agw-religion changing from warmism to ocean-acidifactionism, still caused by the evil CO2 and the evil fossil fuels
tunderbar
December 13, 2009
If climate change doesn’t grab you, meet its evil twinCharles Clover
86 Comments
Recommend? (21) Whoever leaked that clutch of Climategate emails last
month must be laughing his socks off. For he has unleashed upon the
rest of us the phenomenon of the born-again climate sceptic, the kind
of man (always a man, almost invariably wearing a tweed jacket) who
now materialises beside me at parties and confides that he has been
having second thoughts about climate change.
My first instinct is always to humour him. I say I would be absolutely
overjoyed if in a few years’ time we were to find out that Richard
Lindzen, the most distinguished sceptic among the academic
meteorologists, has turned out to be right and that the early 21st
century got itself into a hysterical panic on the basis of trends
based on highly uncertain computer predictions. But, I add, there are
reasonable odds that he is wrong. My follow-up question is this: “Do
you know that climate change is not the only reason to be uneasy about
carbon emissions?”
On each occasion I am met by a look of puzzlement, followed by a
perplexed nod, and I realise the person in question hasn’t a clue what
I am talking about. He hasn’t heard of the acidification of the sea, a
phenomenon quite separate from global warming but just as alarming.
The reason, I suspect, is that it does not rate a line in the
bestselling sceptical books on global warming by Christopher Booker or
Nigel Lawson — which seem to be all that my tweedy friends have read
on the subject.
Ocean acidification has been quite scandalously left out of the
reckoning in the past few weeks. I am not for a moment belittling the
science behind man-made global warming. This still seems to me solid,
despite the shenanigans at the University of East Anglia. That levels
of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are rising is not disputed. We
have known since the 19th century that carbon dioxide was a crucial
greenhouse gas. Venus has a lot of it and is hot as hell. Mars has
almost none and is cold as ice.
However, even if you happen to believe that everything we know about
greenhouse gases is illusory — unlikely though that is — we would
still need to agree at Copenhagen this week to cut our emissions of
carbon dioxide because of what is happening to the sea, the source of
roughly half our food and provider of other useful services that we
tend to take for granted.
We know the ocean absorbs about 25% of the carbon dioxide we emit each
year. This CO2 dissolves through wind and wave action to form carbonic
acid. This is altering the chemistry of the seas in ways that are not
disputed and are far simpler to understand than the effect the same
pollutants are having on the atmosphere. I recommend the startling
practical demonstration on YouTube of what acidity will do to the
oceans given by Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the US National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to a congressional select
committee this month.
Since the beginning of the industrial revolution in about 1750, sea
water acidity has increased by 30%. The speed and degree of this
change are faster than anything that had happened for 55m years. The
changes being observed are beginning to disrupt the ability of any
organism to make shells out of calcium carbonate. Organisms that do
this include corals, crabs, lobsters, small creatures vital to the
diet of fish and plankton of the kind that die and form chalk deposits
such as the white cliffs of Dover.
Projections show that by 2060, given the current rate of fossil-fuel
emissions, sea water acidity could have increased by 120%. Lubchenco
showed Congress a scary picture of what a shell would look like if it
had spent a month in water as acidic as this. The shell had begun to
dissolve.
Such an effect could trigger a chain of reactions through entire
ecosystems, from whales to fish and shellfish, with huge implications
for economies and wildlife. It could even stop the sea absorbing as
much carbon dioxide as it does now, accelerating global warming. It is
pretty scary stuff.
Predictably, the science of ocean acidification, which is accepted by
governments on both sides of the Atlantic, does not go uncontested by
the global warming sceptics. They say you can’t acidify the ocean
because it washes over alkaline rocks. This process of weathering
rocks is indeed how the alkalinity of the ocean will recover, but
leading scientists say it will take hundreds of thousands of years. At
the unprecedented speed that acidification is happening, the marine
organisms will be knocked out before the rocks can dilute the acid.
There is plenty we still need to know about the acidification of the
ocean. However, it looks as if unpleasant things start to happen if we
go beyond 450 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
(bear in mind we reached 390ppm earlier this year). That is,
coincidentally, the threshold for holding the Earth’s average
temperature rise down to a relatively “safe” 2C.
So ocean acidification, which people are beginning to call climate
change’s “evil twin”, may be an even more pressing reason to move to a
low-carbon economy than climate change itself. And that makes it
doubly irresponsible for those people who scorn the need to cut carbon
emissions to ignore what is going on in the oceans.
***
Now that agw is completely debunked, expect the commies and lefties to
find another CO2-caused "disaster" to be looming in our near future.
They are not just moving the goalposts but building an entirely
different field.
chemist
> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributor...
There no proof of Ocean acidification,
richp
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=could-ocean-acidification-deafen-do-2009-12-20
http://ioc3.unesco.org/oanet/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/OA/
http://images.google.com/images?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1R2GGLL_en&q=ocean+acidification&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=bQk9S4XvCIOKsQPI34XfCQ&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=5&ved=0CCwQsAQwBA
http://oceanacidification.wordpress.com/
http://www.nrdc.org/oceans/acidification/
http://news.google.com/news?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1R2GGLL_en&q=ocean+acidification&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=bQk9S4XvCIOKsQPI34XfCQ&sa=X&oi=news_group&ct=title&resnum=15&ved=0CEsQsQQwDg
http://video.google.com/videosearch?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1R2GGLL_en&q=ocean+acidification&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=bQk9S4XvCIOKsQPI34XfCQ&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&ct=title&resnum=16&ved=0CFUQqwQwDw#
http://www.ucar.edu/communications/Final_acidification.pdf
http://planetsave.com/blog/2009/03/29/experts-say-ocean-acidification-is-a-planet-changer/
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090201124553.htm
And I guess there is no proof the world exists
chemist
> Need proof Here it is. First bunch off the google griddle
>
>
> And I guess there is no proof the world exists
And none of them actually proves this with measurements.
Ocean acidification is assumed to cause something
Ocean CO2 has been measured millions of times over 20 years.
And there is no PAPER that shows CO2 increasing.
Claudius Denk
> Need proof Here it is. First bunch off the google griddle
>
>
> And I guess there is no proof the world exists
These links prove Tunderbars point: "There no proof of Ocean
acidification,"
You probably should have read them before you posted them.
richp
> On Dec 31, 12:37 pm, richp <travelingman95...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Need proof Here it is. First bunch off the google griddle
>
> >http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=could-ocean-acidif...
>
>
> These links prove Tunderbars point: "There no proof of Ocean
> acidification,"
>
> You probably should have read them before you posted them.
Look at this fuck brains
richp
> On Dec 31, 8:37 pm, richp <travelingman95...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Need proof Here it is. First bunch off the google griddle
>
> >http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=could-ocean-acidif...
>
>
> And none of them actually proves this with measurements.
> Ocean acidification is assumed to cause something
> Ocean CO2 has been measured millions of times over 20 years.
> And there is no PAPER that shows CO2 increasing.
Claudius Denk
That's even worse!
Maybe science ain't your thing.
richp
>
> - Show quoted text -
Science is definitely not your thing
Giga
"richp" <travelin...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:f981dbc2-ac57-449f...@35g2000yqa.googlegroups.com...
Giga
If indeed anything is happening, and BTW there was nothing like an
industrial revolution in 1750!
"richp" <travelin...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:f981dbc2-ac57-449f...@35g2000yqa.googlegroups.com...
Bill Ward
> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/
Excellent post. AGWers are now a laughingstock - see the comments for
the above column.
Atmospheric CO2 is in equilibrium with the dissolved CO2 in the ocean,
which is in equilibrium with the CaCO3 on the ocean floor. Too many
people understand equilibrium to let this even get past the laugh test.
JohnM
Ocean pH Dropping 10 Times Faster than Predicted: Marine Food Webs at
Greater Risk as Oceans Grow More Acidic.
http://oceanography.suite101.com/article.cfm/ocean_ph_dropping_10_times_faster_than_predicted
J. Timothy Wootton, Catherine A. Pfister, and James D. Forester -
examined 24,519 measurements of coastal ocean pH over an eight-year
period. The study was conducted as a result of increased concern over
ocean acidification, a state in which the ocean's pH drops as a result
of absorbing excess CO2 from the atmosphere. The belief by many
scientists is that the more CO2 pumped into the air, the more CO2
absorbed into the oceans, and the lower the pH. The study appears to
confirm this theory.
Yet the process and degree of acidification is not a simple formula,
according to the study's authors. A region's pH can fluctuate 0.24
units in a 24-hour cycle and 1.5 units over the course of a year. And
levels can fluctuate from one year to the next. Despite these
fluctuations, however, one characteristic is abundantly clear - the pH
levels are plummeting - and faster than expected.
Ocean pH levels are affected by many factors, such as the availability
of sunlight, the temperature of the water, the amount of
phytoplankton, and of course, atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Yet it
is the last factor that's causing the greatest concern. Many
researchers believe that the ocean pH may drop 0.2 units over the next
100 years, and some believe that the average pH has already fallen 0.1
units over the past century, not surprising given the record amounts
of CO2 that has been pumped into the atmosphere.
JohnM
ho...@yahoo.co> wrote:
> Total misnomer, oceans becoming less alkalei not more acidic.
Same thing, dummy. Even chemistry dullards like Tom Bolger or Bilbo
Ward probably know that.
Giga
"JohnM" <john_howa...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote in message
news:658c2912-76d9-4d12...@34g2000yqp.googlegroups.com...
=actually if it was becoming more acid it would be below 7
Giga
researchers believe that the ocean pH may drop 0.2 units over the next
100 years, and some believe that the average pH has already fallen 0.1
units over the past century, not surprising given the record amounts
of CO2 that has been pumped into the atmosphere.
=Hee hee, bugger all in other words.
matt sykes
> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributor...
>
Any serious sceptic would know of this.
>I am not for a moment belittling the
> science behind man-made global warming. This still seems to me solid,
> despite the shenanigans at the University of East Anglia. That levels
> of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are rising is not disputed. We
> have known since the 19th century that carbon dioxide was a crucial
> greenhouse gas. Venus has a lot of it and is hot as hell. Mars has
> almost none and is cold as ice.
And Venus is twice as close to the sun than mars...
But the moon, now that has no GH gases and hits 105`C in the
daytime! Wow, thats what GH gasses do, They COOL the daytime
highs!
Ever wondered why Venus has almost no diurnal temperature change?
erschro...@gmail.com
The second equilibrium takes hundreds of years -- turn over in the
oceans is far slower than in the atmosphere.