There are several interesting climate related studies in this week’s Science magazine.
Greenland Ice Slipping Away but Not All That Quickly
Almost 6 years ago, a paper in Science warned of an unheralded environmental peril. Melted snow and ice seemed to be reaching the base of the great Greenland ice sheet, lubricating it and accelerating the sheet’s slide toward oblivion in the sea, where it was raising sea level worldwide (12 July 2002, p. 218).
A new study has confirmed that meltwater reaches the ice sheet’s base and does indeed speed the ice’s seaward flow. The good news is that the process is more leisurely than many climate scientists had feared. Glaciologist Richard Alley of Pennsylvania State University in State College says, “It matters, but it’s not huge.” The finding should ease concerns that Greenland ice could raise sea level a disastrous meter or more by the end of the century.
Read more at PHYSORG.com: Lakes of meltwater can crack Greenland’s ice and contribute to faster ice sheet flow
Coral Adaptation in the Face of Climate Change
IN THEIR REVIEW, “CORAL REEFS UNDER RAPID CLIMATE CHANGE and ocean acidification” (14 December 2007, p. 1737), O. Hoegh- Guldberg et al. present future reef scenarios that range from coral-dominated communities to rapidly eroding rubble banks. Notably, none of their scenarios considers the capacity for corals to adapt. The authors dismiss adaptation because “[r]eef-building corals have relatively long generation times and low genetic diversity, making or slow rates of adaptation [relative to rates of change].” We think the possibility of adaptation deserves a second look.
In the absence of longterm demographic studies to detect temporal trends in life history traits, predicting rates of adaptation, and whether they will be exceeded by rates of environmental change, is pure speculation. Indeed, where such data are available for terrestrial organisms they demonstrate that contemporary evolution in response to climate change is possible (7).
There’s another coral story in The Herald Sun: Scientists find corals flourishing on Bikini Atoll
Phytoplankton Calcification in a High-CO2 World
Ocean acidification in response to rising atmospheric CO2 partial pressures is widely expected to reduce calcification by marine organisms. From the mid-Mesozoic, coccolithophores have been major calcium carbonate producers in the world’s oceans, today accounting for about a third of the total marine CaCO3 production. Here, we present laboratory evidence that calcification and net primary production in the coccolithophore species Emiliania huxleyi are significantly increased by high CO2 partial pressures. Field evidence from the deep ocean is consistent with these laboratory conclusions, indicating that over the past 220 years there has been a 40% increase in average coccolith mass. Our findings show that coccolithophores are already responding and will probably continue to respond to rising atmospheric CO2 partial pressures, which has important implications for biogeochemical modeling of future oceans and climate.
Read more at Dot Earth: Some Plankton Thrive With More CO2
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Paul: “The finding should ease concerns that Greenland ice could raise sea level a disastrous meter or more by the end of the century.”
Seriously I doubt it will for those who rely on the the scary stories to sell their agenda.
Call me stupid, and that may very well be the case…. But just a query about that article on CO2, Plankton and Ocean Acidification….
I can’t see what the warmers are on about when it comes to Acidification of the worlds oceans as it relates to their AGW Hypothesis…. HOT water holds less CO2… Ergo the oceans give up their CO2 as they warm. Per their Hypothesis it would be because of the effects of evil Anthropogenic Atmospheric CO2, thus exacerbating the supposed problem…. However this would mean less CO2 in the Ocean and less acidity… Wouldn’t it?
…. Unless the warmers are saying that the oceans are going to cool in order to get their Acid seas… But that would remove CO2 from the atmosphere and reduce warming… Seems to me they are trying to hedge bets both ways….
Maybe I missed something?
J.Hansford:
Fair question–but the thinking is like this:
Warming seas do decrease the solubility of C02, so as the seas warm, the partial pressure of C02 at the surface increases.
However, this increase is small–since the oceans change only a little, and the solubility curve is not steep.
But in the atmosphere, the partial pressure of the CO2 is just proportional to the concentration. So a doubling of C02 is actually a doubling of the partial pressure.
Both have increases pressure, so we’ll see a faster mixing. But air has increased into CO2 pressure more, so there will be a net flux into the oceans. Hence the acidification.
Also note, the oceans actually seem to be cooling the last few years, so they will be abosrbing C02 faster. Expect world wide CO2 measurements to be pretty flat in 2008.
“The finding should ease concerns that Greenland ice could raise sea level a disastrous meter or more by the end of the century.”
A great disappointment to Luke; I’m sure.
What a stupid comment Tilo. Anyway RC has some incisive analysis – as always things are not that simple.
Given how much higher CO2 levels were in the early days of coral evolution, I suspect that corals, phytoplankton, and other organisms that happily make CaCo3 from dissolved CO2 and Ca++ will be having a grand old time.
It is the holy warmers who deny biological effects who are accumulating their own coliform organisms up their own noses.
Erik,
— and what pray tell is the partial pressure increase that is a direct consequence of a marginal increase of a few molecules of CO2 per unit of volume.
3/5th of 5/8th of SweetFA would be my guess.
Hang on, CO2 is an amazingly powerful serial fertiliser. How dare you imply it isn’t capable being so, just because the concentrations in the atmosphere are measured in ppm.
Thanks and no thanks Paul, I dont need you to select stories for me from “Science”.
Thanks and no thanks Bazza, I don’t need you to read the blog or post comments.
The main problem for those who worry about Greenland’s icecap “slipping off” is that it would have to slide uphill, since the vast bulk of it is in a bowl, the centre of which is at or below sea level.
The other thing is that the ocean is alkaline. I don’t know how many times this has to be said, but it is. It has a pH value varying around 8 to 8.1. The oceans are also estimated to hold, as of now, some 50 times as much CO2 as the atmosphere. Whatever extra CO2 it takes up, if it does at all, with warmer water being less receptive, this is unlikely to reduce the alkalinity by much and will certainly not get the pH value below 7, which is absolutely neutral. Just because a value of pH is getting less, moving towards the acid region of below 7 is no reason to suggest that the oceans are “acidifying”. As summer approaches, are we de-cooling?
Thanks Erik…. I’ll do a bit more reading.
… and thanks Tony. Yes it is a bit misleading to call a slight lowering of PH in an alkaline solution, acidification… It’s an exaggeration, standard behaviour with the climate catastrophists unfortunately. They discredit themselves with every turn.
Don’t ya just love it.
“Thousands of lakes form on top of Greenland’s glaciers every summer, as sunlight and warm air melt ice on the surface. Past satellite observations have shown that these supraglacial lakes can disappear in as little as a day, but scientists did not know where the water was going or how quickly, nor the impact on ice flow”.
Could it be that these undoubtedly shallow lakes, that form briefly in summer, on top of 1.5km of ice, within the Arctic circle, might actually freeze up again just 8 weeks after melting?
If it was sunlight that formed these lakes in the first place then, surely, once the water went down a crack, and out of the sunlight, and surrounded by ice, might reasonably be expected to re-freeze? Especially in Autumn when the warm air is no longer present?
Must be time for some detailed study as to what proportions of the water refreeze at the surface, what proportions refreeze in the cracks, and what proportions actually make it to any place that would constitute “lubrication”.
But the good news, folks, is that my often repeated claim on this blog that at current melt rates it will take 19,000 years for Greenland to melt away has been corrected. If the rate increases by 50% to 100% then we might be looking at 9,500 to 14,250 years instead. Mea culpa.
And for those who might have missed the point;
“The 15 mega-tonne bomb (on Bikini) was a thousand times more powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima in Japan in WWII. It vapourised three islands, raised water temperatures to 55,000 degrees, shook islands 200km away and left a crater 2km wide and 73m deep”.
And the coral survived being nuked at 55,000C. So much for the climate gonzoscenti and their 2C of warming over the next century.
Eric, that explanation has a slight ring of plausibility to it but it still doesn’t stack up. This is because there is much more to ocean temperatures than surface anomalies. The test of capacity to absorb CO2 lies within the entire water column, and the thermocline in particular.
If a warmer world also produces more volatile heat exchange characteristics then the mixing of surface waters and deeper ocean layers will be greater. And this will result in less severe outcomes for CO2 exchange and a much larger volume of water subject to this so-called acidification.
No one asked me but I say Greenland ice retreats are the consequence of recent conjunction of positive AMO and negative AO sucking all that warm water around the island.
That and generally increasing snowfall over past century.
Just sayin’.