A comprehensive multi-year project challenges previous findings
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
A three-year, comprehensive study of the effects of ocean acidification challenges previous reports that a more acidic ocean will negatively affect coral reef fish behaviour.
The study, conducted by an international coalition led by scientists from Australia and Norway, showed that coral reef fish exposed to CO2 at levels expected by the end of the century did not change their activity levels or ability to avoid predators.
“Contrary to previous studies, we have demonstrated that end-of-century CO2 levels have a negligible impact on the behaviour and sensory systems of coral reef fish,” said Timothy Clark, the lead author of the study and an associate professor at Deakin University in Australia.
Although this is good news on its own, ocean acidification and global warming remain a major problem for coral reefs, the researchers said. Ocean acidification is a problem for creatures that rely on calcium carbonate to make shells and skeletons, such as coral reef organisms, while higher ocean temperatures lead to coral bleaching and death.
CO2 levels skyrocketing
One of the many jobs the ocean does for humankind is to soak up a percentage of carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuels.
A study led by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) from March 2019 showed that the world’s oceans absorbed 34 billion metric tons of carbon from the burning of fossil fuels from 1994 to 2007–amounting to about 31 per cent of all carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere.
Researchers believe that by the end of the century, the oceans could absorb so much more CO2 that carbon dioxide levels will be higher than what most marine species have experienced in the past 30 million years.
Tried to replicate previous studies
Nevertheless, because fish have regulatory systems that allow them to cope with changing water acidity, most fish physiologists assumed that they will able to handle the increased acidity — until half-a-dozen highly publicized reports showed that fish, especially coral reef fish, were dramatically affected by increased CO2 — to the point where they would swim towards predators, rather than away from them.
Despite our new results, coral reefs and their fish communities remain in grave danger because of increasing atmospheric CO2.
“The reports described effects across a range of life stages, including altered smell, hearing, vision, activity levels, boldness, anxiety and susceptibility to predation,” said Fredrik Jutfelt, an associate professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and one of the authors on the paper.
However, the reports describing these negative effects also had substantial inconsistencies, even though the studies relied on similar methods to test for results.
So Clark and Jutfelt and their colleagues decided to see if they could replicate the results by conducting their own carefully documented research.
But their results were exactly the opposite. They found normal behaviour in the species of fish they looked at.
Matched species, life stages and more
“Unexpected scientific results always spark interest from other scientists, but before too much trust is placed in the findings, the effects need to be repeated by other research teams. This independent replication is an important part of science,” says Jutfelt.
He said the research team wanted to respond to the need, internationally, for issues of global importance to be studied in a way that other researchers can replicate results.
That’s why they designed their multi-year study to match the species, life stages and location and seasons of the earlier studies that showed such catastrophic effects, Jutfelt said.
The researchers were also very careful to document their experiments with videos, and also have made their raw data and analysis available so that other researchers could see exactly what they had done, said Josefin Sundin, the last author on the paper and a researcher at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.
“As far as possible, we used automated tracking software to analyse the videos from our experiments, to minimize observer bias, and we also made our raw data and analysis code available to other researchers”, she said.
Their findings were consistent and clear — that coral reef fish behavior wasn’t changed by ocean acidification.
Although this finding may offer a small glimmer of hope for coral reef fishes, climate change continues to present an enormous and serious problem, the researchers aid.
“While our new work suggests ocean acidification may not cause population declines because of behavioural disturbances in coral reef fishes, climate change is currently destroying the reef habitat through coral bleaching during heat waves,” Clark said. “So, despite our new results, coral reefs and their fish communities remain in grave danger because of increasing atmospheric CO2“.
###
This report from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology is far too factual and lacks the required level of alarm and hysteria. They will not receive their extra grants this year if they carry on like this.
It is estimated that with the current CO2 concentration its total weight is about 3.2Ć10^12 tonnes. Study suggest that during last 25 years about 100 (10×10^10) billion metric tons was released into the atmosphere, which is only just over 3% of total, before any absorption, or about 2% after absorption, providing the rest is retained in the atmosphere during the last 25 years. Current concentration is about 400ppm, if none was released into atmosphere since 1994 atmospheric concentration would be about 2% less or 392ppm.
So what is the big deal about fossil fuels CO2?
” CO2 at levels expected by the end of the century”…
….and they are still using the most extreme ‘not going to happen’ IPCC report
While the fish behavior modification is debunked, Clark still states “climate change is currently destroying the reef habitat through coral bleaching during heat waves. So, despite our new results, coral reefs and their fish communities remain in grave danger because of increasing atmospheric CO2”
Grants can be applied for these remaining areas.
Next 3 years Fredrik Jutfelt, an associate professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and one of the authors on the paper, will replicate that study with end-of-century COā levels’ impact on the behaviour and sensory systems of reindeer and polarbaers.
Supported by teams of Norwegian and Australian students.
Next 3 years Fredrik Jutfelt, an associate professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and one of the authors on the paper, will replicate that study with end-of-century COā levels’ impact on the behaviour and sensory systems of reindeer and polarbaers.
Supported by teams of Norwegian and Australian students.
And all the time Norwegian and Australian Universities can control the Great Barrier Reef from the canteen on the Great Barrier Reef live cam:
https://www.google.com/search?q=great+barrier+reef+live+cam&oq=Great+Barrier+reef+live&aqs=chrome.
Can we please stop referring to the change of pH of sea water as āacidification ā. Sea water is alkaline, and in areas of the worlds oceans is becoming more neutral.
Not as scary as āacid oceansā, but scientifically correct.
I agree, however the medical profession refer to acidosis or being in an acidotic state when blood pH drops below the minimum acceptable level, despite the pH still being > 7.
Blood pH is a balance between acids and alkalines in the body. When there is more acid (or less alkalines) the pH lowers below the normal and healthy threshold. So acidosis does not mean that the blood is more acid, it means that the balance in acid/alkaline has been tilted to a lower than normal pH. The blood is always alkaline.
The proper term is ‘less alkaline’. It is still alkaline, it is not ‘more neutral’, because it is not neutral to start with. Average ocean ph is over 8, which is clearly alkaline.
In fact, the acidification group points out that the average ocean ‘acidity’ has dropped from 8.2 to 8.1 over the last, say, 100 years. Who ya gonna believe – people that identify a ph of 8+ as ‘acid’, or your own lying eyes…
I prefer the term “less caustic”. Just as invalid, but winds up the doomers!
Acidification is easier to say than dealkalization which is nearly impossible to say.
Dealkalization is the correct term…and a word nobody would use in a propaganda piece.
DocSiders
“More acidic” 10 characters but wrong
“Less alkaline” 12 characters but correct
I just call it carbonate geochemistry… More letters, but more difficult to scare the bejesus out of people with it.
Shouldn’t be “buffering reduction” since the oceans are highly buffered against pH changes?
A pH of 10 is more acidic than a pH of 11.
“But these go to 11” – Nigel Tufnel
I am not sure that is the right way to characterize it. That means there are fewer hydroxide ions which is less basic. A solution doesn’t turn acid until there are more H+ ions than (OH)- ions.
Mike
The article remarked, “Their findings were consistent and clear ā that coral reef fish behavior wasnāt changed by ocean acidification.”
Maybe that is because the term “ocean acidification” is a human construct intended to cause fear instead of conveying scientific information. Life has a range of tolerance to changes in the environment, be it temperature or pH. If a change occurs in the tolerance range, then little or no effects should be expected, even if it is called “ocean acidification.” “A rose is just as sweet by any other name.”
Yep.
‘CO2 levels skyrocketing’.
Per square cm the oceans (depth over 3km) contain on average about 300kg (300.000 gr) of water. The atmosphere contains per square cm about 0.5 gram CO2. Even if all of it were dissolved in the oceans that would increase its concentration by less than 2 ppm (0.0016g/l). Okay, if we only take the upper 100 meters of ocean as well mixed than the number goes up to 0.05 g/l. Not exactly skyrocketing either.
Average depth is 3 700 meters (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean), average density ca 1.0355 or 1.036, but please note that the solvent volume is 37/3 times higher than described by EJ. Calculating CO2 solubility need to account for depth (pressure) dependent saturation. Anyway, more can be dissolved and has been so in past times.
“… 34 billion metric tons of carbon …”
Other than that, all words, no numbers no graphs no links
The EurekAlert press release seems to have omitted the reference to the actual paper, but I found it in this article:
https://norwegianscitechnews.com/2020/01/ocean-acidification-a-big-problem-but-not-for-coral-reef-fish-behaviour/
Here’s the paper:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1903-y
I’ve noticed that it very often seems to be the case that when researchers carefully study and measure particular specific effects of elevated CO2 (eCO2), they find that it’s either harmless or beneficial. Yet, in the same papers, those same researchers often add caveats stating that, even though their own study found no harmful effects, eCO2 is still a big problem in other ways, which they did not study.
I wonder: is it just the groupthink that dominates left-leaning university and government research environments, which prevents these people from recognizing that eCO2 is net-beneficial, rather than harmful? Or do they really recognize it, but won’t or can’t say it, perhaps due to peer pressure, or perhaps because of fear that it could jeopardize their degrees or careers, or perhaps because the “leading” journals won’t publish them if they’re candid?
The benefits of eCO2 are not a recent discovery. They’ve been known to science for over a century.
http://sealevel.info/ScientificAmerican_1920-11-27_CO2_fertilization.html
The large benefits of eCO2 are well-measured, by thousands of independent studies, by agronomists. It astonishes and horrifies me that many climate scientists seem to be completely unfamiliar with the large body of published research by agronomists, in this area.
The fact that it is not only possible, but typical, for students who obtain degrees in climate science to remain ignorant of such a large and important body of research, which so highly relevant to their own field, I think constitutes definitive proof of gross, systematic malpractice by university “climate science” programs. Heads (of departments) need to roll!
In engineering schools, programs are accredited only if they are reasonably rigorous, adequately cover the essentials of their fields, and do a reasonably good job of educating their students. There’s a general awareness of the fact that incompetent engineers are a danger to society, and accreditation seeks to prevent that. Engineering programs which don’t maintain adequate program quality can be (and often are) threatened with loss of accreditation, which effectively means they will be shut down.
There is an accrediting organization for environmental sciences, which includes climate science, but they obviously aren’t getting the job done. So every year another crop of heavily educated yet colossally ignorant “climate scientists” are graduated, to wreak havoc on society.
How can that be fixed?
I always seem to botch a tag or two. That particular typo was “<a/>” instead of “</a>”. I sure wish there was some way to either preview or edit my comments here.
There is
https://wattsupwiththat.com/test-2/
Thanks for the link, it would be interesting to see the paper, often abstract is not reflected in the conclusions, caveats, etc. As noted from Eureka Alert. “While our new work suggests ocean acidification may not cause population declines because of behavioural disturbances in coral reef fishes, climate change is currently destroying the reef habitat through coral bleaching during heat waves,” Clark said. “So, despite our new results, coral reefs and their fish communities remain in grave danger because of increasing atmospheric CO2”. Is this ātransmogrified physics?ā
https://physicsworld.com/a/transmogrified-physics-we-want-your-examples-of-this-new-field-of-science/
As to certification I would like to see what these newer āenvironmental programsā teach. There has long been applied science in biology, as in agriculture, medicine, fisheries and wildlife management, now science term often stuck in. Historically they were very good science training, comparison with the newer ones would be very important. The certification mentioned has āEnvironmental Healthā along with CDC and USPHS emphasis, question may be confusion between individual and environment. Metabolic acidosis, well studied and long known, and ocean acidification, in the Orwellian direction, are two different, but related, things. GAIA aināt what it used to be.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2134092/Gaia-scientist-James-Lovelock-I-alarmist-climate-change.html#ixzz1tlFxrlfI
Laboratory experiments only yield potentially negative consequences above 1,000 ppmv… And those don’t appear to be terribly negative.
The call if ocean acidification to scare the bejesus out of people, pH doesn’t really matter that much. It’s pretty well impossible to lower the pH of seawater below 7 with CO2. The actual concern is the saturation state of aragonite… And it’s of no concern at all at CO2 levels likely to be seen in the 21st Century.
Although this is good news on its own, ocean acidification and global warming remain a major problem for coral reefs, the researchers said. WHY ????
‘cos they didn’t study coral, so they assume the rest of the Ćrap still stands
Jonny Baker January 9, 2020 at 3:10 am
I like easy questions such as this one. Answer: money. They sorta like eating and would like to continue to do so.
Can somebody explain how CO2, not the sun, warms the oceans? No. I thought not.
Upwelling longwave infrared energy is absorbed by CO2 at around 14 um. In the troposphere, that energy is mostly lost in collisions with other molecules (nitrogen and oxygen which don’t radiate and water which does) and results in a warming atmosphere. That, in turn, results in more convection which carries heat poleward. The ice covered arctic ocean is warmed by conduction as the air loses heat to the ice.
Simples.
… and then, of course, there’s back radiation.
Ever tried to melt ice with a hairdryer……….š
I routinely melt solder with a blast of hot air. example
Most of the arctic ice thickness is melted from below. Only when the air temperature goes above freezing do you start to see melt puddles on the surface.
Even when the air temperature is below freezing it has an effect. The thickness of the ice is determined by the air temperature above it.
Anyway, when I leave an ice cube on the counter, what causes the ice to melt?
commiebob,
“Anyway, when I leave an ice cube on the counter, what causes the ice to melt?”
The counter. It is warmer, more massive, and in contact with it.
So, if I put an ice cube on a block of insulation, the ice cube won’t melt?
Or tried to boil a pan of water with a blow lamp on the surface?
The sun has been trying to boil the oceans for tens of thousands of years and doesnāt seem able get them up beyond 35 deg. C.
The sun does cause evaporation. The moisture rises in the atmosphere and loses that heat aloft. Most of the heat radiates to outer space. The cooled moisture condenses into clouds and falls as rain. The clouds limit the amount of sun light hitting the surface.
It’s a negative feedback loop which effectively controls the equatorial temperature and explains why global warming doesn’t happen at the equator.
“Ever tried to melt ice with a hairdryer”
Ice melts in room temp air. Why wouldn’t it melt with a hair dryer?
It’s probably best to think of CO2 slowing down the rate of cooling .
“One of the many jobs the ocean does for humankind is to soak up a percentage of carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuels.” Jack of all trades that ocean!
Paint me skeptical that going from 3 molecules CO2 per 10k to 4 molecules or even 8 molecules CO2 per 10K molecules has any detectable effect on ocean pH.
And all that phytoplankton will suddenly go on sit down strike and not eat up some CO2?
No need to be skeptical. You can easily test it, and doing so I think you will be suprised.
It’s not that easy. Sea water is buffered so the change is small and high salt content interferes with most pH electrodes.
If easily tested, please direct to me the study evidence. My mind is open but skeptical.
From the article: “Although this finding may offer a small glimmer of hope for coral reef fishes, climate change continues to present an enormous and serious problem, the researchers aid.”
There’s the money quote. They’ve got to get paid, you know.
There is no evidence that CO2 is presenting any kind of danger to the Earth or its inhabitants. Saying it is so, doesn’t necessarily make it so.
Coral thrived in The Eocene 30 million years ago.
It was hotter then and with much higher CO2
Shh! You’ll spoil the game!!! What are you trying to do, educate people? š
Aren’t you supposed to issue a spoiler alert when giving out the ending?
Spoiler alert!
Coral evolved 240 million years ago.
Don’t we have two factors going against each other?
If the oceans currently warm up, they can contain less COā. Should this not counter the slightly higher atmospheric concentration?
“Donāt we have two factors going against each other?
If the oceans currently warm up, they can contain less COā.”
Excellent point.
Yes, the warmer it gets, the more CO2 is moved from the oceans to the atmosphere. Increased CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere in history appear to follow ocean warming. And that makes sense since Warmer oceans outgas CO2 and Colder oceans absorb CO2.
Did the Egyptians burned a lot of fossil fuel 6000 years ago when they build the pyramids? Just asking, because at that time the oceans were approaching acid even more than at this day and age:
as noted in:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/10/ocean-acidification-chicken-of-the-sea-little-strikes-again/
The answer is no, because COā was even lower than today.
It must have been hard for the corals 6000 years ago with a pH of only 7.9 /SARC
CO2 increase lags temperature increase in all records. link One explanation is that the warming ocean releases CO2 into the atmosphere.
From the article: “Researchers believe that by the end of the century, the oceans could absorb so much more CO2 that carbon dioxide levels will be higher than what most marine species have experienced in the past 30 million years.”
CO2 levels have been much higher in the past than they are now or will be even if we burned all the fossil fuels available to humans. If humans burned all the fossil fuels available at one time, in one day, it is estimated it would raise the CO2 levels from the current 410ppm to about 1,000ppm. That’s about the highest human beings can take CO2.
The Earth has had periods in its history when CO2 was much higher than 1,000ppm and yet the Earth survived. How do these scientists reconcile the past with the present? I guess the answer is they don’t, if they are reaching the conclusions they reached that CO2 is harmful to the Earth’s ocean creatures, even though it didn’t prove harmful to the fish they studied.
Nonsense. US submarines ‘try’ to keep CO2 below 10,000 ppm. Or did you mean highest emissions possible?
Below 100 ppm humans have trouble breathing and plants die.
“Below 100 ppm humans have trouble breathing”
Are you sure?
It is correct with regards to the plants though š
I’m pretty sure we can survive without CO2, and can breathe mixes even up to 100% oxygen (at the right pressure). We need CO2 to invoke the breathing ‘reflex’ as I understand it, but we produce plenty of that ourselves by breathing, so 100ppm would not be a problem for us.
Plants, OTOH, would die, so overall we would too.
I meant that the highest human-produced CO2 levels would be no more than 1,000ppm even if we burned all the fossil fuels in one day, which is, of course, impossible, so humans can’t even get CO2 up to the 1,000ppm level at current or foreseeable rates of burning. It would take humans hundreds of years to burn all the fossil fuels available. We are currently at about 410ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere. The Earth has had periods in the past when the CO2 level was 7,000ppm.
US submarines keep equilibrium CO2 levels at about 4,000 ppm when submerged. There is no ‘try’ about it. Machinery and sensors are included in the vessels to do just that and they do just that.
Yoda
No need for alarm-
“Table 3 shows the different range of pH some countries are implementing. Generally, all
countries use an average range of between 5.0 and 9.0 in freshwater, and 6.5 and 9.0 for
marine, all of which are within the limits of optimum fish production”
http://www.aquaculture.asia/files/PMNQ%20WQ%20standard%202.pdf
It would be very interesting to see a plot of Ph for maybe 100 points all over the world’s oceans over time. The net change would be as flat A line as one could make with a ruler.
Yet these morons never look at captive reef systems which can routinely run well at a pH of 7.8 or below. All of the hoopla without taking actual data like that is just propaganda. The last I checked, the average pH of ocean water was still above 8.
“Ocean acidification a big problem” = Complete BS.
https://notrickszone.com/2019/02/14/analysis-finds-oceans-have-become-less-acidic-with-rising-co2-challenging-the-acidification-narrative/
Well thatās a big disappointment then, looks like Iāll have to keep buying lemons to squeeze on my haddock and chips to get that nice citric acid hit instead of the fish arriving pre-flavoured.
Always a downside to this eco-crap.
Have the authors considered the effect of anions like carbonate and hydrogencarbonate in seawater? I think not. These anions act to counteract any change in pH (the buffer effect). The buffer capacity of the oceans vastly exceeds any effect of decrease in pH from higher atmospheric CO2.
Another ion in seawater which is often overlooked by ocean acidification scare-mongers is calcium. If a CO2 molecule dissolves in sea water, it forms carbonic acid (H2CO3), which can partially dissociate to H+ and bicarbonate (HCO3-) ions. Bicarbonate ions can partially dissociate to H+ and carbonate (CO3=) ions, but both dissociation constants are low, so the amount of hydronium (H+ or H3O+) ions formed (acidification or de-alkalinization) is low compared to the CO2 initially dissolved.
Mollusks and coral use dissolved carbonate, bicarbonate, and calcium ions in sea water to produce calcium carbonate which is used for their growth, so that increased CO2 concentrations in sea water should promote growth, unless the supply of calcium ions becomes limited.
“Bleaching” of coral during heat waves, or unusually high ocean temperatures, is probably due to the fact that CO2 solubility in water decreases with increasing temperature, so that not enough carbonate or bicarbonate is available in the water for coral growth (CO2 is re-emitted from the ocean to the atmosphere).
Steve
Even borate anions contribute to buffering in sea water. It is a complex system.
Youāre wrong. Last few minutes of the last Blue Planet TV show had Davey Attenboroā marvelling at a jar full of seashells being dissolved bublingly in an un-named acid. So there.
I bet a penny to a pound the BBC used battery acid (pH <1) for that shot.
this is typical bs … the ocean is not in an acidic state … the term ocean acidity is false …
“ocean acidification is a problem for creatures that rely on calcium carbonate to make shells and skeletons, such as coral reef organisms,”
Is it, though? Most studies (including this one) seem to indicate that is not true.
“while higher ocean temperatures lead to coral bleaching and death during heat waves.ā
Heat waves are weather, not climate. An increase of a degree or two over 100 years can barely affect the margins.
“A study led by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) from March 2019 showed that the worldās oceans absorbed 34 billion metric tons of carbon from the burning of fossil fuels from 1994 to 2007āamounting to about 31 per cent of all carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere.”
It did not “show” that, it made a guesstimate based on other guesswork about emissions and yet more guesses about what other carbon sinks may have done. It’s probably a better estimate than it was 20 years ago but it still might not be close to accurate.
I wish they had run their experiments out to 800 to 1200 ppm CO2 to measure effects at an ideal condition.
Wait, I thought coral absorbed CO2 thus providing the carbon necessary to create calcite deposits…?
@Brandon, I would assume the coral animals expel COā rather than providing it, which is certainly not climate correct of them. On the other hand, corals look beautiful, so I think the Greens will excuse them š
When they die, they leave behind limestone in the sediment layer:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Geophys/limestone.html
But, it is the algae that live concomitant among the Coral that creates the CaCO3. Makes more sense, now. Thanks!
Regarding coral reef fish behaviorial studies: How quickly did they expose the fish to increased CO2 levels? Were the fish given time to adapt to slowly changing levels? Did they spend several years or decades on the increase…or did they just bang the levels up in an hour, day or week? I don’t know the answer, but unless they took a long time increasing the levels I would not give the results too much weight.
Are fossil fuels to blame for ocean acidification?
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/12/14/ocean-acidification-2019/
The message of this work was not this or that, but the investigators inability to replicate the earlier hysterical findings.
Clearly some “scientists” cooked up the data. I believe retractions will and should follow.
So they are saying this is by no means a problem for the fish that they are studying, but they take someone else’s word that it’s still a problem for shellfish somehow? Very slight change forecast gotta be a problem?
Um??? Repeat an experiment to verify the results? What do these people think they are – scientists??? LOL
I am glad SOMEONE actually gets suspicious at wild claims. Apparently this group actually took a science class in High School.
And I wish they would stop calling this Ocean Acidification which implies the Oceans will become acidic.
A different post
Thanks
We know that in the past, atmospheric CO2 levels and global temperatures were much higher than they are now. Yet marine life thrived during those periods, including corals. All the hand waving about coral bleaching and ocean “acidification” seems to ignore that fact.
Something that is never addressed with ocean pH research is the serpentinization process of fresh basalt as it reacts with ocean water. The process is alkaline. I’ve only read one paper which looked at this process. Considering that the mid ocean ridges runs around 37,000 miles (60 K kilometers), this has a significant pH effect on ocean pH levels.
Black smokers and other subsea vents affect ocean pH levels too. Unfortunately, we know so little about the ocean bottom to obtain a good handle on quantity of these chemical factories.
There was an era when great ā sea-wide ā thousand-foot thick deposits of calcium carbonate (chalk) were deposited on shall sea floors. Whenever I see the limestone cliffs of Missouri or Kansas, or the jaw-dropping deposits in Texas (more dolomite than chalk or lime), when I see the aireal pictures of the Dover Cliffs (100% chalk) that go on, and on and onā¦
You know what I do.
I calculate.
Using estimates that might be total crĆ¢hp, or perhaps not all that far from what other scientists might agree with.
It is rather sobering how much COā is ‘sunk’ in those dolomite, chalk and limestone deposits, worldwide.
MILLIONS of times more than all the COā released by mankind.
That is sobering.
Because it had to be atmospheric when it was deposited.
Not all at once, as undoubtedly it took millions of years, many tens of millions. But given Science has tracked down the COā mass-balance of the atmosphere going back well over 500,000,000 years, and shown great-long-periods of extraordinarily elevated COā, it is clear indeed that the oceans and plants and animals of Earth have thrived under markedly and starkly different conditions than today.
That said, I also think it is unwise for us to continue to belch COā to the atmosphere at INCREASING rates.
We should be shooting for a near future, say by 2100 AD, where COā-to-atmosphere per year drops to ā to Ā¼ per annum of today. And we should start this rather sooner than later.
But that’s me, being both a scientist and a non-scientist at the same time.
ā -ā -ā Just saying, ā -ā -ā
ā -=ā” GoatGuy ā ā”=-ā
One small aquarium is not enough upon which to draw global conclusions, but here is a tiny microcosm of a reef kept in doors (by me : ) ) that has a normal pH of 7.9 -8.0 which is WAY lower than what is predicted in the worst case scenarios. My corals, anemones, and fish all grow like crazy at a pH of 7.9 and a temp of 80. Huhh? Go figure? Might that possibly be true for wild coral reefs as well? Golly, I wonder . . .
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2019225
This study shows Peter Ridd has been justified in his claims of faulty science at JCU.
Do you know what articles they attempted to replicate? I no longer have access credentials š
Jit, w/r/t your lack of access credentials, see:
https://judithcurry.com/2018/11/27/special-report-on-sea-level-rise/#comment-884990
If that link does not take you directly to my comment, then Ctrl-F or ā-F and search the page for “sci-hub”.
See Peter Ridd’s opinion and discussion here
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2020/01/10/peter-ridd-scientific-misconduct-at-james-cook-university-confirms-my-worst-fears/
āContrary to previous studies, we have demonstrated that end-of-century CO2 levels have a negligible impact on the behaviour and sensory systems of coral reef fish,ā said Timothy Clark, the lead author of the study and an associate professor at Deakin University in Australia.
Although this is good news on its own,
– what about end-of-century CO2 levels’ impact on the behaviour and sensory systems of Koalas and Kangaroos.
– OTOH, how often can the Norwegian students use this practical experiences at home.
Next 3 years Fredrik Jutfelt, an associate professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and one of the authors on the paper, will replicate that study with end-of-century COā levels’ impact on the behaviour and sensory systems of reindeer and polarbaers.
Supported by teams of Norwegian and Australian students.
And all the time Norwegian and Australian Universities can control the Great Barrier Reef from the canteen on the Great Barrier Reef live cam:
https://www.google.com/search?q=great+barrier+reef+live+cam&oq=Great+Barrier+reef+live&aqs=chrome.
By the way – for 2 screens University Canteens:
Here’s the Polar Bear life cam –
https://www.google.com/search?q=polar+bears+live+camera&oq=polarbaers+live+ca&aqs=chrome.