Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

Cycloptichorn wrote:

And more importantly, rising sea temperatures kill off Plankton - which is more responsible for CO2-O2 cycle then trees by far. Much more.

Rising temperature kills also little babies.
As to plankton, you shouldn't worry much. They have survived more than 3 billions years, several huge meteorites, times when CO2 was 10, 20x the current levels and temperatures where 10°C higher. So I suspect they'll even survive to doomers.

Correct. But one which can't be controlled by humans.

See: Water vapour feedback

Please link to where I said that plankton would go extinct, or not survive as a species. Because that's what your response implied I was saying, and then threw in the 'doomer' insult just for kicks.
Cycloptichorn

An important critique of the satellite record is its shortness - adding a few years on to the record or picking a particular time frame can change the trends considerably.

Planktons are not dying b/c of sea warming. Don't tell nonsense !

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Please link to where I said that plankton would go extinct, or not survive as a species. Because that's what your response implied I was saying, and then threw in the 'doomer' insult just for kicks.
Cycloptichorn

I used extremes because I didn't feel like arguing with you and your bogus arguments.
Planktons are not dying b/c of sea warming. Don't tell nonsense !
A warming means more vegetal productivity in general. And planktons prosper (or not) not because of temperature but mostly because of the presence of nutrients : iron for example is a limiting factor and some hillarious geoengineers even propose to seed the sea with iron oxydes to sequester more CO2 (well they proposed back in the 70s to spray black carbon over the poles to avert global... cooling, so why not).
There is a NASA world map of phytoplankton concentration. If you were really interested to learn, you'll see that it has nothing to do with temperature, period.

Amsterdam Scientists worry about uptake of greenhouse gas
Global warming could destabilize the plankton of the oceans

Global warming of the surface layers of the oceans reduces the upward transport of nutrients into the surface layers. This generates chaos among the plankton, according to a recent study of the University of Amsterdam and the Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica (CWI) in the Netherlands, and the University of Hawaii (USA). In Nature of 19 January 2006 the scientists present advanced computer simulations, which predict that plankton growth will show strong fluctuations when the supply of nutrients is reduced. This may have a negative impact on the production of the oceans and on uptake of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into the oceans.

The trend line is clearly up, and that means the earth is getting hotter, so your contention, and other clueless denialists', that the earth hasn't warmed since 1998 clearly runs counter to the data.

High Seas wrote:

Thomas wrote:

okie wrote:

So how come the temperatures were rising even before much of the increase in industry and the existence of most of the evil automobiles, Walter? What caused the beginning of this rise?

Were they? Temperatures started their rise in the mid eighteenhundreds. Although there were no automobiles at the time, there was plenty of heavy industry, an exploding number of people who burned coal for heating, and other major emittors of greenhouse gasses.

Nonsense, Thomas, and you know it. Temperatures obviously started to rise 21,500 years B.C., or there's no explanation for the fact we in the Northern hemisphere don't all live under a mile-high glacier

Could that be about the time that ancient man discovered fire? I am sure it had to be man's fault.

Quote:

In Nature of 19 January 2006 the scientists present advanced computer simulations, which predict that plankton growth will show strong fluctuations when the supply of nutrients is reduced.

http://www.cwi.nl/pr/press-releases/2006/pb-Nature-en-190106.html

Nice try, thanks for playing!

Cycloptichorn

HANOVER, Germany, May 21 (UPI) -- German scientists re-examining projected melting of Arctic permafrost from global warming say massive releases of methane are unlikely this century.

Might our distant ancestors have developed pre-historic SUVs?

but find first a study which OBSERVES a dying or decrease of plankton due to the "unprecedented warming" over the 20th century

Global warming will reduce ocean productivity, marine life


A 10-year, satellite-based analysis has shown for the first time that primary biological productivity in the oceans - the growth of phytoplankton that forms the basis for the rest of the marine food chain - is tightly linked to climate change, and would be reduced by global warming.

The study, published this week in the journal Nature by researchers from Oregon State University and five other institutions, found that on a global scale, a warmer climate could cause a rapid, overall reduction in marine life.

"This clearly showed that overall ocean productivity decreases when the climate warms," said lead author Michael Behrenfeld, an OSU professor of botany and expert on remote sensing of marine biology.

"There is significant regional variability, with some areas showing enhanced production and some area losses," Behrenfeld said. "But on a global basis there is an inverse relationship - increased temperatures cause decreased marine phytoplankton production."

This climate response can be traced to increased stratification in the oceans, the study showed. When the ocean surface warms, it essentially becomes "lighter" than the cold, dense water below, which is loaded with nutrients. This process effectively separates phytoplankton in the surface layer - which need light for photosynthesis - from the nutrients below them, which they also need for growth.

The satellite data used in the study were from NASA's SeaWiFS satellite, or Sea-viewing Wide-Field-of-view Sensor. Since its launch in 1997, SeaWiFS has measured changes in the color of the ocean - as more and more phytoplankton are added, the color shifts from blue toward green. By studying these color changes from space, scientists can calculate how much phytoplankton pigment is in the water, relate this to photosynthetic rate, and correlate these changes to simultaneous changes in climate.

The first climate-driven change in ocean production measured in this study occurred between 1997 and 1999, when the oceans were recovering from one of the strongest El Nino events on record. With the end of the El Nino, global climate began to cool and there was a surge in ocean phytoplankton productivity that peaked in late 1999.

The second climate event was a long-term warming trend that started in 2000 and continues today. Over this period, the ocean sea surface became overall warmer and more stratified, and phytoplankton productivity went down almost in lockstep at a rate of about 190 million tons of carbon a year. On a regional scale, the decreases in production often exceeded 30 percent.

Despite their microscopic size, ocean phytoplankton are responsible for about half of the photosynthesis on Earth, a process that removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and converts it into organic carbon to fuel nearly every ocean ecosystem.

Compared to terrestrial land plants, however, phytoplankton use a very small amount of biomass to convert large amounts of carbon, because they are eaten by predators about as quickly as they grow. The entire global phytoplankton biomass is consumed every two to six days, in contrast to land plants that might have turnover rates of a year to hundreds of years.

"This very fast turnover, along with the fact that phytoplankton are limited to just a thin veneer of the ocean surface where there is enough sunlight to sustain photosynthesis, makes them very responsive to changes in climate," Behrenfeld said. "This was why we could relate productivity changes to climate variability in only a 10-year record. Such connections would be much harder to detect from space for terrestrial plant biomass."

Results of the study may provide important insight into how ocean biology might respond to sustained global warming, the researchers said. "A common prediction among global climate models is that warming will cause ocean production to decrease at mid-latitudes and low latitudes, due to intensified stratification," Behrenfeld said, "This is precisely the response we observed."

Climate models also predict long term global warming will cause enhanced phytoplankton production near the poles, because of longer growing seasons, and shifts in the organisms dominating different ecosystems across the globe. These predictions have not yet been confirmed by satellite ocean measurements, and detection of them may require a longer record or advances in satellite technology.

Climate not only influences ocean biology, but ocean biology influences climate.

"Rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are a key part of global warming," Behrenfeld said. "This study shows that as the climate warms, phytoplankton production goes down, but this also means that carbon dioxide uptake by ocean plants will decrease. That would allow carbon dioxide to accumulate more rapidly in the atmosphere, making the problem worse."

Better understanding this "feedback mechanism" which compounds global warming is a top priority for study, the researchers say.

Source: Oregon State University

Sigh, you really are pathetic. Try using Google yourself before you spout such crap off.

The authors report that their experimental results "confirm the theoretical prediction that if algal effects on C chemistry are strong, increased phytoplankton productivity because of atmospheric CO2 elevation should become proportional to the increased atmospheric CO2," which means, in their words, that "productivity would double at the predicted increase of atmospheric CO2 to 700 ppm." Although they note that "strong algal effects (resulting in high pH levels) at which this occurs are rare under natural conditions," they still predict "a potential productivity increase of up to 40%, at observed pH levels for marine species with low affinity for HCO3-," and that effects on algal production in freshwater systems could potentially be larger, such that a "doubling of atmospheric CO2 may result in an increase of the productivity of more than 50%.".

good last post mt
hurts me to say that as you are almost invariably wrong
but you are not silly

Steve 41oo wrote:

good last post mt
hurts me to say that as you are almost invariably wrong
but you are not silly

Thank you Steve, maybe it's just because I read the papers, assess the methods and look at the uncertainties instead of taking for granted sensationnalist press releases ?

Steve 41oo wrote:

good last post mt
hurts me to say that as you are almost invariably wrong
but you are not silly

Thank you Steve, maybe it's just because I read the papers, assess the methods and look at the uncertainties instead of taking for granted sensationnalist press releases ?

Let me ask, are you basing your judgment upon the fact that we can't tell just how the ocean upwelling works in a predictible global model, or are you specifcially arguing against the idea that ocean stratification cutting off food supply exists at all?

Cycloptichorn

well I think you right again, I will read my newspaper with a more skeptical eye from now on.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/

Steve 41oo wrote:

well I think you right again, I will read my newspaper with a more skeptical eye from now on.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/

Maybe google scholar would help, lol.
See for example phytoplankton+temperature
or phytoplankton+co2
So bad real life is more complicated than simple and definitive theories.