would the rise in O2 at about 620 my BP be due to the rise of aerobic bacteria? The moral of the story – if you like oxygen, plant a tree or two, and feed it CO2 so it grows faster.

RWturner
December 2, 2015 2:04 pm

Can science this bad be used as empirical evidence that the cultists haven’t a clue as to what they are doing? Seriously.

cassidy421
Reply to  RWturner
December 2, 2015 3:42 pm

They know exactly what they’re doing, and concern about the environment is a disguise for it.
The “big Picture’ of models is Move the Target. There are an essentially infinite number of phony imminent environmental crises to fabricate and false flag terrorist events to stage on the path to NWO depopulation and control of all resources, and they’re all based on the puppetmasters hiding behind the Club of Rome billboard that reads “the enemy of mankind is man”.

December 2, 2015 2:15 pm

But…but…if Man’s “Carbon Pollution” from CO2 is the problem and CO2 has twice as much Oxygen as it does Carbon then isn’t Man’s CO2 also the solution to this “problem”?
What did their model say would happen to all the land plants? (Grass, trees, stuff like that.)

Greg Cavanagh
December 2, 2015 4:10 pm

A quick and rough eye-balling of the chart; if everything came together just right, it could happen in about 300 million years. (based on the graph slopes of what has gone before). I think we need to panic now.

JBP
December 2, 2015 4:11 pm

so the oxygen content dropped around the P/T event? give or take a couple million years?

Gary Pearse
December 2, 2015 5:24 pm

Another man caused planetary disaster to add to the list under my Axiom: Man made planetary disasters Will Not Come to Pass. They never have and they never will.

December 2, 2015 5:45 pm

As far as I can determine, the warmest SST currently is below 32 degrees C as shown here:
http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/sst/oper/global_sst_oper0.png
Adding 6 degrees gives us 38 degrees, max, and that’s for very small regions of the oceans.
Old research (197?) actually reviewing measured plankton growth rates versus temperature show an exponential growth rate to 40 degrees, where growth then levels off. This research is here:
http://fishbull.noaa.gov/70-4/eppley.pdf
I’m beginning to believe that many ‘scientists’ don’t have a clue how to research, or even what the word means.

Reply to  Jtom
December 2, 2015 7:47 pm

That 1972 paper says the following:
“Temperatures in excess of the optimum for growth result in a much steeper decline in specific growth rate with increasing temperature than do suboptimal temperatures; growth in this thermal region would be risky if the ambient temperature were subject to fluctuations of a few degrees.”
It’s one of the references listed in the paper which is the subject of this thread.

Reply to  Phil.
December 3, 2015 7:51 am

The issue is what is the thermal region in which such a decline takes place. This paper shows it is at least 40 degrees, far in excess of existing SSTs, and greater than existing SSTs + 6 degrees. I suspect all h takes place in the growth rate when the water approaches 100 degrees!

GregK
Reply to  Jtom
December 2, 2015 10:20 pm

Professor Petrovskii is probably quite clever but he is a mathematician.
Mathematicians operate within a given set of rules. Develop a formula, plug in the numbers, however unrealistic, and out pop some other numbers that are your answer.
So, warm the ocean by 6C and see what happens ?
The good professor’s work, apart from a few statements of the bleeding obvious, is a great example of gigo………..garbage in, garbage out
I suspect his paper results from contemporary university pressures to publish or perish.
If your paper is really bad it will end up being referred to more often than a moderately good paper…..more citations must mean that your department is more relevant and more likely to gain more funding [ ! ].

papiertigre
December 4, 2015 4:17 am

Abundance and form of the most abundant elements in Earth’s continental crust.
http://www.gly.uga.edu/railsback/Fundamentals/ElementalAbundanceTableP.pdf
Order of Weight % Molar % Volume %
abundance Element in crust in crust in crust Typical natural form at Earth surface
1 Oxygen 46.3 % 60.2% 94.2% O2- in minerals and H2O; small amount
as elemental O2 in atmosphere
2 Silicon 28.2 20.8 0.8 Almost all as Si4+ in silicate minerals;
some as H4SiO4 in seawater
3 Aluminum 8.1 6.2 0.4 Almost all as Al3+ in minerals
4 Hydrogen 0.1 2.9 – Almost all as H+
in H2O, OHin
minerals, and HCO3

5 Sodium 2.4 2.2 1.1 All as Na+
, largely in minerals
but also in seawater
6 Calcium 4.1 2.1 1.2 All as Ca2+, largely in minerals
but also in seawater
7 Iron 5.4 2.0 0.4 Mostly as Fe2+ and Fe3+ in minerals
8 Magnesium 2.3 2.0 0.3 All as Mg2+, largely in minerals
but also in seawater
9 Potassium 2.1 1.1 1.5 All as K+
, largely in minerals
but also in seawater
10 Titanium 0.5 0.2 0.04 Almost all as Ti4+ in minerals

papiertigre
Reply to  papiertigre
December 4, 2015 4:23 am

The pdf spreadsheet doesn’t line up in a comment but the jist is that Oxygen is the most abundant element on Earth. Period. By far. There is absolutely no way that oxygen is going anywhere.
Well, I guess if you put government in charge of it, they could create a shortage, but we’re not going to do that! Are we?