A new paper published in the ICES Journal of Marine Science puts the issue of “ocean acidification” to the test, and finds that there has been significant exaggeration in the issue. The paper is:
Applying organized scepticism to ocean acidification research
“Ocean acidification” (OA), a change in seawater chemistry driven by increased uptake of atmospheric CO2 by the oceans, has probably been the most-studied single topic in marine science in recent times. The majority of the literature on OA report negative effects of CO2 on organisms and conclude that OA will be detrimental to marine ecosystems. As is true across all of science, studies that report no effect of OA are typically more difficult to publish. Further, the mechanisms underlying the biological and ecological effects of OA have received little attention in most organismal groups, and some of the key mechanisms (e.g. calcification) are still incompletely understood. For these reasons, the ICES Journal of Marine Science solicited contributions to this special issue. In this introduction, I present a brief overview of the history of research on OA, call for a heightened level of organized (academic) scepticism to be applied to the body of work on OA, and briefly present the 44 contributions that appear in this theme issue. OA research has clearly matured, and is continuing to do so. We hope that our readership will find that, when taken together, the articles that appear herein do indeed move us “Towards a broader perspective on ocean acidification research”.
Excerpts from that paper:
Scientific or academic scepticism calls for critical scrutiny of research outputs before they are accepted as new knowledge (Merton, 1973).Duarte et al. (2014) stated that “…there is a perception that scientific skepticism has been abandoned or relaxed in many areas…” of marine science. They argue that OA is one such area, and conclude that there is, at best, weak evidence to support an OA-driven decline of calcifiers. Below, I raise some of the aspects of OA research to which I contend an insufficient level of organized scepticism has been applied (in some cases, also to the articles in this theme issue). I arrived at that conclusion after reading hundreds of articles on OA (including, to be fair, some that also raise these issues) and overseeing the peer-review process for the very large number of submissions to this themed issue. Importantly, and asDuarte et al. (2014) make clear, a retrospective application of scientific scepticism such as the one that follows could—and should—be applied to any piece of/body of research.
…
Many early studies on OA applied treatment levels that greatly exceeded even worst-case climate change scenarios and did not report water chemistry in sufficient detail to determine if the treatment mimicked future OA-driven seawater conditions. Although most recent work has improved with respect to treatment levels, mimicking future water chemistry remains tricky.
A rationale commonly used to justify high CO2/low pH treatments is the need to identify at what levels organisms are affected. However, the limits to making inferences about how an organism or ecosystem will respond to a climate-change scale variable (i.e. one that changes over decades–centuries) from their response during a short-term challenge experiment (i.e. hours–days–weeks) has not been adequately addressed—or even mentioned—in most studies. This is reflected in a confusion of terms common in OA studies—when describing the outcome of a short-term CO2 challenge, authors often make the inferential leap and use “OA” when discussing their results, without any caveats. Oddly, incorporation of the extensive toxicology literature is almost entirely missing from OA studies, either when it comes to adopting established exposure protocols or to framing the inferences that can/cannot be drawn from short-term experiments. Also missing from most studies is anything more than a superficial statement about the possibility for acclimation, adaptation, or evolution, something that is necessary to extend the outcome of a short-term challenge experiment into an inference about the effect of a long-term driver.
…
Negative results—those that do not support a research hypothesis (e.g. OA will have detrimental effects on marine organisms)—can provide more balance for a subject area for which most published research reports positive results. Negative results can indicate that a subject area is not mature or clearly enough defined, or that our current methods and approaches are insufficient to produce a definitive result. Gould (1993)asserted that positive results tell more interesting stories than negative results and are, therefore, easier to write about and more interesting to read. He calls this a privileging of the positive. This privileging leads to a bias that acts against the propagation of negative results in the scholarly literature (see also Browman, 1999). Further, it is also important to recognize that studies showing no effect of OA are less equivocal than those that do, for all of the reasons noted above. Following from this, it is essential that authors writing about possible effects of OA present and discuss research that is inconsistent with their results and/or their interpretations—openly, honestly, and rigorously. Readers should be duly sceptical of articles that do not do this.
Read more here: http://icesjms.oxfordjournals.org/content/73/3/529.1.full
From an article in The Times:
An “inherent bias” in scientific journals in favour of more calamitous predictions has excluded research showing that marine creatures are not damaged by ocean acidification, which is caused by the sea absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
It has been dubbed the “evil twin of climate change” and hundreds of studies have claimed to show that it destroys coral reefs and other marine life by making it harder for them to develop shells or skeletons.
The review found that many studies had used flawed methods, subjecting marine creatures to sudden increases in carbon dioxide that would never be experienced in real life.
“In some cases it was levels far beyond what would ever be reached even if we burnt every molecule of carbon on the planet,” Howard Browman, the editor of ICES Journal of Marine Science, who oversaw the review, said. He added that this had distracted attention from more urgent threats to reefs such as agricultural pollution, overfishing and tourism.
Dr Browman, who is also principal research scientist at the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research, found there had been huge increase in articles on ocean acidification in recent years, rising from five in 2005 to 600 last year.
He said that a handful of influential scientific journals and lobbying by international organisations had turned ocean acidification into a major issue.
“Such journals tend to publish doom and gloom stories . . . stated without equivocation,” he said. The bias in favour of doom-laden articles was partly the result of pressure on scientists to produce eye-catching work, he added.
“You won’t get a job unless you publish an article that is viewed as of significant importance to society. People often forget that scientists are people and have the same pressures on them and the same kind of human foibles. Some are driven by different things. They want to be prominent.”
Dr Browman invited scientists around the world to contribute studies on ocean acidification for a special edition of his journal. More than half of the 44 studies selected for publication found that raised levels of CO2 had little or no impact on marine life, including crabs, limpets, sea urchins and sponges.
In the article from the Times, the lead author also has this to say:
“In some cases it was levels far beyond what would ever be reached even if we burnt every molecule of carbon on the planet,” Howard Browman, the editor of ICES Journal of Marine Science, who oversaw the review, said. He said that a handful of influential scientific journals and lobbying by international organisations had turned ocean acidification into a major issue. The bias in favour of doom-laden articles was partly the result of pressure on scientists to produce eye-catching work, he added.
read more by Ben Webster at: The Times, 1 March 2016
h/t to The GWPF
OT…I went to read the story at The Times, and noticed this recently added story about huge oaks that were hidden in a preserve in the UK. They show a picture of a magnificent oak tree which is 9 feet in diameter. That is impressive….http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/environment/article4703420.ece
Try 27 feet in diameter.
Right, 9 meters!
They are referring to the girth, I believe, and it would be close to 30 feet.
Color me surprised (purple) and call me an Eggplant. That environmental soft-science has a prior agenda! Will the wonders of the world never cease.
The truth is that we are attempting to graduate TOO many people with STEM degrees, which haven’t a significant talent at doing STEM. The universities, colleges and academic glee clubs, now very, very far from their laudable roots of fostering and advancing true knowledge, are shamelessly profit-making, rent-seeking affairs. Since the absolutely unvarying mantra is, “to do your best, you need an advanced degree”, millions of young-and-not-so-young people aim to get one of those sheepskins.
So, the number of PhDs in environmental studies is huge. Like my cousin 40 years ago found, no matter how popular the graduate school department of Marine Biology, there really aren’t very many paying jobs in the field. Like people having weather-and-climatology degrees, only the exceptionally good looking ones manage to hold down a job on the local TV station casting bones and glib in-jokes on camera.
But ecological concern is high, and the “climate departments” are veritably overflowing with applications and applicants. Laudably, who want to do something about the situation. Without even a glimmer of a clue as to what it means to “do something”.
Protecting her privacy, I can still report that I helped a certain relation earn her PhD in Environmental Sciences from the locally prestigious University of Alaska in 2014. The sheepskin was hugely expensive for Papa to fund. But she worked hard. I offered to pre-jury her papers, as she was preparing them. Gobsmacking awful science. Just … astounding.
It sounds like patting my own back, but by inserting some darn dispassionate analysis and rhetorical brevity, voice and vocabulary into things, she ended up getting – you got it – A’s on most every paper. But I didn’t actually change her pre-determined results. Just made it look “pro”. Since Alaska has a remarkable shortage of women, a remarkable shortage of STEM educated women (not in medicine), a remarkablel shortage of PhD’s that want to live up there, and a hugely funded environmental state department, she didn’t just ‘get a job’, but was vacuumed up by the first department she applied to. At a desk, with exuberant offers to dress up the office, if she desired. Did she need an electron microscope? A supercomputer? Did she need a writing staff and a secretary?
Yes, boys ‘n’ girls, this is what a PhD in a remote state gets you. I talked with her recently (all this attention has gone to her head: she actually believes she’s contributing primary science for the State of Alaska, so I had to tread carefully), about what she is doing. I’ll not say more, but let’s just say, the Department of Mushroom Sciences is churning forth all nature of easily shelved-and-forgotten papers up there. Oh, there are definitely a few ‘real’ doctors of science who are getting actual work done, but Ms C***• is an office hit. As elegant and curvy as a New York Weathercaster, as unique as snow orchids, and as productive as a cage of hungry chimps.
LOL
PS: do note that she knows of precious few of the male Environmental PhDs that got a job. Most ended up moving back to the Contiguous States; many couldn’t find work there either, but the many, many private elite-class high schools like PhDs. Even if they’re not card-carrying accredited teachers. They sound good on the academic roster. Dr. Jones, Dr. Peters, Dr. Wallace and Dr. Cummings are our environmental sciences teachers.
GoatGuy
eyesonyou, “organized scepticism” has nothing to do with organizing sceptics (who can’t even agree how to spell the word), but on the principles of the scientific methods declaimed by Robert Merton, originally in 1942 and revised in 1973 (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mertonian_norms ). Merton puts it this way – “It is both
a methodological and an institutional mandate. The temporary suspension of judgment and the detached scrutiny of beliefs in terms of empirical and logical criteria have periodically involved science in conflict with other institutions. Science which asks questions of fact, including potentialities, concerning every aspect of nature and society may come into conflict with other attitudes toward these same data which have been crystallized and often ritualized by other institutions. The scientific investigator does not preserve the .cleavage between the sacred and the profane, between that which requires uncritical respect and that which can be objectively analyzed”.
He goes on to state “As we have noted, this appears to be the source of revolts against the so-called intrusion of science into other spheres.Such resistance on the part of organized religion has become less significant as compared with that of economic and political groups. The opposition may exist quite
apart from the introduction of specific scientific discoveries which appear to invalidate particular dogmas of church, economy, or ‘state. It is rather a diffuse, frequently vague, apprehension that skepticism threatens the
current distribution of power. Conflict becomes accentuated whenever science extends its research to new areas toward which there are institutionalized attitudes or whenever other institutions extend their control over
scil:mce. In modern totalitarian society, anti-rationalism and the centralization of institutional control both serve to limit the scope provided for scientific activity”.
So the “threat” of a sceptical approach is that it may “appear to invalidate particular dogmas” of the ‘state’, just as Merton saw more than 40 years ago. However there is some pushback as we see from this whole issue of an important marine journal dedicated to a true open dialog and presentation of science that “may invalidate particular dogmas”.
the Great barrier reef in Australia is still here after millions of years of climate change the reef dosn’t need any gooses poking there noses into it . the reef looks after its self thank you
“Although I call for a more sceptical scrutiny and balanced interpretation of the body of research on OA, it must be emphasized that OA is happening and it will have effects on some marine organisms and ecosystem processes.” –Browman
The issue contains many articles showing little effect of OA on specific species. Indeed, Browman set out to solicit such articles.There have been many such articles published elsewhere. But the issue does have studies showing negative effects in some cases. No one has really been able to quantify the level of risk OA presents. No one here is saying that lowering ocean pH is a safe or wise thing to do.
Hi Mebbe,
Very few benthonic critters live below the CCD in the conditions described above. As mentioned the, depths are greater than 2000 m below sea level and at temperatures around ~5 degC. Most of the benthonic biota live in the photic zone because they need sunlight or eat things that need sunlight (algae, plankton etc). The photic zone is usually in the first ~100 m of the water column. So the conditions that I mentioned above below the CCD are much deeper. The other requirement for most corals and pelecypods is oxygen, and anoxia often is present at these great depths. So the lack of sunlight and oxygen below the CCD preclude a huge portion of the biota. Some specialized sponges can live here because they are composed of silica.. But most corals and pelecypods that have calcareous skeletons live in the upper 100 m of he water column, and are not subject to these “difficult” living conditions.
Cores from DSDP wells drilled in locations below the CCD do not encounter CaCO3 because it is unstable here.
Back to global warming and corals, as long as we have land masses at the poles which accumulates ice and have ice sheets, and a difference oceanic in water densities exists, the fauna in the upper 100m of the water column would not appear to be affected. However, as in the case of the OAE events, oceanic circulation stops, the seas become stagnant, and oxygen is depleted from the water column, which results in massive marine extinctions. I don’t see that these conditions exist today, or could exists in the near geologic future.
Regards,
John R.
The above article contains very encouraging seed of hope as to the health and integrity of the scientific community and process. It suggests that possibly the alarmist excursion into suspended skepticism and positive results bias may be running its course and running out of steam – a very welcome turn of events.
I have kept corals and salties for 15 years, and the thought of some dimwit taking marine creatures and turning their water to acid is actually disturbing.
Scientists they are not.
I have also seen first hand that even with CO2 of 800ppm in my own home, Marine aquariums would not change pH one jot as per my digital monitor. 800ppm cannot acidify 1300 liters of water in a closed system let alone ocean atmosphere exchange in reality.
CO2 in almost all cases escapes water once either temp goes up or there is not enough pressure to retain it, the top levels of the ocean are water in motion and temp change, the very conditions that allow CO2 to escape water.
it boggles the mind to see “scientists” who’ve never actually kept and managed Marine creatures, come out with this crap.
Here’s a paper that takes the same empirically referenced approach to the topic of sea level rise.
“This analysis shows that the global network of tide gauges provide the best available measurement of the sea levels while the additional or substitutional information provided by GPS or satellite altimeter is of little help.” In simple terms this paper explains that when you strip away all the obfuscation and arbitrary and unjustified manipulations/”corrections” – then nothing of any note is occurring now, or likely to occur at any point within our lifetimes. Providing that you base the analysis on real observations and do not include fancy and complex and unproven model outputs.
Full pdf here: http://www.klimarealistene.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/1-s2.0-S0964569116300205-main.pdf
indefatigablefrog — timely excellent article. Thanks.
Some of these features, I presented in my book published in 2008 on 60-year cycle — pacific in opposition to atlantic, San Francisco Airport no change, East coat show rise and west coast show fall, etc.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Re: “East coat show rise and west coast show fall”.
Be careful who hears about this. Certain congressmen may become concerned that this could lead the United States to capsize!!! 🙂 (sarc)
This paper is good news but I won’t be happy until this “flying spaghetti monster” of a proposition is dropped completely from all rational discourse!
“AO” is a physical impossibility that symbolises the remarkably irrationality of our times.
“AO”, adults only? Ocean Acidification “OA” is also impossible! ;-(
Snytax eeror KO?
Here’s something interesting and relevant from Wikipedia’s entry on the Klamath River:
Isn’t that a perfect description of grant-troughing fame-hungry climate scientists such as Mann et al?
I picked up a book from my bookshelves a few days ago and read the foreword, in which the writer explains that Scientist have turned rational and objective study to all topics in nature with the exception of the understanding of themselves.”
And that point was being made in 1973.
He goes on to mention the potential for corruption induced by the growing excesses of government funding of research.
All this in the foreword of a book called “A Random Walk in Science”,
Actually, I just did a search and found the entire book for free as a pdf:
http://www.e-reading.club/bookreader.php/134814/A_Random_Walk_in_Science.pdf
Kudos to Howard Browman – he’s a good scientist!
But can the little honest fish survive in a an ocean filled with big angry dishonest sharks?
Lordy. When did research papers have to have eye catching phraseology? When I prepared my first attempt at rewriting my research into a publishable form, I was taken to the woodshed over using colorful phrases. I had to endure red line after red line after red line rewrites till my fingers hurt from typing. Before the team would even consider it for a submission I had to remove every little bit of prose from my words. It was the most boring write up I have ever done. And even then it wasn’t technical enough so we added a major researcher to the team to make it even more boring and technical.
So what is “eye catching”? I don’t know this. Prose was wiped out of me back in the late 1990’s.
In regards to using aquariums for OA experiments, to be valid the grant recipients would first have to demonstrate (on multiple identicle tanks, over a period of no less than two years, kept at water parameters equal to pre-industrial metrics) that they could maintain healthy growing corals, invertebrates & fish in each & every one of those multiple identicle tanks before the experiment could continue!
The thing that keeps getting lost is to best knowledge only 15 of the 400ppm is from man making mans contribution insignificant. http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/14/7273/2014/acp-14-7273-2014.pdf
Meanwhile, UEA of climategate fame is reported in the times of blowing 10million pounds on green energy schemes: burn wood and burn straw. They completely failed (gee I’ve burned wood quite successfully)
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/environment/article4705100.ece
Just for a little perspective on the relatively small pH swings the alarmists are claiming is going to sterilise the oceans this century, here is an interesting site:
MONTEREY BAY SANCTUARY: OCEANOGRAPHY MONITORING PROJECT INFORMATION.
http://www.sanctuarysimon.org/monterey/sections/oceanography/project_info.php?projectID=100393&sec=o
Here is the graph of the diurnal swing of inter alia pH a a depth of 17 metres.
http://www.sanctuarysimon.org/regional_images/monitoring_projects/100393_fig3.jpg
Looks like a swing from pH 7.4 to pH 8.1 – twice a day, which is well in excess of the alarmists’ projection of the decrease projected to occur by 2100.
Now, I must admit I’ve never been to Monterey Bay, but I have no reason to doubt it supports a thriving ecosystem with all sorts of flora and fauna including creatures with shells, strange that!
And every report on OA I’ve read neglects the obvious: NOx and SOx are far more potent sources of it than CO2, which is extensively buffered in the ocean. Furthermore, OA is most intense near shore, i.e., near the sources of NOx and SOx emissions.Selective ignorance reigns again.
Henry’s-law constant H for CO2 -water solutions is 1.42×10^3 atm/mole fraction at 20 C. Using simple Henry’s-law solubilities (p=H*x), the oceans should hold only 30% of the 2,900 giga tonnes of the atmospheric CO2 at equilibrium, but the actual figure is >50 times this amount. In fact, for an ideal vapour-liquid equilibrium system obeying Raoult’s law, an atmospheric pressure of 175 atmospheres would be required to contain this colossal amount (50*2,900=145,000 giga tonnes) of CO2 in the oceans. The majority share of CO2 is taken up by the oceans competing with the biosphere’s CO2 requirements for plant growth and food supply. Non-ideality accounts for its large solubility in water and clearly it is sequestered and fixed by chemical and biological reactions. They involve the formation of carbonate rocks and phytoplankton growth through photosynthesis. The reactions remove dissolved CO2 from the equilbrium equation, driving it to the right, thereby giving the oceans a near limitless ability to absorb CO2.
Acidity
Rainwater condensing from cloud formations dissolves CO2 to form weak carbonic acid, it always has and it always will. It has been responsible for stalactites and stalagmites in caves over thousands of years. Rainwater of course is initially pure water in which there are few ionic species; seawater however is quite different and contains many soluble cations and anions. Sodium and magnesium, which will form stable crystalline solid bicarbonates, are present in abundance. Carbon dioxide in seawater yields salts such as sodium carbonate which are soluble in water and are hydrolysed in solution thus:
Na2CO3 + H2O = NaHCO3 + NaOH
and their solutions are in fact alkaline. For the anti carbon green warmist lobby and the BBC to pronounce that the simple addition of carbonic acid or dissolution of CO2 in seawater will make it acidic is nonsense and he clearly does not understand the complex ionic system pertaining in the oceans. The capacity of seawater to buffer pH changes is well known and its pH always remains in range 7.5 to 8.4 which is alkaline.
Life Force
In addition of course, CO2 is essential to life in the biosphere and our very existence depends on it. So to declare CO2 a pollutant to be somehow eliminated from the environment is stupid and dangerous when in fact increased CO2 does increase the growth rates of plants and also permits plants to grow in drier regions. Animal life, which depends upon plants, also flourishes, and the diversity of plant and animal life is increased. Human activities are producing part of the rise in CO2 in the atmosphere. Carbon in coal, oil and natural gas is being moved to the atmosphere, where it is available for conversion to living things.
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