Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is highest in 300m yrs,mass extinction almost inevitable

ATSmediaPRO
O_o The seattle Times posted this interactive article last month



The Seattle times article is indeed telling and is well written IMO. I like the visuals - how a tropical reef should look and how it does after exposure to too much Co2.

I had no idea high levels changed GABA-A functioning in the brain of sea life, thereby altering behavior.

TextOnly last year did researchers learn why: Elevated CO2 disrupts brain signaling in a manner common among many fish.

It sounds like lots of work done through the years is culminating to give us a good picture of what we might expect in the years to come. I remember when they made taking corral illegal - due to bleaching and it being threatened. Of course most articles tend to point to how it will impact us. Would like to see one that tells us how it will impact the earth 2000 years from now - if at all. In this way we can get an idea of how long it would take for it to return to normal.

I doubt there is a way to stop this. Volcanoes and other natural processes already release a lot into oceans. It would take years to change policies, and making something like our own bodies more alkaline can be difficult so I can't even imagine how we would begin to reverse this in oceans. I'm sure our footprint being lightened would not hurt but isn't it too late? At least for the short term?

It's just not necessarily rare as it once was, it seems.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Not usually one for conspiracy - and I'm sure this isn't one

But, one has to wonder who would benefit most from an attempt to poison the well of science and reason?

:-)

Funny thing is - it will ultimately work against them by making the system stronger than it already is

reply to post by Spiramirabilis

I agree it will ultimately make the system stronger. History shows that too. It's happened before with junky science working into main stream to be accepted because of someone's agenda. At times that's been the Church and at others, other directions. The problem is ....that stronger part can take a century or two by looking at that same history of past examples.

Who benefits is the real wicked thing here for how this is playing out. 'Who' is obvious, IMO. The same people that made the Stock Markets are helping gleefully make the Carbon Markets to similarly trade what doesn't actually exist in the real world. Like derivative markets in Dr. Seuss's own version for sheer scope and size of the scam.

That's by the subtle push push push for AGW or man made global warming to inherently suggest a man-made solution ....at one hell of a price, of course.

...when I think science, in the unmuddled form, DOES say climate is changing. The direction? Not entirely certain yet. It seems a bit of a yo-yo on that one with some bitterly colder and others wishing water would come just once in a great while these days.

Rather than focus on the bureaucracy and politics of man made solutions to downright un-Godly profits to be had by all involved ....if the focus were strictly and entirely to the factual of what IS happening? The majority of us wouldn't approach every report on the topic with a 'What angle are they playing to sell AGW this time?', which honestly has come to be the end result, IMO.

The other example here of outright publishing papers for profit and fraud mixed with 'ehhh... the readers can sort it out' attitude for true review of material ..just adds to the chaos.

....if the focus were strictly and entirely to the factual of what IS happening? The majority of us wouldn't approach every report on the topic with a 'What angle are they playing to sell AGW this time?', which honestly has come to be the end result, IMO.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000

Beauty - and truth - is often in the eye of the beholder Wrabbit - and conspiracy theory apparently in the DNA of most that visit this site

It's human nature to be suspicious - but what I find fascinating (and disheartening) is suspicion for suspicions sake - especially when people would rather die than be fooled :-)

Scientists are human - fallible and dishonest - just like the rest of us

But - Science? Do you see the difference?

Between the big money and resource guys trying to shutdown the discussion - and the thousands of scientists begging to be heard? It's an easy (and obvious) choice for me...

I'll tell you what though - time will tell

Meanwhile, this thread is about the declining health of our oceans - I wonder what's up with that?

reply to post by Cabin


You know, Cabin - I'm having a hard time reading environmental news these days...

There was a kind of blackout during the last year - an ailing planet had to take a backseat to the U.S. elections - and, frankly - I'm not sure that wasn't a good thing. But that's another subject - for another thread maybe

Now - the web is weighted down with these stories - as if our lives depended on it

And still - I feel it's all about as useful as a message in a bottle sometimes

Marine life (in addition to a lot of other wildlife the world over) has been behaving very oddly the past couple years - every account makes me anxious

Human beings being the way we are - the worst of it might have to be on us before we begin to agree

I find myself watching more and stupider, then even stupider television - from a simpler time

not useful - but it takes the edge off

maybe I should take up drinking

:-)

S&F from me

reply to post by Spiramirabilis


Indeed.. the Oceans are a topic of extreme interest. On topic, I was watching a show last night on National Geographic. You may have seen it at some point as it sounds like something which would interest you too.

What it did was use the hyper-accurate surveying of the ocean floor around the world (some far more accurate than others) to "lower the water level" bit by bit and show the landscape as it exists below water, all the way down to the deep trenches.

What struck me in relation to this thread and very specifically for our talk here ...was a fact I sure didn't know. They siad by the science of it, there could be up to a few thousand volcanoes, world wide, erupting within the oceans as we speak. As we're sitting here talking about it. They know of a mutlitude in active states of eruption at any given moment up and down the central ocean ridges.

I have to wonder then...if geology is getting more active (and IRIS quake watch shows one heck of a busy Pacific Rim for overlapping rings almost all the way around recently) how quickly and how severely will things like C02 in the oceans skyrocket?

See what I mean about how AGW obsession vs. pure science of 'what the heck is actually happening' may lead people to literally look the wrong directions to miss the real issues? After all...people talk about the arctic melting and that's worrisome ...but which is more worrisome? The fact the air temp is NOT warming so much it supports this melting ...or the fact they seem to gloss over what may well be causing it ..100% OUT of our control...from beneath? (just one example on the arctic)

See what I mean about how AGW obsession vs. pure science of 'what the heck is actually happening' may lead people to literally look the wrong directions to miss the real issues?

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Science is always looking - and wondering

But - what is this about looking in the wrong direction?

:-)

This is the stuff of opinion - not science. Science is just looking. Studying, testing, researching, exploring...reporting. On everything - including the information you got from that documentary

One thing doesn't exclude another - and as of right now, the consensus is: we're crapping in our nest and it's affecting our climate

Nobody has said it was the only thing happening - or that it's causing the only effect

We don't have to worry that science will ever quit wondering, looking, asking or studying. We only need worry that it might be prevented from focusing on what needs to be done now

reply to post by Spiramirabilis


I think you make excellent points, as always, and it's a pleasure to debate with ya. If debate is even the right word. Exploring the topic in chat is almost a better description sometimes, I think. lol...

We don't have to worry that science will ever quit wondering, looking, asking or studying. We only need worry that it might be prevented from focusing on what needs to be done now

Along those lines? I think this is where the agenda science and science in the sense we think of it, start to create the problem by overlapping. It's where looking in the wrong direction comes.

Say, I invent myself anti-gravity propulsion. Somehow, I just stumble across whatever the little quirk is for magnetism and electrical fields that makes otherwise worthless toys do wondrous things? Well.. If no one on the net believes me .... politicians don't care to look at it...and leadership's advisers simply state it's not a possible thing, ignore it? Then agenda will have stifled science ...and this was, on very different areas of course, something reported to be happening clear back in the early Bush years. It's not slowed or stopped, I imagine.

So I do wonder, again, to topic, when we're seeing things in the ocean that would be consistent with massive volcanic activity as easily as the models suggest man's presence and production of the gases could...sorta...in creative data sets..have wide global impact? The obvious might be the answer.

Why focus, as media and Government both do, endlessly on how we need to feel so guilty about what we're doing to live life, we need to break ourselves financially to solve it..(which is the direction of most everything on the topic for policy and public decision making today.) when... Umm.. Hellooooooooo Washington? Turn on Nat-Geo occasionally. The evidence consistent with major volcanic activity might actually BE from volcanic activity on a significant increase....out of sight and far far out of current mindsets.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


:-)

Well, Wrabbit - this has got to be one of the more low key debates I've seen here - so, we’re probably just chatting. Good chatting with you too - and you've also brought up a lot of good points. Interesting - I understand where you're coming from - we just come at it from very different places I think

Also, we're monopolizing the thread with something that's not exactly off topic - but not exactly on topic either

Why focus, as media and Government both do, endlessly on how we need to feel so guilty about what we're doing to live life, we need to break ourselves financially to solve it..(which is the direction of most everything on the topic for policy and public decision making today.) when... Umm.. Hellooooooooo Washington? Turn on Nat-Geo occasionally. The evidence consistent with major volcanic activity might actually BE from volcanic activity on a significant increase....out of sight and far far out of current mindsets.

Oh, so much... :-)

Guilt? I've noticed this as a recurring theme in many of these discussions - and it always comes down to a left right thing - but you use this word and I see the whole thread of your thinking...

OK - maybe just a part of the thread - but still

Remove the guilt aspect and see it for what it is. This is a problem we've created not out of sin - but from our own resourcefulness. Kinda like beavers :-)

Nobody (that is rational) wants to make this about deprivation or making people feel bad - about themselves, about their government, our culture...If we deal with this pragmatically and not emotionally we stand a fighting chance

You see this as an artificial problem being manufactured by government, the media - big business - who knows who or what all?

Some people see it as being just a problem - a situation - to be dealt with. It's about saving our climate and something of our current lifestyle and culture for the future - and future generations. It's about sustainability - balance. I have such a sense that people feel they're being asked to suffer for our sins, or support some kind of enormous financial scam - when this is more about a fight for survival

I've heard it argued that we should just let it go - it is what it is - and nature will shake things out the way she always does. From a brutally realistic point of view - I can see that. I don’t like it - but I understand it

As a humanist I just see pain and misery in our future and a lot of (possibly, hopefully…preventable) suffering

We should take this to another thread that's better suited - but we both know how this will go there - and I am enjoying the sanity

So, outta here with one of my favorite sayings:
"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they will never sit in."

I wish it were that simple. I think fear and suspicion - and a lack of understanding - is probably going to cook our communal goose

Oh, god - did I go and say communal?
:-)

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I don't think it's any more or less than it ever was. Factor in the espionage aspect we've seen with science that big money doesn't like, like Big Tobacco and now Fossil Fuels (many of the same players incidentally which should be another clue) and you see (hopefully) why many scientists hide their work until complete, which of course lead down a road we're both familiar with, to court cases which found no wrongdoing but resulted in scientists being less able to keep their work to themselves leaving everyone vulnerable to confusing rhetoric and cherry picking by lesser scientists.

Spiramirabilis
This is the stuff of opinion - not science. Science is just looking. Studying, testing, researching, exploring...reporting. On everything - including the information you got from that documentary

And what if we're all "scienceing" from a completely wrong starting point of view?

Till today the world of science is doing this.

1. It's warming up.
2. Too much CO2 is one of the big reasons.
3. Humanity is responsable for a large part of it.

-> result till today.

We can't explain it all as it doesn't entirely fit the actual models so we have a fight now.
Man made warming up or not Man made warming up.

I came across this today, from IPSO (International Programme on the State of the Ocean) and IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature).

London – October 3rd 2013: An international panel of marine scientists is demanding
urgent remedies to halt ocean degradation based on findings that the rate, speed
and impacts of change in the global ocean are greater, faster and more imminent
than previously thought.

Results from the latest International Programme on the State of the Ocean
(IPSO)/IUCN review of science on anthropogenic stressors on the ocean go beyond
the conclusion reached last week by the UN climate change panel the IPCC that the
ocean is absorbing much of the warming and unprecedented levels of carbon dioxide
and warn that the cumulative impact of this with other ocean stressors is far graver
than previous estimates.

Decreasing oxygen levels in the ocean caused by climate change and nitrogen runoff, combined with other chemical pollution and rampant overfishing are undermining
the ability of the ocean to withstand these so-called ‘carbon perturbations’, meaning
its role as Earth’s ‘buffer’ is seriously compromised.

reply to post by Cabin


Regardless of the AGW debate, the wanton dumping we do to the Ocean can hardly be good for it. Add on top of that overfishing and it's not right direction.

If plastic keeps breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces that eventually get consumed in the ocean food chain, those eventually make into our diet for everyone that eats seafood. Yum....... No wonder my fish tastes like plastic....

I'd also be curious as to the effect of oil spills in those local ecosystems. More specifically how are the ocean floors in the area around the DeepWater Horizon Spill. Some of the Chemicals we used there were supposed to just sink the oil from the surface and bring it down to the seabed. I'd be very curious as to how things look now down there.

Blah blah. Their "global warming" models have been shown grossly inaccurate. So they are shifting the goalposts.
I, for one, am sick of hearing about it.

reply to post by JayinAR


And what do climate models, accurate or otherwise have to do with physical measurable processes going on with the oceans right now?

JayinAR
Blah blah. Their "global warming" models have been shown grossly inaccurate. So they are shifting the goalposts.
I, for one, am sick of hearing about it.

Global warming models don't and can't take into account how our planet could react with the amount of "surplus" of CO2 we're pumping out on a daily basis.

It could become vicious and very ugly if we don't find the right answers soon.
Meanwhile denying and going with "no global warming so CO2 isn't the issue after all, let's burn even more of it hapilly", isn't an option anymore.

reply to post by Cabin


Cabin, would it make any difference to you if you would find out that the entire first paragraph of the Guardian article you've posted in the OP is a complete fabrication?

The oceans are more acidic now than they have been for at least 300m years, due to carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels, and a mass extinction of key species may already be almost inevitable as a result, leading marine scientists warned on Thursday.

The oceans are more alkaline now than they have been for at least the most part of the last 300m years. And the oceans are definitely more alkaline now than they have been for more than 60m years.

The State of the Oceans report itself sounds quite alarming, but nowhere in any of the studies the report is based on will you find a statement that supports the claim made by the author of the article or the title of your OP for that matter.

You will, however, find that exactly the opposite is true.

One of the studies linked in the report cites another scientific article,The Geological Record of Ocean Acidification, included in the paper is a reconstruction of atmospheric CO2 concentrations and mean ocean surface pH levels over the past 300m years.



As shown by the graphic, mean ocean surface pH levels were on average more acidic for most of the past 300 million years than they are now. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations and ocean surface pH levels are averaged with a resolution of 10 and 20m year intervals respectively and as the authors note it is therefore difficult to compare the past with projections for the future, based on reconstructions alone.

The geological record is imprinted with numerous examples of biotic responses to natural perturbations in global carbon cycling and climate change, some of which could have been caused by large-scale ocean acidification.

By reconstructing past changes in marine environmental conditions, we can test hypotheses for the causes and effects of future relevant stressors such as ocean acidification on ecosystems. However, for the fossil record to be of direct utility in assessing future ecosystem impacts, the occurrence and extent of past ocean acidification must be unambiguously identified.

In parts the paper is also written in an alarming tone (note the abstract), but for entirely different reasons. It's one thing to point out where we could enter uncharted territory based on future projections, but also explain where research is still inadequate to provide conclusive evidence.

It's a completely different thing to fabricate scare stories and to claim Earth is now in a state it has never been in before, and a mass extinction of key species may already be almost inevitable as a result.

In this sense the Guardian article amounts to nothing more than spin and propaganda.

The news concerning climate are getting worse and worse, nearly every time I open up news sources. The evidence is already overwhelming and unless in the near future somebody starts dealing with issues more strongly, the results could be catastrophic.

On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts.

On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage.

So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This 'double ethical bind' we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.

- Stephen Schneider

Ocean adicification in deep times

Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations over the past 60 million years

We're doomed.....All of us are doomed.

Well, we can stop polluting and then dump a mountain of epsom salts spread out into the ocean to reduce the acidification. The tiny plastic particles are threatening the great lakes from cosmetics and other technology now. We won't even have to bring our fish into a taxidermist to preserve them soon, they will be made of plastic

The only way we can fix this is to stop polluting. The best way to stop polluting is to quit buying junk that we do not really need and to build things to last. Make cars that get good gas mileage and use public transportation where it is feasible. Public transportation is not that feasible in areas like this but is feasible within cities. Up here, they probably waste fuel by running buses between the towns on an hourly schedule, it is inefficient. a couple times a day is appropriate.

So how can we fix it, we need to do this ourselves, the government makes a mess of it and they have too many ties with big business and are infatuated with a growing economy instead of a real and stable economy. Those guys are so gullible, they think that increasing medical industry jobs is good for us. Seems to me that those jobs are reliant on us being sick.....I'd rather be healthy than sick. If I believed them I would have twenty diseases, I just have metabolic issues, seems that when you get older or when you are young you can't eat everything they say we can eat.

So I guess we are doomed. Well, at least we're all in the same boat with the rest of nature.

reply to post by talklikeapirat


The Guardian article has been edited to reflect the IPSO report more accurately. The rate of acidification is higher than the past 300my.