Ocean acidification

[menglish]

I was looking through Science journal today and came across this research article and thought it would be an interesting read for the scientists in the hobby.

I think many of us already knew this will happen.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Thanks for posting that article.

 

[Scrubber_steve]

I was looking through Science journal today and came across this research article and thought it would be an interesting read for the scientists in the hobby.

I think many of us already knew this will happen.

From the article
"Although Ocean Acidification associated changes are expected to negatively affect the
accretion of coral reefs "
and
"We measured CaCO3 sediment dissolution using 57 individual in situ advective benthic chamber incubations at five reef locations in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Incubations were undertaken over a diel light-dark cycle, and four of the reef incubations were run under control and end-of-century [high partial pressure of CO2, low pH] Ocean Acidification conditions."

There's always other outcomes, based on evidence rather than assumptions.

How Gaia and Coral Reefs Regulate Ocean pH
Although some researchers have raised concerns about possible negative effects of rising CO2 on ocean surface pH, there are several lines of evidence demonstrating marine ecosystems are far more sensitive to fluxes of carbon dioxide from ocean depths and the biosphere’s response than from invasions of atmospheric CO2. There is also ample evidence that lower pH does not inhibit photosynthesis or lower ocean productivity (Mackey 2015). On the contrary, rising CO2 makes photosynthesis less costly. Furthermore in contrast to researchers arguing rising atmospheric CO2 will inhibit calcification, increased photosynthesis not only increases calcification, paradoxically the process of calcification produces CO2 and drops pH to levels lower than predicted by climate change models. A combination of warmer tropical waters and coral reef biology results in out-gassing of CO2 from the ocean to the atmosphere, making coral reefs relatively insensitive to the effects of atmospheric CO2 on ocean pH.

How NOAA and Bad Modeling Invented an “Ocean Acidification” Icon:
Part 1 - Sea Butterflies
Bednarsek assumes anthropogenic carbon is mostly accumulating near the surface based on modeling results. However as detailed in Part 2, all ocean acidification models are deeply flawed based on an incorrect assumption that CO2 enters the ocean and is then transported like an inert tracer. But CO2 is not inert! When CO2 first invades sunlit surface waters, it indeed dissolves into 3 forms of inorganic carbon (DIC) and lowers pH. But in contrast to those models, DIC is rapidly assimilated into particulate organic carbon via photosynthesis, which raises pH. Particulate organic carbon (alive or dead) is heavy, and if not consumed and recycled, it sinks. For millions of years, this process created and maintained a DIC/pH gradient with high pH/low DIC near the surface and low pH/higher DIC at depth.

Part 2 - Bad Models
However model results are based on three very dubious assumptions:

1) Models assume surface layers absorb anthropogenic CO2 by reaching equilibrium with atmospheric concentrations. With minor adjustments, models simply calculate how much dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) will be added to the ocean based on increased atmospheric CO2 since pre-industrial times.

2) Models assume CO2 will diffuse into the upper ocean layers and be transported throughout the ocean in a similar fashion to tracers, like CFCs. Because CFCs accumulate disproportionately near the surface, models assume DIC does as well.

3) Models assume the biosphere is in a steady state. Thus they do not take into account increased primary production and the rapid export of carbon to depth.

Although there is no doubt anthropogenic CO2 is taken up by the oceans, assertions that ocean surface layers are acidifying are the results of faulty model assumptions.

 

[Sallstrom]

From the article
"Although Ocean Acidification associated changes are expected to negatively affect the
accretion of coral reefs "
and
"We measured CaCO3 sediment dissolution using 57 individual in situ advective benthic chamber incubations at five reef locations in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Incubations were undertaken over a diel light-dark cycle, and four of the reef incubations were run under control and end-of-century [high partial pressure of CO2, low pH] Ocean Acidification conditions."

There's always other outcomes, based on evidence rather than assumptions.

How Gaia and Coral Reefs Regulate Ocean pH
Although some researchers have raised concerns about possible negative effects of rising CO2 on ocean surface pH, there are several lines of evidence demonstrating marine ecosystems are far more sensitive to fluxes of carbon dioxide from ocean depths and the biosphere’s response than from invasions of atmospheric CO2. There is also ample evidence that lower pH does not inhibit photosynthesis or lower ocean productivity (Mackey 2015). On the contrary, rising CO2 makes photosynthesis less costly. Furthermore in contrast to researchers arguing rising atmospheric CO2 will inhibit calcification, increased photosynthesis not only increases calcification, paradoxically the process of calcification produces CO2 and drops pH to levels lower than predicted by climate change models. A combination of warmer tropical waters and coral reef biology results in out-gassing of CO2 from the ocean to the atmosphere, making coral reefs relatively insensitive to the effects of atmospheric CO2 on ocean pH.

How NOAA and Bad Modeling Invented an “Ocean Acidification” Icon:
Part 1 - Sea Butterflies
Bednarsek assumes anthropogenic carbon is mostly accumulating near the surface based on modeling results. However as detailed in Part 2, all ocean acidification models are deeply flawed based on an incorrect assumption that CO2 enters the ocean and is then transported like an inert tracer. But CO2 is not inert! When CO2 first invades sunlit surface waters, it indeed dissolves into 3 forms of inorganic carbon (DIC) and lowers pH. But in contrast to those models, DIC is rapidly assimilated into particulate organic carbon via photosynthesis, which raises pH. Particulate organic carbon (alive or dead) is heavy, and if not consumed and recycled, it sinks. For millions of years, this process created and maintained a DIC/pH gradient with high pH/low DIC near the surface and low pH/higher DIC at depth.

Part 2 - Bad Models
However model results are based on three very dubious assumptions:

1) Models assume surface layers absorb anthropogenic CO2 by reaching equilibrium with atmospheric concentrations. With minor adjustments, models simply calculate how much dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) will be added to the ocean based on increased atmospheric CO2 since pre-industrial times.

2) Models assume CO2 will diffuse into the upper ocean layers and be transported throughout the ocean in a similar fashion to tracers, like CFCs. Because CFCs accumulate disproportionately near the surface, models assume DIC does as well.

3) Models assume the biosphere is in a steady state. Thus they do not take into account increased primary production and the rapid export of carbon to depth.

Although there is no doubt anthropogenic CO2 is taken up by the oceans, assertions that ocean surface layers are acidifying are the results of faulty model assumptions.

Just to be a little source critical, this is from Jim Steele's page. The first article in this thread is in Science.

/ David

 

[Lasse]

If so - why is Ocean pH today around 0.15 lower compared with before the Co2 hockey stick?

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Scrubber_steve]

Just to be a little source critical, this is from Jim Steele's page. The first article in this thread is in Science.

/ David

Jim Steele taught 8th grade science at San Francisco's Everett Middle School and Advance Placement Biology, Human Physiology and Genetic Engineering at Wallenberg High School. Later Jim Steele lectured the cell and molecular biology labs for the introductory biology class for majors at San Francisco State University. There's much more

But here's a list of some of the Authors Steele cited, just in his first article I linked in my above post.

Macky 2015. published in Oceanography
Pearson and Palmer 2000. Nature
Honisch 2005. Earth and Planetary Science Letters
Kline 2015. PLOS one
Martinez-Boti 2015. Nature
Caldeira and Wickett 2005. JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH
Cohen and Happer 2015. http://co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/pH.pdf
Duarte 2013. Estuaries and Coasts
Barott 2015. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Morse 2007. Chemical Reviews
Hopkinson et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Maranon 2016. Limnology and Oceanography
McCulloch 2012. Nature Climate Change
Dore 2009. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Goodkin 2015. Geophysical Research Letters
Yeakel 2016. Scripps Institution of Oceanography

 

[Scrubber_steve]

If so - why is Ocean pH today around 0.15 lower compared with before the Co2 hockey stick?

Sincerely Lasse

The CO2 hocket stick? Are you refering to the proxie temp graph going back 1,000 years by Mann?

There were no pH meters back then Lasse. The figure you refer to is actually 0.1 pH units, and it is a figure, not based on evidence, but based on a climate model output, that is based on assumptions.

Mann's hockey stick has been well & truly debunked as rubbish. He wiped out the Medieval warm period & Little ice age with shonky statisticle anaylisis, and bolted the thermometer record onto the end of his graph because the proxies were showing a cooling. There's much more than that wrong with his graph though, and that's why it no longer appears in any IPCC reports.

 

[Jose Mayo]

I regret that these discussions often walk more on the terrain of passion than on the observation of reality when outside the environment of science. For each paper that says "this" there will be as many that say "that" and, in the end, the result that will determine Nature (not the magazine, but the one that governs us) will prevail.

Carbon dioxide is the "life gas", oxygen is just the final acceptor of electrons.

Regards

 

[Scrubber_steve]

I regret that these discussions often walk more on the terrain of passion than on the observation of reality when outside the environment of science. For each paper that says "this" there will be as many that say "that" and, in the end, the result that will determine Nature (not the magazine, but the one that governs us) will prevail.

Carbon dioxide is the "life gas", oxygen is just the final acceptor of electrons.

Regards

Well said Jose.

 

[Lasse]

The other question is why people use carbon dioxid scrubbers in order to get their pH up?

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Scrubber_steve]

The other question is why people use carbon dioxid scrubbers in order to get their pH up?

Sincerely Lasse

I don't. Don't need to.
In any case, aquarium dynamics & Ocean dynamics are quite different.

Perhaps Lasse, you could read a bit of Steele's article, & its links, to get the gist of what he, and plenty of others, are saying?

You don't have to agree with it, but it may give you some insight.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

It is very clear that releasing sufficient CO2 to the atmosphere will lower the ocean pH, and if it sufficiently lowered, all exposed calcium carbonate will dissolve, including coral skeletons. Those points cannot be reasonably rejected.

Folks certainly may debate the effects the lowered pH has on living organisms, and certainly may debate predictions of future CO2 contributions to the atmosphere and what sinks on the planet may soak up some of that CO2. No reasonable scientist claims perfect understanding of future events. But a lot of effort is properly directed at trying to do so as accurately as possible as the effects could be devastating.

 

[Lasse]

Still answer the question - will a higher Co2 level inside lower the pH or rise the pH in a reef aquaria?

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Scrubber_steve]

Still answer the question - will a higher Co2 level inside lower the pH or rise the pH in a reef aquaria?

Sincerely Lasse

In mine, it will stay stable, & make my algae grow faster

 

[Lasse]

The CO2 hocket stick? Are you refering to the proxie temp graph going back 1,000 years by Mann?

Nope - you have to do some more Googling

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Scrubber_steve]

Nope - you have to do some more Googling

Sincerely Lasse

no thanks

 

[Lasse]

Since I was born CO2 level in the atmosphere has rise from around 320 ppm to over 400 ppm - and it still rise. Its a rise of 25 % during 68 years. Does not this ( no matter what is the reason for the CO2 increase) affect the pH of the oceans at all?

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Myka]

Since I was born CO2 level in the atmosphere has rise from around 320 ppm to over 400 ppm - and it still rise. Its a rise of 25 % during 68 years. Does not this ( no matter what is the reason for the CO2 increase) affect the pH of the oceans at all?

Sincerely Lasse

I am not a scientist, but I gamble a wager that an 80 ppm atmospheric increase in CO2 probably does affect the pH of the ocean since increased CO2 in my home does affect the pH of my reef. I use a CO2 scrubber to reduce this affect.

I'm curious though, just how much does a 25% increase in CO2 affect pH? I imagine there are a lot of factors that we don't fully understand yet (such as CO2 sinks?).

Has something like this happened before? Is the change too fast for the oceans (the life in them) to adjust? I think life will prevail, it will probably be different though.

 

[Sallstrom]

I am not a scientist, but I gamble a wager that an 80 ppm atmospheric increase in CO2 probably does affect the pH of the ocean since increased CO2 in my home does affect the pH of my reef. I use a CO2 scrubber to reduce this affect.

I'm curious though, just how much does a 25% increase in CO2 affect pH? I imagine there are a lot of factors that we don't fully understand yet (such as CO2 sinks?).

Has something like this happened before? Is the change too fast for the oceans (the life in them) to adjust? I think life will prevail, it will probably be different though.

Since most of us are not willing to change the way we live the CO2 will continue to raise and with that the temperature. With higher avarage temperature there will be more mass bleaching events with less time in between for the reefs to recover. So the future for the corals reefs doesn't look great.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/4/16849336/global-warming-coral-reefs-bleaching-rate-climate-change

 

[Lasse]

When the Oceans serve as a CO2 sink - its means that the water will contain more dissolved CO2. The effect of this will be a lowering of the pH. There is measured pH levels in Hawaii between 1988 - 2008 that show a decrease of 0.04 pH unit and if the trend will continue - it will be an decrease of -0.2 pH units in 2100. 1988 the CO2 level was 340 ppm and 2008 it was nearly 380 ppm at Hawaii. 2016 - they reported that the 400 ppm level has been reached. This is not computed figures - its real measurements.

Sincerely Lasse