From the “non-news in the MSM because it doesn’t support the cause” department comes this inconvenient study from the NIOZ ROYAL NETHERLANDS INSTITUTE FOR SEA RESEARCH.
Unexpected result: Ocean acidification can also promote shell formation
Proton pumping accompanies calcification in foraminifera
Fact: More carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air also acidifies the oceans. It seemed to be the logical conclusion that shellfish and corals will suffer, because chalk formation becomes more difficult in more acidic seawater. But now a group of Dutch and Japanese scientists discovered to their own surprise that some tiny unicellular shellfish make better shells in an acidic environment. This is a completely new insight.
Researchers from the NIOZ (Royal Dutch Institute for Sea Research) and JAMSTEC (Japanese Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology) found in their experiments that so-called foraminifera might even make their shells better in more acidic water. These single-celled foraminifera shellfish occur in huge numbers in the oceans. The results of the study are published in the leading scientific journal Nature Communications.
Since 1750 the acidity of the ocean has increased by 30%. According to the prevailing theory and related experiments with calcareous algae and shellfish, limestone (calcium carbonate) dissolves more easily in acidic water. The formation of lime by shellfish and corals is more difficult because less carbonate is available under acidic conditions. The carbonate-ion relates directly to dissolved carbon dioxide via two chemical equilibrium reactions.
Self-regulating biochemical magic trick
The classical theory is based on purely chemical processes by which the rate at which lime is created is determined entirely by the acidity of the water. NIOZ researcher and shared first author Lennart de Nooijer: “In our experiments the foraminifera were regulating the acidity at the micro level. In the places where shell formation occurs, the acidity was substantially lower than in the surrounding seawater. Foraminifera expel large amounts of hydrogen ions through their cell wall. This leads to acidification of their immediate micro-environment causing the equilibrium between carbon dioxide and carbonate to change in favour of carbon dioxide. The organism take up the increased concentration of carbon dioxide quickly through its cell wall. On the inner side of the cell wall, a low acidity prevails due to the massive excretion of protons. Under these conditions the ingested carbon dioxide is again converted to carbonate, which reacts with calcium to form lime. Such an active biochemical regulation mechanism has never been found before.”
Can self-regulating single-celled organisms lead to a more rapid global warming?
The surface layer of the ocean is in equilibrium with the atmosphere. Therefore, more carbon dioxide in the air also leads to more dissolved carbon dioxide in the ocean’s surface . “This finding may have important implications for the relationship between carbon dioxide levels in the air and the formation of calcareous structures by organisms,” says co-author Professor Gert-Jan Reichart. “If the classic hypothesis holds and more carbon dioxide leads to less lime production, the oceans can continue to take up CO2 from the atmosphere. But what if the majority of the organisms can regulate the chemical form of their inorganic carbon by biochemical processes like our foraminifers did, and continue to form lime structures in a more acidic ocean? Over time, the concentration of dissolved carbon dioxide in the oceans may start to increase. Consequently, the ability of the oceans to take up a large part of the carbon dioxide in the air may start to decrease. This would mean that more carbon dioxide would remain in the air, leading to a more rapid warming of our planet.”
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I have not read any source that says the oceans will become “acidic”, only “less basic/alkaline”. No predictions of 6.9999999 or lower. All are well above 7. No acidity predicted at all.
Sheri, get over the semantics. No one worth listening to has claimed the oceans will become acidic – pH less than 7. It’s just another zombie myth that is raised every time the word ‘acidify’ is used. Good for at least 100 posts alone on a thread like this (but that’s just a coincidence).
Less acidic is more alkaline and vice versa. To acidify is the same as de-alkalize, it just a slightly less clunky way of expressing it. Both mean the pH is dropping. To claim it is some ploy when it is just conventional terminology is paranoia.
For f**s sake, it doesn’t matter if it is above pH 7 or not. Reducing the pH is acidification. If you don’t like the term the use another, it makes no difference. Simply say to yourself “reduce pH” whenever you see the term acidification. That would be fine and not alter the meaning of the paper at all. This is just semantics – don’t get hung up on it.
pH tending towards neutral is neutralisation.
pH 7 = neutral.
Neutral means [H] =[OH]. Least electropositivity – least active.
When pH > 7 then decreasing pH means tending towards pH = 7.
Ocean neutralisation is technically correct.
Ocean acidification is scary pseudoscience. It confuses the semi-educated and panics the ignorant.
It is a term only used by those ignorant or those seeking to exploit the ignorant.
It is not scary pseudoscience, it is simply using the term in specific scientific way that is completely valid. Making more acid is the same as reducing pH is the same as acidification. You may prefer to apply it to only pH below 7 bit there is no reason why scientists should change their nomenclature to fit with your preferences.
Neutralisation is movement towards pH7, which implies a goal of neutrality. You say yourself that it is tending towards neutrality. There is no reason to think that pH 7 is any goal of the ocean system so neutralization would be a less accurate term than acidification.
“Neutral means [H] =[OH]. Least electropositivity – least active.”
No redox here.
seaice,1, you know very well that the choice of “ocean acidification” to describe the process is a deliberate attempt to scare the public. It’s a purely propaganda term.
We all know that even a 600 ppmv CO2 atmosphere will produce ocean surface waters of about pH 7.9, assuming the models are correct. A process moving pH from 8.2 to 7.9 is formally not acidification. It’s not even neutralization, because there is no neutral end-point.
If I, as a chemist, were doing that process in the lab, I’d say something like, ‘I’m reducing the pH from 8.2 to 7.9.’ I’d not say, I’m acidifying the solution to pH 7.9, nor even neutralizing the solution to pH 7.9.
The procedurally correct term for what CO2 emissions might do would be, ‘ocean pH reduction.’ But who’d be gratifyingly frightened by that?
The whole term, “ocean acidification,” is a crock. It’s wrong on its face because the ocean will not become acidic. It’s entirely non-standard usage for the process of reducing an alkaline pH by 0.3 units, and it’s no more than a scare term.
Your defense of it is mere pedantry.
seaice1,
You said, “Making more acid is the same as reducing pH is the same as acidification.” That is not what is happening in the ocean! More carbonic acid is NOT being made. What little carbonic acid that is made with the solution of CO2 has a very short residency before it makes its contribution to the carbonate/bicarcobonate species in solution. Did you read my article?
Neutralisation is not movement towards pH7 as I said earlier. It is movement towards equal concentrations of H+ and OH-. Hot water contains more H+ ions than cold water, so has a lower pH. It is also neutral because it contains an equal increase in OH- ions. pH 7 and neutral are not the same thing except under specified conditions.
So in hot water shifting towards pH7 may be shifting away from neutrality. Therefore moving towards pH 7 cannot be neutralisation. It makes perfect sense to use the term “acidification” to mean reducing pH, wherever one starts.
Pat Franks says “The procedurally correct term for what CO2 emissions might do would be, ‘ocean pH reduction.’ ” That term was not chosen for some reason. Pat Franks knows that it is because it was insufficiently scary. I presume he has documentary evidence for this. Otherwise it seems very likely that it was not chosen because it is clumsy.
Your objection to the term is mere pedantry because it would not affect the scientific argument one iota if the term chosen had been a different one.
If this article would have left out all the 30% and acidic ocean hype and just ran with we’ve found a critter that can build carbonate shells over a wide (lower) range of alkalinity, would it have been nothing more than a ho-hum?
Yep, and even that isn’t really news.
According to two survey articles by Dana M. Royer during the 00’s, atmospheric CO2 has been in excess of 1000 ppm for most of the past 550M years, the notable exceptions being the last few million years and the late Carboniferous/Permian period, which also happened to be global ice ages eras. We have been told that such high CO2 concentrations acidify (or de-alkalinize, if you prefer) the sea water to where calcium carbonate can no longer form, so that corals, mollusks, etc. that depend on hard shells could no longer survive. But if this is true, where did all the earth’s limestone deposits come from? Do they all date to the Carbo-Permian ice age?
This article explains how CaCO3 could continue to form even under concentrations of CO2 much higher than we are likely to get to any time soon. At the same time, it shows that the oceans can continue to take up vast quantities of CO2 by converting it to CaCO3, even if the CO2 is reducing its pH.
Only about half of CO2 emissions since 1900 remain in the atmosphere, despite extensive deforestation. This article also provides a possible explanation of where it has all been going — into ocean sediments.
The Cretaceous Period, four degrees hotter than now, with CO2 five times higher, takes its name from the limestone formations laid down then by shelly plankton, such as the chalky White Cliffs of Dover.
Forams and other little calcareous organisms, have been around since at least the Cambrian, so have survived mass extinctions and fluctuations in CO2 from 180 to 7000 ppm.
Hu,
” At the same time, it shows that the oceans can continue to take up vast quantities of CO2 by converting it to CaCO3, even if the CO2 is reducing its pH. “
No, CO₂ actually dissolves CaCO₃ (caves); you can write the reaction including dissolution as
CaCO₃+CO₂+H₂O ⇌ Ca⁺⁺+2HCO₃⁻
Once equilibrium is restored after CO₂ has increased, shells are OK again. The problem is, where did the CaCO₃ come from to dissolve to make that happen?
Turning CO₂ back into CaCO₃ deposits requires the addition of a base (stronger than CO₃⁻⁻). This comes from the breakdown of rock materials like olivine, but that is slow.
It’s clear from the article, that among forams, “turning CO₂ back into CaCO₃” requires ATP and occurs in a pH 6.9 microenvironment; an environment that the forams produce themselves.
Stokes,
Just for the record, humic acid and other weak organic acids also play a role in the formation of caves.
Incidentally, there are places in the world, mostly warm shallow seas such as in the Bahamas, where calcium carbonate is precipitating out of sea water as the carbon dioxide de-gasses from the warmed water. No strong bases are being added. Olivine is a silicate mineral that can be attacked by carbonic acid, but you are right that it is a relatively slow process.
Pat Frank,
“It’s clear from the article, that among forams, “turning CO₂ back into CaCO₃” requires ATP and occurs in a pH 6.9 microenvironment”
I was responding to the comment, which said, as I quoted
” the oceans can continue to take up vast quantities of CO2 by converting it to CaCO3″
It’s true that forams can with energy proton pump and create an alkaline environment which allows precipitation. But then it has to stay solid, requiring energy to maintain. And the energy needed for the proton pump is proportional to the pH difference needed. Proton pumping doesn’t make the sea more basic; it just shifts protons around.
Clyde Spencer,
The situation you describe is also one of moving acid around. CO₂ can outgas, leaving precipitate, but it hasn’t been lost to the environment.
Nick, “I was responding to the comment, which said, as I quoted “the oceans can continue to take up vast quantities of CO2 by converting it to CaCO3″ But it does do that. The oolitic limestones, for example.
“It’s true that forams can with energy proton pump and create an alkaline environment which allows precipitation. But then it has to stay solid, requiring energy to maintain.”
Probably not. Carbonate exoskeletons are typically covered with a proteaceous coat that isolates them from direct contact with water.
“And the energy needed for the proton pump is proportional to the pH difference needed. Proton pumping doesn’t make the sea more basic; it just shifts protons around.”
Protons are apparently pumped, copiously so, from inside the forams to outside. That makes the inside alkaline, where the biological carbonate is formed.
The immediate external microenvironment around the foram apparently lowers to pH 6.9, much lower that any possible impact of CO2 emissions. Despite the low pH in contact with their external coat, foram exoskeletons do not dissolve.
Can mollusks and corals do the same thing as these foraminifers?
Coral growth is aided by symbiotic algae that take up CO2 during photosynthesis thus reducing carbonic acid which inhibits calcite/aragonite precipitation.
Two critical points of interest here. First is that the forams absorb CO2, not carbonate, to produce their carbonate shells. Second is that production of shell-carbonate is energy-driven. The latter, we knew already.
There is a third point that’s both scientifically and politically interesting, which is that the forams pump H+ out into their immediate environment, lowering the pH of the surrounding water. This means that the forams would not even notice a general change in global ocean pH from 8.2 to even 7.9, because their local micro-pH is so low.
The whole “ocean acidification” alarm is exploded by the fact that forams make their environment more acidic themselves, and prefer it that way.
So, a compartmentalized and energy-driven process is not subject to ordinary chemical equilibrium. It means that forams use ATP to drive the carbonate-producing reaction. Energy-driven means the mechaniism will operate successfully under a wide variety of external conditions. It would probably take an extreme in external pH to frustrate the biochemistry.
Then, as the forams take up CO2 and not carbonate, an increase in the CO2, not carbonate, concentration of the oceans will improve the efficiency of foram carbonate shell production. That means a drop from pH 8.2 to 8.1 is better for forams, and a drop to pH 7.9 might make them really happy.
Pat,
As I remarked above, different organisms appear to have different optimal pH regimes, probably related to the prevailing pH when they evolved. In any event, they can tolerate wide variations, at the expense of greater energy expenditures. Once the shells have been formed, they have other strategies for protecting them. It is perhaps this observation that explains why juvenile oysters seem to be more susceptible to transient pH lowering than adults.
Agreed, Clyde. Apparently, also, fresh water clams and mussels live happily in relatively quite low pH regimes.
When I read the first line of text:
“FACT: More carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air also acidifies the oceans”
I quit reading because it is immediately clear this is not going to be a scientific discussion.
Is that because you prefer your own definitions of scientific terms to those that accepted by scientists? For many scientists acidification means reducing pH. You however prefer for the term to mean making the pH less than 7. Your conclusion is that because the term is used as the scientists use it, rather than the way you would prefer, this is not a scientific discussion. God help you.
seaice1,
And for reasons that only you really know, you seem to prefer the terminology invented very recently. God help you!
CO2 is necessary for underwater plant growth and adding extra CO2 greatly helps growth similar to land based greenhouses. I assume creatures with carbonate shells are no different.
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/carbon-dioxide-systems/
I can’t even read this crap — comic book science, but thanks for the heads up to the new study.
RWturner, you misunderstand. Articles like this are not posted for edification. Just look at the mythological dust that has been kicked up for the umpteenth time.
Why is it that any lowering of the pH of the oceans is considered as an increase in acidity whilst they remain clearly alkaline?
Such deceptive means of discussing changing pH levels is not used in agricultural where soils are described as either alkaline or acidic according to the pH levels, and if the pH of an alkaline soil decreases it is described as a reduction in alkalinity, not as an increase in acidity.
The way changes in ocean pH is being described in the climate change debate distorts the matter in the minds of those who blindly follow the alarmist mob.
So what does adding sulpher to the soil do? One word answer please.
Fertilization
I was angling for acidify, but thanks.
Reducing pH can be considered acidification as you are making it more acid. It is a perfectly reasonable way to use the term. For god’s sake why is this such a problem for you? If you don’t like the term just substitute “reduce pH” when you see it. It makes no difference.
Sure, that would be correct if acids and bases were simply a subjective scale, i.e. shading, but it is defined by a boundary. If a glacier warms from -50 C to -30 C, do you say the glacier is liquifying? It would be absurd to do so, because terms like solid, liquid, acid, and base are defined by a boundary condition, not a sliding scale. Acid and base are defined by their ability accept or donate hydronium ions. If a solution with a pH of 10 (a base, accepts hydronium ions, +1 OH-:H+ ) drops to a pH of 9, has its ability to donate hydronium ions changed, no, it is still a base, it was NOT acidified.
I think those of us that keep harping on this technicality are simply tired of obfuscation in science.
seaice1 – but you contradict yourself here.
I think most scientifically literate persons would agree that reducing pH can be acidification as you are making it more acid.
Your problem is, adding H ions is not making the ocean more acidic, because it is not acidic at all. You can’t be made more of something that you are not already made of. “Less alkaline” is clearly the correct term. And once, and only ocean waters have a pH of less than 7.0, then you can say correctly adding more H ions is making the oceans “more acidic”.
The semantics matter because most non-scientifically literate persons think acid is bad, particularly when it comes to the environment … and most such persons have no concept of alkalinity, so saying something is “less alkaline” certainly does not sound bad … in fact, it sounds kinda good to to the illiterate.
Thus the battle over semantics is non-trivial as you make it out to be.
Try “neutralisation”.
But hey, that wouldn’t be scary enough, would it?
Try “neutralisation”.
But hey, that wouldn’t be scary enough, would it?
” minds of those who blindly follow the alarmist mob”
You call,
and McClod answers. !!
What is the pH at various proximity to a submarine volcanic vent? What is the marine life associated with the varying pH? Foraminifera are found right throughout our oceans. Some are benthic (on the sea floor) and others planktonic.
Earth Science is a field science, for very good reason. Far too many desk studies these days. Throw away the computer for a while, go into the field and get some real measurements. Far too many soft degrees are being handed out. B S c means what?
What is the pH in the coastal bays where rain swollen rivers brown with tannins dump onto oyster beds?
How on earth did anything survive before the Pleistocene, when CO2 was higher and the ocean was even slightly less basic?
Ocean + Acidification = bullshit !
The process, as some have noticed, is really carbonation ie carbonate chemistry. Part of the vast carbon or organic chemistry, the Chemistry of Life. Orwells Fools like Nick Stokes etc. do not get to make us use newspeak, now becoming passe, hopefully soon extinct. And not like the millions of ‘fake news’ extinctions of MSM/CAGW.
This paper is not the first to find its noted anti-extinction effects. It would be a good, if somewhat slight, paper. if not for the obligatory CO2 falsehoods.
Brett,
I’ll vote for “carbonation.” It describes what is happening with no negative baggage. But then, I suspect that the reason that the “acidification” meme has survived is precisely because of the negative baggage. It is useful to the alarmists.
“Fact: More carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air also acidifies the oceans. ”
Can we now stop any nonsense comments that this is not he case because the oceans are slightly alkaline?
It is acknowledged here that it is a fact that CO2 acidifies the oceans.
“It is acknowledged here that it is a fact that CO2 acidifies the oceans”
No, it doesn’t.
The oceans are strongly buffered against changes in pH.
All the rivers following into the ocean over millions and millions of year are almost always acidic, sometime even as low as pH 5.5
…. but the oceans have stayed stubbornly and steadfastly at around ph 8.1
No tiny change in atmospheric CO2 is going to have the slightest effect on ocean pH.
typo correction..
All the rivers FLOWING …..
AndyG55,
Actually, rainwater is typically around pH 5.5 and other fresh water bodies, such as swamps, rich in humic and tannic acids, can get much lower — and yet things not only live in that water, they thrive in it.
CO2 is one of the major building blocks of shell and coral. Only those with no knowledge of biochemistry would think that adding more CO2 to a buffered solution would result in less shell or coral.
“Only those with no knowledge of biochemistry”
Problem is, “climate science™” is full of people with little or no knowledge of biochemistry..
.. or, for that matter… any other branch of real science.
For most of the Earth’s history CO2 levels have been much higher than today yet in such an environment shell life and coral life in the oceans evolved. A testamoney to this is the amount of carbonate rock that has been produced over the years. The problem is that the sequestering of Carbon by both fossil fuels and carbonate rocks has left very little available for the creation and sustanance of new carbon based life on this planet. Releasing carbon tied up by fossil fuels and carbonate rocks is actually a good thing in terms of sustaining carbon based life on this planet. If Mankind is to servive, the amount fo CO2 in our atmosphere needs to be increased. The next ice age will cause more CO2 to be absorbed into the oceans and will cause CO2 levels in our atmosphere to decrease. Despite the hype there is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and plenty of scientific reasoning to support the idea that the climate sensivity of CO2 is really zero. Adding CO2 to the atmosphere will do noting to fend off the next ice age but in may help to keep plants alive as the colder oceans remove CO2 form our atmosphere. It is the formation of carbonate rocks that could threaten life on this planet.
As I said somewhere up top. Carbon is continuously being removed from the carbon cycle.
Vostok cores indicate that it has dropped perilously low for plant life on the planet at least 4 times over the last half a million years.
Those same charts show that even at its peak, CO2 could not maintain the temperature.
The human release of sequestered CO2 has quite probably saved the planet’s plant life, and with it, ALL life on this Earth.
It’s not a new insight for aquarists who keep shellies in acidic water. I actually did mention this on WUWT last year, in my OA is complete nonsense rant.
My shrimp for example pH 6.0 kH 3.0 I bred shrimp in this tank for 2 years.
https://youtu.be/0k-Dgmoi0Ww
The calcium is in the water regardless, and also when the shrimp molt the acidity takes care of the shell eventually returning it to the water. I had fantastic healthy specimens as can be seen.
Acidity is not a problem for shells low acidity, if the water also contains the required calcium as far as my years of experience goes.
fyi kH or more accurately dKH is carbonate alkalinity, or more commonly called bcarbonate hardness.
Ocean water is ridiculously high, up to and above 9dKH generally. All the CO2 in the atmosphere is not going to even budge ocean pH dKH in any detectable way, it’s a complete scam.
To use direct CO2 injection it would take epic amounts, something like 200mls per litre of sea water to lower pH to 6.0 and remember that an extremely tiny amount of carbonic acid is created in exchange as CO2 dissolves. It can and will come right back out of the water, which is why less water disturbance is better to retain CO2 levels, other wise they fluctuate.
It is complete JUNK SCIENCE
The vents in Italy spewing sulfur, have done more to affect pH in a year than all human emissions ever/
Reference please. It would be nice to see some data backing this assertion.
Which assertion.
Acidity is essential to the oceans, but atmospheric CO2 does not compete with osmosis and inputs, apart from geological sea floor events, there are minerals and materials in the earth’s crust that are carried away along with heat that act as part of the buffer for ocean stability
There are examples of this where there is no acidic input to retard calcification. Lakes in Africa where there are no acidic inputs. Here is a bird at one such lake Lake Natron Tanzania. It’s a one way alkaline input from springs, yes its spewing out of the ground, that is just a lake, imagine what is on the ocean floor
http://www.thisiscolossal.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/nick-1.jpg
Are there any papers showing correlation between atmospheric CO2 and ocean pH dKH of note?
Alarmists worry as if H+ goes in and never comes out. Calcium carbonate (CaCO3) which will nuke H+ ions. It goes back out via limestone. This process has been going on geologically for hundreds of millions of years. To think our recent emissions overpowered all that in oceans the size and density of ours vs the atmosphere and the time past, what 60 odd years of emissions with 21st century crankup.. is just plain arrogance.
Limestone is but one of many aspects just not quantified in this problem. it is MASSIVELY uncertain, the null hypothesis is still very healthy, we are not changing ocean pH in any measurable way with emissions.
http://i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150206144210-freediving-ceynotes-01-one–super-169.jpg
There are literally pitiful efforts throwing pointless amounts of limestone into the sea. Little more than symbolism.
Mark,
pH does change together with an increase of DIC (free CO2 + (bi)carbonate) in seawater, which shows that the CO2 is driven from the atmosphere into the ocean surface, not reverse. If the pH gets lower for any reason, CO2 would be driven out of the oceans and DIC would decrease…
See:
http://www.biogeosciences.net/9/2509/2012/bg-9-2509-2012.pdf for Bermuda
and
http://www.pnas.org/content/106/30/12235.full.pdf for Hawaii
“Fossil fuel use, cement manufacture and land-use
changes are the primary sources of anthropogenic carbon
dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere, with the ocean absorbing approximately 30%”
This is the first line of the abstract. How on earth do they get 30%. I have to go paper chasing to end up with a model, ffs.
Right off the bat I cant falsify the claim of 30%.
That’s without the fact I am not a scientist or academic. 😀 So I couldn’t anyway but we are well into the country called massive guesstimations here
The second one Hawaii. Having a read of that one cheers
Read the Hawaii one. Can’t say it’s wrong, dunno, cant analyze their data 😀
Exchange rates of CO2 and export of DIC via biological sequestration. I have no idea even from this paper if there are other factors affecting water chemistry\biology in this 10km zone they used that may affect what they measured.
Also doesn’t Hawaii have sulfur dioxide natural pollution? Vog they call it, which is acidic, creates acidic rain.
Not convinced. but I cant say its wrong
Mark,
Ocean chemistry is rather well known: it is a weak buffer for CO2 in the atmosphere and the levels in the ocean surface follow the changes in the atmosphere with ~10%. That can be calculated and you can check it by comparing the increase in atmospheric levels with the increase in DIC (dissolved inorganic carbon) in the surface like at Hawaii and Bermuda over the same periods. The other 20% is in the deep oceans, not important for the pH of the surface.
SO2 and other stronger acids than CO2 can enter the (deep) oceans from volcanic vents and have an immediate effect on the acidity of the ocean waters. If that are substantial amounts, that gives an immediate release of CO2 and a reduction of DIC, as the whole chain from free CO2 in solution to/from bicarbonates to/from carbonates is highly influenced by acids – or reverse.
In this case we see the reverse: DIC increases over time, despite that the pH gets lower. Thus CO2 – in average – is not leaving the ocean surface, it is entering the surface from the atmosphere…
That is independent of bio-life, but bio-life plays also a huge role on DIC and pH, mainly over the seasons. There is no indication that bio-life shows huge changes over longer periods than a few years, other than a (small) growth over time (as is also the case for bio-life on land). That means that bio-life also is a net sink for CO2 and not the cause of the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere and DIC in the ocean surface…
That all doesn’t mean that any small change in pH has a negative effect on bio-life in the oceans: most chalk bearing creatures evolved in times with much higher CO2 levels in the atmosphere, and have no problems with more CO2, to the contrary, as the above research shows…
In response to one way, atmosphere to ocean
The spike in CO2 growth from El Nino announced by NOAA shows that oceans can do what human emissions cannot, and that is cause relatively instant spike in atmospheric CO2 growth.
if the oceans can emit that kind of CO2 amount from an El Nino, how much was released by 200 years of very arguably natural warming?
“immediate release of CO2 and a reduction of DIC” and so will warming ocean water and it has a bigger signal than alleged human emitted CO2. The measurements at Mauna Loa last year showed that. It takes one heck of a lot of Co2 to spike atmospheric CO2 growth relatively fast.
CO2 left the oceans at rates our emissions are nowhere near. Warming waters simply outstrip the mechanism by which CO2 is entering the water.
CO2 is absorbed in cold polar waters and emitted from the equatorial waters with gradient up and down the latitudes of course, generally speaking. So how would atmospheric CO2 cause a net increase in warming top 5000 meters of water. Temperature at the surface dictates, increasing warming in the surface causes a net exchange, more out than in.
need cooler water on the surface which absorbs CO2, water cooler than the water below, and it sinks with CO2, upwelling potential has an effect in places like Hawaii as far as I know.
Upwelling as well as equator to polar circulation being in most oceanic CO2 in a warming world.
Going by the changes throughout El Nino in SST no wonder this spiked mauna Loa
Mark,
The past El Niño did induce a spike of 1.5 ppmv in the CO2 rate of change, lasting one year. That drops after the El Niño to about zero and negative during a La Niña (or a Pinatubo). Average over periods longer than 1-3 years: an uptake of ~2 ppmv/year while humans add over 4 ppmv/year, each year again.
Thus your “spike” is not caused by more outgassing from the oceans, it is caused by less absorbing by the -temporarily- warmer oceans…
Over the past 800,000 years the temperature – CO2 ratio was ~16 ppmv/K. That is the same as what Henry’s law for the solubility of CO2 in seawater predicts. That gives that the warming oceans since the LIA (maximum 1 K) are good for maximum 16 ppmv of the increase. We are currently at 110 ppmv above (dynamic) equilibrium for the current ocean temperature.
Indeed dynamic: some 40 GtC/year as CO2 is entering the atmosphere from warmed deep ocean upwelling waters, while some 40 GtC/year as CO2 sinks near the poles together with the cold, salty waters into the deep. Slightly more CO2 is sinking into the deep than is upwelling. That will return after some 1000 years…
The CO2 balance of the seasonal cycle and the year by year variability, both caused by temperature, is smaller than the yearly human emissions, thus the extra pessure in the atmosphere above equilibrium pushes more CO2 into the oceans (and vegetation) than is released…
Ferdinand
we donot really have reliable CO2 data before 1960
and since then we had a warming trend.
How do we know even know for sure that all or almost all extra CO2 since 1960 is due to warming?
Do you even know how many giga tons of carbonates are in the oceans?
HenryP,
CO2 levels as measured in ice cores are quite reliable: compared to direct measurements at the South Pole (there is an overlap between 1960-1980) the data are within +/- 1.2 ppmv (1 sigma) of each other, The only drawback is the resolution, which gets worse the farther back you want to go in history:
~10 years for the past 150 years
~20 years for the past 1,000 years
~40 years for the past 70,000 years
~560 years for the past 800,000 years.
The current increase of ~110 ppmv would be visible in every ice core, be it with a lower amplitude, depending of the resolution.
How do we know even know for sure that all or almost all extra CO2 since 1960 is due to warming?
Do you even know how many giga tons of carbonates are in the oceans?
Henry’s law gives ~16 ppmv/K for the equilibrium between seawater and the atmosphere. Confirmed by over 3 million seawater measurements in the past centuries. At the current (area weighted) average ocean surface temperature there is a (dynamic) equilibrium with the atmosphere at ~290 ppmv. We are currently at 400 ppmv…
The amount of carbonates in the deep oceans is of (near) zero interest in that equilibrium, as the equilibrium is mainly with the surface (“mixed”) layer. For a fixed concentration, only temperature plays a role in the equilibrium. It hardly makes a difference if you shake a 0.5 or 1 or 1.5 liter bottle of Coke: if they were filled from the same batch, they will show (nearly) the same pressure under the screw cap at the same temperature of the Coke…
The increase in temperature since 1959 (+0.8 K according to HadCRU) is good for maximum 13 ppmv from the 90 ppmv increase over the same period…
Ferdinand
as stated before
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/01/27/inconvenient-result-ocean-acidification-can-also-promote-shell-formation/#comment-2410528
I am a bit skeptical of Henry, unless you are talking of a closed vessel.
either way, even if our guilt is the remaining 75 odd ppm.s extra in the air, I am sure you will agree with me that this won’t be able to ;’acidify’ the oceans to any extent, neither change the climate to any extent or degree, Please say that you agree with me on that.
According to my measurements everything is natural, there is no room for any AGW in my equations…
The assertion that vents spewing sulfur in Italy have done more to affect pH in the oceans than all human CO2 emissions ever. A simple quantification of the amount and identity of the stuff spewing would be a good start.
HenryP:
I am a bit skeptical of Henry, unless you are talking of a closed vessel.
The other Henry’s law does hold static for one sample in a closed flask as good as dynamic for the oceans with their enormous CO2 exchanges in and out the atmosphere.
The largest difference in partial pressure between upwelling waters and the atmosphere is around 250 μatm higher in the surface. That pushes about 40 GtC/year from the deep oceans into the atmosphere. Near the poles the reverse pCO2 difference is ~150 μatm, that gives about 40 GtC/year from the atmosphere into the deep oceans. See:
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/feel2331/exchange.shtml
If the sea surface temperature increases everywhere with 1 K, that gives an increase in ocean pCO2 everywhere with ~16 μatm. Thus at the upwelling sites the pCO2 difference increases to 266 μatm and the outgassing to 266/250*40 = 42.6 GtC/year and the sink capacity is reduced as the pCO2 difference drops with 16 μatm. That gives 134/150*40 = 35.7 GtC/year. The difference of ~7 GtC/year stays in the atmosphere, thus the CO2 level in the atmosphere increases. If the CO2 pressure in the atmosphere increases, the pressure difference at the upwelling decreases and at the sink zones increases. With ~16 μatm (~= ppmv) extra in the atmosphere, the original pCO2 differences from before the warming are restored and again in equilibrium. That is the same 16 μatm as for a single sample…
In graph form:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/upwelling_temp.jpg
And indeed I am pretty sure that semantics are abused in this case to scare lay people for a non-problem… Especially the “30% more acidic” is strictly right, but only used as it sounds far more scary than “a drop of 0.1 pH unit in alkalinity”…
@ferdinand meeus
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/01/28/homogenization-of-temperature-data-makes-capetown-south-africa-have-a-warmer-climate-record/comment-page-1/#comment-2412424
HenryP,
I haven’t measured seawater pCO2 myself, but I have measured the motor cooling water inlet temperature when I was sailor (engine room) during a few years in my early after school life and worked a few years in a cola bottlery (Royal Crown, don’t know if they still exist in the US, not here anymore)…
You need to go on with the papers of Feely e.a. and have a look at the CO2 transfer pages:
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/feel2331/maps.shtml
Henry’s law and practice in cola carbonatation show the same principle: the amount of CO2 transfered between a gas and a liquid is directly proportional to the difference in partial pressure between the gas in the liquid and the same gas in the atmosphere above it.
As CO2 diffusion in water is very slow, one need a lot of wind and waves to give a thorough mixing and a reasonable speed in transfer, but aside that, the pressure difference is the important thing. No pressure difference, no transfer.
Here a lot of solubility parameters between different gases and there solution in water at different temperatures:
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/gases-solubility-water-d_1148.html
That is for fresh water. For CO2 in seawater that is somewhere else, but my link doesn’t work anymore…
The equipment used to measure the pCO2 of seawater underway is at page 5:
https://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/pi/CO2/carbondioxide/text/LMG03_2_data_report.pdf
They have measured the pressure difference at a lot of ocean places over time (over two million samples at that time) and calculated the average pCO2 difference for the whole ocean surface: 7 μatm higher in the atmosphere than in the ocean surface. That pushes, in average more CO2 from the atmosphere into the oceans than reverse…
My calculation indeed was theoretical, but that doesn’t matter: the proven change in pCO2 of seawater is ~16 μatm/K, thus with a sudden change of 1 K everywhere, the sea surface would (without human emissions) become a temporarely source of CO2, but after a few years and 16 ppmv extra CO2 in the atmosphere, everything is back into dynamic equilibrium (“steady state” to use the right term)…
Regarding the semantic issue of using the terms “30% increase” and “acidification”, here’s my take:
1. Use of either of these terms in this context is misleading, albeit arguably correct. It is a direct indication of deliberately misleading alarmisim IMO.
2. For those defending said usage, I ask you if you would then accept the following terms being used instead: “0.1 pH” and “caustic”? If not, why not?
I am not adressing the issue of whether or not CO2 has caused the oceans to become less caustic by a factor of 0.1 pH (see how much less scary that sounds?), however, nor whether that would be a problem if it was true.
Yes. My 95c coffee just got more frozen as it cooled to 94c )
Yo Mark, was a pretty warm one down here the other Tuesday, reached 38ºC
I nearly FROZE, had to run inside and get a jumper, when it dropped to 37ºC !!
Two different scales. Two different chemical states.
It’s not news that calcification often actually occurs under the local biochemical control of the organism itself, the pH of the surrounding millieu being effectively irrelevant.
Environmentalists trying to scare people with junior-high school chemistry is not news either. That is an eternal constant.
“Acidification” is technically correct. I have no problem with that.
However, I DO think that terminology goes a long way in dramatically increasing awareness and fear-mongering. I remember being a child and hearing of “acid rain”…it evoked images of people out in the rain “melting” like the Wicked Witch of the West.
The vast majority of people cringe in fear at the thought of contact with anything called an “acid” – even if it’s weak – but they don’t have the same response to sodium hydroxide.
The “Ocean acidification” scare is so clearly a load of scaremongering. It is well known that doubling the concentration of dissolved CO2 lowers the pH by .4
However, there is 48 times more CO2 in the oceans than in the atmosphere. If atmospheric CO2 were to double (shock horror and Bill McKibben going in to hysterics) and all of the increase were to dissolve in to the oceans, it would cause a pH drop of approximately .008 which is very little. To get to pH 7 (neutral) – 5 doublings of CO2 concentration in the oceans would require the equivalent of atmospheric CO2 getting to- wait for it 48 x 400ppm x 2 to the 4th power= 307,200 ppm . This does not even take in to account the buffering capacity of basalts on the ocean floor, which are probably the reason the oceans are basic. I think getting to 30% of the atmosphere being CO2 (there goes ALL the oxygen) – up from .04% is very clearly a load of absolute garbage. How can so-called serious scientists actually get this so spectacularly wrong? I am an amateur, although I am a life-long science enthusiast, so just how can such an amateur like myself work out that the notion of the oceans becoming acidic from burning (recycling) fossil fuels is basically impossible.
The ocean acidification scare is just about the biggest BS meter explosion to date. It is totally BUSTED.
Could some of the more knowledgeable physicists and chemists please check my mathematics and logic train.
Even before marine ecologists called themselves that, pH was always an enigma because it was a poor predictor, except at the extremes. One of the few good things that has come out of this is looking at some of the details, and it seems that the poor predictor observation is mostly correct, probably because of all the compensatory mechanisms organisms possess.
“Alkalinity is generally conservative in its behavior with respect to salinity, since total carbon dioxide is so large compared with rates of carbon dioxide production and consumption, and also relative to precipitation reactions ….” From Day, et al., Estuarine Ecology, 1989, written before the controversy.
This is the article (I think)
Proton pumping accompanies calcification in foraminifera
http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14145
It is not quite as implied above.
Thus, they used foraminifera from an area with a normal pH lower than the ocean
They only manipulated the pH when the animals were making new shell
They did NOT manipulate the pH during the entire life cycle
As a result, they only looked at the shell forming chemistry and not at how a change in pH might affect the life cycle of the animals. On the other hand, simulating CO2 at 9,000 ppm produced a pH of 6.8 (the only experiment with the pH more acid than neutral) and the shell was still formed.
This extract is typical for the confusion surrounding the subject. The oceans are alkaline at a Ph of about 8.2. They do not become ‘acidic’, they may become less alkaline.
The 30% is laughable. It is a projection based on the fact the since 1750 CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has increased by 40% and then assuming that the quantity dissolved has similarly increased by 40%, based on some hypothetical equilibrium pressure, which would result in a Ph drop of 0.3. It is NOT based on any actual measurement. How could it be, as the Ph concept dates from the early 20th century. Furthermore, the hypothetical estimate totally ignores the massive Ph buffering due the dissolved salts.
The whole concept of ‘ocean acidification’ is riseable.
the simplified equation for the sinking of CO2 is
Cold + 4H2O + 2CO2 (g) =.> 2HCO3- + 2H3O+
however, if the fact [that everyone claims to be true] is that earth is getting warmer, net,
then the opposite reaction is what is happening [more]
Heat + HCO3- => CO2 (g) + OH-
i.e. more alkalinity.
Hence, the current warm period is likely to outgas more CO2 [tropics] than it dissolves CO2 (polar regions).
You cannot have it both ways. You cannot claim ocean acidification due to more CO2 if there has been no decrease in global T. Nobody can. What they have “measured” as deviation is even much smaller than the error of measurement. Anyway, how would you take a globally representative sample for pH? It is impossible….
Note also that everyday we are drinking carbonated water (soda’s)
and we are doing fine, are we not?
Cheers!
Excellent – most environmentalists know no basic chemistry – and this is truly the kind of chemistry any school kid should know. I point out the old test for CO2 – using lime water – Ca(OH)2. Bubble the CO2 though it and a white precipitate forms – CaCO3 which is insoluble. Carry on bubbling it through and the white precipitate disappears – formation of soluble and alkaline Ca(HCO3)2.
“Simples”.
true
to make standard solutions we had to boil the water first to remove the carbonate….
Soo….
if earth is getting warmer?