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

Some years back (at least ten years) georgeob repeated the climate denial commonplace that scientists working in studies on climate change cannot be trusted to be objective because they make money doing such research. Now that's a serious foolishness as regards how researchers are financed but there's another far more ridiculous aspect to that claim.

George was positing that profit must negatively influence/bias statements on the science of some theory set and its supporting evidence. Yet he'd somehow missed that climate science denial is funded by the fossil fuel industries which rake in trillions of dollars from their activities.

I'm still shaking my head on that one.

When it comes to NOAA versus some grad student my.money is on NOAA and basic chemistry and physics.

So exactly how acidic are the oceans, hightor?

So, exactly how acidic are the oceans, MJ?

Where?

Take your pick. How acidic are the oceans?

What kind of stupid question is that? I told you before, I'm not a scientist. You think I've got access to all the complicated data that is compiled at all the different locations and depths in the oceans? I'm not going to play your silly childish game. You're not worth engaging in a serious discussion. You think you and your little coterie of fearful gunbunnies and stubborn denialists know more than scientists who actually study the oceans. Fine. I really don't give a **** what you think. Go revel in your ignorance.

One that goes to the heart of the issue. It appears that it is also the kind of question that you'd rather not answer. Here, I'll make it easier for you. Which ocean is the most acidic? And what would the pH of that ocean be?

Google says:

You realize of course that all oceans are just one ocean. We give particular areas of ocean different names, but they're all just one huge body of water. tke a look at a globe sometime.

IF YOU WAN TO AGY\UE,ARGUE WITH NOAA:


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In the 200-plus years since the industrial revolution began, the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere has increased due to humans burning fossil fuels (such as car emissions) and changing the way land is used (such as deforestation). During this time, the pH of surface ocean waters has fallen by 0.1 pH units. The pH scale, like the Richter scale, is logarithmic, so this change represents approximately a 30 percent increase in acidity.


The ocean absorbs about 30% of the CO2 that is released in the atmosphere, and as levels of atmospheric CO2 increase, so do the levels in the ocean. When CO2 is absorbed by seawater, a series of chemical reactions occur resulting in the increased concentration of hydrogen ions. This increase causes the seawater to become more acidic and causes carbonate ions to be relatively less abundant.


New NOAA, partner buoy in American Samoa opens window into a changing ocean
NOAA and partners have launched a new buoy in Fagatele Bay within NOAA’s National Marine Sanctuary of American Samoa to measure the amount of carbon dioxide in the waters around a vibrant tropical coral reef ecosystem.
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Carbonate ions are an important building block of structures such as sea shells and coral skeletons. Decreases in carbonate ions can make building and maintaining shells and other calcium carbonate structures difficult for calcifying organisms such as oysters, clams, sea urchins, shallow water corals, deep sea corals, and calcareous plankton. The pteropod, or "sea butterfly," is a tiny sea creature about the size of a small pea. Pteropods are eaten by organisms ranging in size from tiny krill to whales and are a major food source for North Pacific juvenile salmon. When pteropod shells were placed in sea water with pH and carbonate levels projected for the year 2100, the shells slowly dissolved after 45 days. Researchers have already discovered severe levels of pteropod shell dissolution
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in the Southern Ocean, which encircles Antarctica. Pteropods are small organisms, but imagine the impact if they were to disappear from the marine ecosystem!
Changes in ocean chemistry can affect the behavior of non-calcifying organisms as well. The ability of certain fish, like pollock
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, to detect predators is decreased in more acidic waters. Recent studies have shown that decreased pH levels also affect the ability of larval clownfish
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to locate suitable habitat. When subjected to lower pH levels, the larval clownfish lost their chemosensory ability to distinguish between their favored and protective anemone habitat among the reefs and unfavorable habitats like mangroves. Additionally, greater acidity impairs their ability to distinguish between the "smell" of their own species and that of predators. These two factors create an increased risk of predation. When these organisms are at risk, the entire food web may also be at risk. Ocean acidification is expected to impact many ocean species to varying degrees. While some species will be harmed by ocean acidification, photosynthetic algae and seagrasses may benefit from higher CO2 conditions in the ocean, as they require CO2 to live just like plants on land.


Saildrone is first to circumnavigate Antarctica, in search for carbon dioxide
It was an audacious idea: To send an unmanned saildrone on a 13,670-mile journey around Antarctica alone, at the mercy of the most hostile seas on the planet. In winter.
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Estimates of future carbon dioxide levels, based on business as usual emission scenarios, indicate that by the end of this century the surface waters of the ocean could be nearly 150% more acidic, resulting in a pH that the oceans haven’t experienced for more than 20 million years.
Ocean acidification is currently affecting the entire world’s oceans, including coastal estuaries and waterways. Today, more than two billion people worldwide rely on food from the ocean as their primary source of protein. Many jobs and economies in the U.S. and around the world depend on the fish and shellfish that live in the ocean.
Over the last decade, there has been much focus in the ocean science community on studying the potential impacts of ocean acidification. NOAA's Ocean Acidification Program serves to build relationships between scientists, resource managers, policy makers, and the public in order to research and monitor the effects of changing ocean chemistry on economically and ecologically important ecosystems such as fisheries and coral reefs.
Because sustained efforts to monitor ocean acidification worldwide are only beginning, it is currently impossible to predict exactly how ocean acidification impacts will cascade throughout the marine food chain and affect the overall structure of marine ecosystems. With the pace of ocean acidification accelerating, scientists, resource managers, and policymakers recognize the urgent need to strengthen the science as a basis for sound decision making and action.


New tool helps oyster growers prepare for changing ocean chemistry
A team of scientists installed a "black box" of sensors in an oyster hatchery to monitor water quality
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EDUCATION CONNECTION
The resources included in this collection will provide support to teachers who are educating students about the cause and effects of ocean acidification. Some of the websites help teachers to provide background information in the form of videos and other multimedia activities. Links to data sources allow students to access real-time information about carbon dioxide levels in seawater and in the atmosphere. Lessons are included that will provide ideas on how to use this data with students. Ocean acidification is a problem impacts the ocean ecosystem as well as commercial industries like oyster farms. This topic can be taught in conjunction with lessons about food webs and ecosystems, the environmental impacts of climate change and CO2 emissions, and chemistry lessons concerning real-life applications.
Adapted from material provided by the National Ocean Service and NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory.
Collection created November 2013

Lesson plans & activities
Off base: Seawater buffer lab activity (HS)
Marine osteoporosis: pH lab activity (MS)
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Understanding ocean acidification hands-on activities (ES, MS, HS)
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Ocean acidification and dry ice: Hands-on activity (ES, MS, HS)
Multimedia
Ocean Today: The acid test (video)
Making waves: Ocean acidification (video)
Ocean acidification's impact on oysters and other shellfish (video)
Sea change: The pacific's perilous turn (video & news article)
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Q&A with NOAA researchers about ocean acidification (text)
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Data resources
Ocean acidification observations and data
NOAA View Data Imagery Portal
Real-time ocean acidification data from NANOOS
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PMEL Carbon Program data viewer
Background information
Ocean acidification communication toolkit: Dungeness crab case study
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution: Ocean acidification
offsite link
What is ocean acidification?
A primer on pH
Career resources
People of National Ocean Service: Meet Dr. Paulo Maurin
Chemical oceanographer Dr. Leticia Barbero
Oceanographer and carbon cycle specialist Dr. Jessica Cross
Q&A with Dr. Sophie Chu
Related stories
A more acidic Arctic? NOAA deploys first buoy in region to monitor levels of CO2 absorbed by ocean (2013)
An upwelling crisis: Ocean acidification (2009)
More Collections
Gulf oil spill


Tsunamis


Ocean pollution


Ocean currents


Ocean floor features


Tides


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Some people think that rising acidity of the oceans means they're approaching the pH of vinegar. That's not the case. The oceans, as a whole, are slightly basic and the increased acidification is very small. (Different readings can be found a different depths and can be affected by sunken organic matter and terrestrial runoff.) However, when species evolve to exist in a particular environment very small changes can disturb the food chain and modify the chemical exchange at the molecular level.

nap

excellent point. All oceanic salts are based on Alkali metals which are basics, so ocean dissociation of salty water is alkaline. Adding a world load of CO is NOT as able to acidify the oceans like the "Great Dying" of the Permian when the oceans were acidified by Sulfur compounds. Carbonic acid , taken up in seawater will lower the pH a few tenths of a unit , even when the sky is loaded with CO, but thats enough to bleach coral as the coral's Calcium/Magnesium carbonates(aragonite minerals) try to "buffer' the incoming acid dissociate. Sealife evolved to fit within a fairly nrrow range of dissociation product (pH, alkalinity, etc). While sea-life will both go extinct and evolve, weve seen from the fossil record, the examples of rapid evolution that gave rise to whole new groups of organisms after a great extinction event or two. But we still are talking tens of thousands of years, not mere decades.

Although the average decrease of "only" scarcely 0.1 initially a very slight reduction, but one must take into account that the pH scale is a logarithmic one.
This means that a reduction by 0.1 of the pH value actually is a tenfold increase in the acid content of the sea water.

It is actually quite interesting (and disturbing) to think about how the biosphere will respond to and compensate for rising CO2 levels. Ultimately, it will process all the CO2 being dumped into the atmosphere (and oceans) at an accelerated rate due to industrialism, but the question is how and what the side-effects will be.

As fossil-fuel deposits have been building up for millions of years as part of the overall evolution of the biosphere, atmospheric and oceanic CO2 levels have been able to decrease, which as made it possible for certain species to do better than they would if those CO2 levels had not have dropped.

Now, as the levels are going back up, it is logical that other organisms that fare better with higher CO2 concentrations will gain ground. Presumably that will result in the other species facing more predators, including microbes and other small species that will consume them at a faster rate.

Ironically, the increasing metabolic rate of oceanic life could result in faster buildup of sediments in the ocean and thus a faster rate of fossil fuel growth in the future. It's like we are cashing in the evolution of the biosphere that has been progressing so we can go back to the more robust levels of energy and carbon-cycling that made large, aggressive species like Dinosaurs and Megalodons, etc. thrive.

In a way, our human economy is like an artificial evolutionary process where we keep building more powerful machines and buildings in greater numbers, and those large, powerful artificial energy-consuming structures/machines are like the Dinosaurs and Megalodons of a modern Anthropocene age.

Maybe the oceans will thus evolve to become a giant septic system for Anthropocene industrialism, and the sediments will be used to keep feeding those industrially-powered 'dinosaurs' until they somehow cause their own extinction.

That's good.

In response to my question of what the pH of the ocean is, hightor asked "where." That was ambiguous. He should have said: At what depth.

You're still on the hook, hightor. How acidic is the ocean? What is the pH that reflects this acidic condition?

Certainly the surface pH and the pH at i.e. 1200 m depth differs.
But since it does so in various oceans, i. e. Pacific compared to North Atlantic, the geographical question is the one to put at first.

How?

Where?

When?