The Government’s advisory channels are clogged with rent seekers, special pleaders and green activists who have misadvised the minister.
CLIMATE Minister Penny Wong published an astonishing green paper in response to what she perceives to be the threat of global warming.
The first sentence of the opening section of her paper, entitled “Why we need to act”, contains seven scientific errors — almost one error for every two words.
Here is the sentence: “Carbon pollution is causing climate change, resulting in higher temperatures, more droughts, rising sea levels and more extreme weather.”
And here are the errors.
First, the debate is not about carbon, but human carbon dioxide emissions and their potential effect on climate.
It makes no more sense for Wong to talk about carbon in the atmosphere than it would for her to talk about hydrogen comprising most of Sydney’s water supply.
Use of the term carbon in this way is, of course, a deliberate political gambit, derived from the green ecosalvationist vocabulary and intended to convey a subliminal message about “dirty” coal.
Next, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant but a naturally occurring, beneficial trace gas in the atmosphere.
For the past few million years, the Earth has existed in a state of relative carbon dioxide starvation compared with earlier periods.
There is no empirical evidence that levels double or even treble those of today will be harmful, climatically or otherwise.
Indeed, a trebled level is roughly what commercial greenhouse tomato growers aim for to enhance growth.
As a vital element in plant photosynthesis, carbon dioxide is the basis of the planetary food chain — literally the staff of life. Its increase in the atmosphere leads mainly to the greening of the planet.
To label carbon dioxide a “pollutant” is an abuse of language, logic and science.
Third, that enhanced human carbon dioxide emissions are causing dangerous global warming (“carbon pollution is causing climate change”) is an interesting and important hypothesis.
Detailed consideration of its truth started with the formation of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988. Since then, Western nations have spent more than $50 billion on research into the matter.
Despite all the fulminations of the IPCC, 20 years on, the result has been a failure to identify the human climate signal at global (as opposed to local) level.
Accordingly, independent scientists have long since concluded that the most appropriate null hypothesis is that the human global signal lies submerged within natural climate variability. In other words, our interesting initial hypothesis was wrong.
Fourth, the specific claim that carbon dioxide emissions are causing temperature increase is intended to convey the impression that the phase of gentle (and entirely unalarming) global warming that occurred during the late 20th century continues today.
Nothing could be further from the truth, in that all official measures of global temperature show that it peaked in 1998 and has been declining since at least 2002.
And this in the face of an almost 5% increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide since 1998. Spot the problem?
Fifth, sixth and seventh, the statement that human carbon dioxide emissions will cause “more droughts, rising sea levels and more extreme weather” is unbridled nonsense.
Such confident predictions are derived from unvalidated, unsuccessful computer models that even their proponents agree cannot predict the future. Rather, a model projection represents just one preferred, virtual reality future out
of the many millions of alternatives that could have been generated.
Complex climate models are in effect sophisticated computer games, and their particular outputs are to a large degree predetermined by programmers’ predelictions. It cannot be overemphasised, therefore, that computer climate projections, or scenarios, are not evidence. Nor are they suitable for environmental or political planning.
Moving from virtual reality to real observations and evidence, many of the manifestations of living on a dynamic planet that are cited as evidence for global warming are, at best, circumstantial.
The current rates of sea-level change, for example, fall well within the known natural range of past changes.
Should we adapt to the rise? Of course. Should we try to “stop climate change” to moderate, possibly, the expected sea-level rise? Of course not; we might as well try to stop clouds scudding across the sky.
The first sentence of the “Why we need to act” section of the green paper is followed by five further short paragraphs that are similarly riddled with science misrepresentation and error. In essence, the section reads like a policy manual for green climate activists. It represents a parody of our true knowledge of climate change.
Never has a policy document of such importance been released in Australia that is so profoundly out of touch with known facts of the real world.
It is a matter for national alarm that the Government’s advisory channels should be clogged with the rent seekers, special pleaders and green activists who have so obviously misadvised Wong on the content of her green paper on climate change.
Time for some due diligence, Minister.
Professor Bob Carter is a geologist who studies ancient environments and their climate, and is a science adviser to the Australian Climate Science Coalition.
Accordingly, independent scientists have long since concluded that the most appropriate null hypothesis is that the human global signal lies submerged within natural climate variability. In other words, our interesting initial hypothesis was wrong.
Fourth, the specific claim that carbon dioxide emissions are causing temperature increase is intended to convey the impression that the phase of gentle (and entirely unalarming) global warming that occurred during the late 20th century continues today.
Nothing could be further from the truth, in that all official measures of global temperature show that it peaked in 1998 and has been declining since at least 2002.
And this in the face of an almost 5% increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide since 1998. Spot the problem?
Fifth, sixth and seventh, the statement that human carbon dioxide emissions will cause “more droughts, rising sea levels and more extreme weather” is unbridled nonsense.
Such confident predictions are derived from unvalidated, unsuccessful computer models that even their proponents agree cannot predict the future. Rather, a model projection represents just one preferred, virtual reality future out
of the many millions of alternatives that could have been generated.
Complex climate models are in effect sophisticated computer games, and their particular outputs are to a large degree predetermined by programmers’ predelictions. It cannot be overemphasised, therefore, that computer climate projections, or scenarios, are not evidence. Nor are they suitable for environmental or political planning.
Moving from virtual reality to real observations and evidence, many of the manifestations of living on a dynamic planet that are cited as evidence for global warming are, at best, circumstantial.
The current rates of sea-level change, for example, fall well within the known natural range of past changes.
Should we adapt to the rise? Of course. Should we try to “stop climate change” to moderate, possibly, the expected sea-level rise? Of course not; we might as well try to stop clouds scudding across the sky.
The first sentence of the “Why we need to act” section of the green paper is followed by five further short paragraphs that are similarly riddled with science misrepresentation and error. In essence, the section reads like a policy manual for green climate activists. It represents a parody of our true knowledge of climate change.
Never has a policy document of such importance been released in Australia that is so profoundly out of touch with known facts of the real world.
It is a matter for national alarm that the Government’s advisory channels should be clogged with the rent seekers, special pleaders and green activists who have so obviously misadvised Wong on the content of her green paper on climate change.
Time for some due diligence, Minister.
Professor Bob Carter is a geologist who studies ancient environments and their climate, and is a science adviser to the Australian Climate Science Coalition.
First published in The Age as Wong’s Climate Paper Clouded with Mistakes on July 29, 2008. Republished hopefully with permission.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Jennifer, the post repeats about half way through.
I’m gobsmacked but pleased this was printed in The Age.
Nothing about ocean acidification again, I see.
Check the recent threads on ocean acidity on this blog, steven, and you will understand why you are the only clown left poncing on about it. It is dead in the water.
“Professor Bob Carter is a geologist who studies ancient environments and their climate, and is a science adviser to the Australian Climate Science Coalition.”
That would possibly explain their stunning success.
Correct me if I am wrong, Ian Mott, but you base your entire response to ocean acidification concerns by quoting Dr J Floor Anthoni and his Seafriends website. His doctorate is in computers, and appears to be completely self taught in ocean ecology. At his website he says that he has taken many pH readings “that led to the discovery of half a dozen elementary ecological laws that, if confirmed, would turn the whole acid ocean debate on its head. It would in fact send most publications on this subject to the dustbin. That was in 2005, and mainstream scientists have not reacted since.”
While it is possible that an amateur has discovered new “elementary ecological laws”, I think I might just pay a bit more attention to the professionals in the field.
I can’t say that I have noticed Bob Carter give a detailed response to ocean acidification, but again correct me if I am wrong. Or just call me names again, because we all know that that is the really intelligent way to win an argument.
“To label carbon dioxide a “pollutant” is an abuse of language, logic and science”
Just like wheat is not a weed – unless it is growing around your roses having sprouted from an ill-considered application of straw as mulch.
Another interesting article by Bob, that should make all Australian take notice as the Department of Climate Change states that the Australian Government is investing $3.4 billion (taken from the infrastructure, health, schools and welfare budgets or funded by additional taxes) on climate change action.
One of the key questions relates to how the government has made significant changes to the words they use sell the new taxes created by the emission trading scheme. First they get rid of the term ETS and shorten Carbon dioxide to just carbon, then they add the word pollution.
And the document outlining this ‘paying for hot air’ system is called a green paper. Of course paper is green; it comes from a renewable resource and is totally recyclable. It is made in a factory where the energy can be from the biomass created by the harvesting and manufacturing processes (totally renewable). When it is made from trees, the trees are natural carbon sinks and the carbon is locked up in the paper. The environmental credentials of paper should be well known to the environmental movement yet they continue to oppose the Tasmanian pulp mill that will save over 1 million tonnes of CO2 each year.
Who has dreamt up these words, what advertising agency and spin doctors has the Government engaged using taxpayers money to hold focus groups to research how best to sell these new taxes? Is it the same mob that gave us ‘working families’ and the “Your rights at work” campaign or have they selected other spin doctors?
Perhaps the Australian Climate Science Coalition needs the same PR management to ensure that on behalf of all tax payers they do have a ‘stunning success’ in getting this message out.
Grendel: : Just like wheat is not a weed – unless it is growing around your roses having sprouted from an ill-considered application of straw as mulch”
Wheat is indeed a weed in your rose bed but more wheat in a field of wheat is not.
Steve watkinson:
“Correct me if I am wrong, Ian Mott, but you base your entire response to ocean acidification concerns by quoting Dr J Floor Anthoni and his Seafriends website. His doctorate is in….”
Incorrect. Please search for my posts in this blog on the chemothermodynamics of aragonite and calcite. Just a tensy weensy little matter of a flouting of the laws of thermodynamics and solution chemistry = piddling on the good work of thousands of chemists over the last 200 odd years.
Quite trivial really……(;-)
“Carbon pollution is causing climate change…”
An error that Bob Carter didn’t mention is that the term “Climate Change” is, in fact, a tautology, since by definition the climate is always changing. The only reason to say it twice is to create an irrational climate of fear over an axiom of nature.
What P Wong is really on about is more properly called AGW catastrophe theory.
And the implied goal of “Stopping Climate Change” is the remarkable feat of laminating an oxymoron to a tautology. Absolutely brilliant!
“Carbon Pollution”,” climate change”, “denialism” are examples of Newspeak.
George Orwell warned us:
“The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of IngSoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible.
It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought — that is, a thought diverging from the principles of IngSoc — should be literally unthinkable, a least so far as thought is dependent on words.
Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meaning and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods.
This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meaning whatever.”
http://artcontext.org/remote/newspeak.html
Steve Short, your previous post said “Thus the modern level of CO2 in the atmosphere of 384 ppmv would have to double 2 – 3 times before corals and calcareous plankton would begin to disappear.”
If “business as usual” scenarios have double being reached in 80 years or so, why shouldn’t I worry about whether my grandchildren will watch them dissolve?
Oh, maybe I misread your meaning of “double 2 or 3 times”. You mean have to get to 4 to 6 times?
Anyhow, Steve Short, I suspect the answer to your point is that the worry is not so much the issue of “dissolving” pre-existing calcite, as whether creatures can continue building shells effectively with very low levels of saturation. Pre-existing reefs might therefore not be dissolved as such, but be weathered away and not replaced.
Yeah right!
Just in the same way they’ve weathered away so very shockingly over the last 15,000 years since the Younger Dryas….
Hit the name link, kiddo.
Um, you have to be more specific than that, SS. As I understand it, nothing has changed much with ocean pH for hundreds of thousands of years. What has the last 15,000 years got to do with it?
And if you are suggesting that I just take your opinion as gospel because you are academically qualified in chemistry and geochemistry, then perhaps I should also start believing the physicists, engineers and architects who have signed up to the 9/11 “controlled demolition” conspiracies?
Please read the past blog posts. Dare I say it – please do the thinking (no offense intended). This issue has been done to death here before. Some of us have to earn a crust. I can’t start you out at high school chemistry and work up from there. Sorry.
I wish they’d print Bob Carter’s actual qualifications:
Bob Carter is a Research Professor at James Cook University (Queensland) and the University of Adelaide (South Australia). He is a palaeontologist, stratigrapher, marine geologist and environmental scientist with more than thirty years professional experience, and holds degrees from the University of Otago (New Zealand) and the University of Cambridge (England). He has held tenured academic staff positions at the University of Otago (Dunedin) and James Cook University (Townsville), where he was Professor and Head of School of Earth Sciences between 1981 and 1999.
Bob has wide experience in management and research administration, including service as Chair of the Earth Sciences Discipline Panel of the Australian Research Council, Chair of the national Marine Science and Technologies Committee, Director of the Australian Office of the Ocean Drilling Program, and Co-Chief Scientist on ODP Leg 181 (Southwest Pacific Gateways).
“a geologist who studies ancient environments and their climate” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
“”To label carbon dioxide a “pollutant” is an abuse of language, logic and science””
A pollutant can be a naturally occuring substance in excess. Bob Carter is such a doofus he can’t even get that right. Maybe he should see what a daily, excess dose of selenium does to him. It’s important for us to live, but excess amounts are highly toxic. Get your own house in order Bob, then get back to us.
Meanwhile John Q. Public lives with the reality:
http://www.bclocalnews.com/vancouver_island_north/northislandmidweek/opinion/25999209.html
We may or may not be due for an election here in Canada in the fall, depending on whether the Climate Cretin Wackjob leading the Liberals decides to grow a spine or not. With ALL the parties babbling on about the so called climate crisis, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear of a few candidates who will have gotten a knee in the package if they bring this crap up when they go door-to-door!
SS, you have said a lot about warming here; as far as I can see, neither you nor anyone else has ever spent much time on the details of ocean acidification. Luke has given you credit before for being the only contributor worth listening to. Still, seems to me you’ve just run away from the argument.
Jennifer, could you prevail upon Professor Carter to do a paper arguing from the geology against global warming for the American Physical Society’s Forum on Physics and Society?
For SJT to call Bob Carter a “doofus” actually tells us a lot more about SJT than it does about Prof Carter.
steven: “Still, seems to me you’ve just run away from the argument.”
ON the contrary he has discussed all this before in this forum and has suggested you go look. That’s not running away but that you fail to go see says a lot about your sincerity and laziness.
SJT: “It’s important for us to live, but excess amounts are highly toxic.”
Then do us all a favour wudya and quit breathing!
Jan, a Google search of this blog for “Steve Short ocean acidification” brings up a total of 28 hits. I have followed most of them, and still I say the topic has not been extensively addressed, unless you simply take the line that “Steve Short says hundreds of ocean scientists and biologists are wrong to worry, and he must be right.” I like to think I exercise a bit more independence of thought than that.
We certainly have the Ruddy mob out and about with their wong green paper that should be the RED paper and the wong propaganda too. Just see how these tax payer funded adverts show back lit cooling towers emitting clean water vapour looking so ominously dark and dirty. lol Won’t be long before the penny drops. Oz is also waking up to the once Green Party that has mutated into the now Red party, that will be exporting once viable businesses overseas and all based on superstitions.
Perhaps we should make all future government papers on this issue from watermelon pulp.
My apologies about this guys.
JUST for steven watkinson.
Aragonite (the form of calcium carbonate secreted by corals) and calcite (the form of calcium carbonate secreted by calcareous forams i.e. the phytoplankton known as cocolithophores) CANNOT begin to dissolve unless they are thermodynamically permitted to do so i.e. their Saturation Indices (SIs) must be less than zero.
For an ocean fully equilibrated with the atmosphere, it would require an increase in the partial pressure (concentration) of CO2 in the atmosphere 6.4 times the current level to 2455 ppmv (presently 384 ppmv) to drive the SI of aragonite down from its present +0.61 to zero.
pH of the seawater would then be 7.52 (expressed at 25 C, the standard temperature for expressing pHs).
For an ocean fully equilibrated with the atmosphere, it would require an 8.8 times increase in the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere to a level of 3388 ppmv ppm (presently 384 ppmv) to drive the SI of calcite down from its present +0.73 to zero.
pH of the seawater would then be 7.39.
These values are based on over 200 years of the study of (and parameter measurement in) solution thermodynamics and can be easily obtained in about 15 minutes using any standard geochemical model such as USGS PHREEQC.
The established paleoclimatic literature shows quite clearly that the occurrences of corals and calcareous phytoplankton in the geological record over the last several hundreds of million years are fully consistent with the above thermodynamic facts.
Thus the modern level of CO2 in the atmosphere of 384 ppmv would have to double 2 – 3 times before corals and calcareous plankton would begin to disappear.
Until we approached such a condition any field observations are highly likely to be instances of natural, complex ‘noise’ restricted to specific species or other local factors.
Yeah, thanks Steve, but I read that post before.
Three points:
1. it does not answer my earlier point that much of what I read about tests on calcifying creatures says it makes it hard for them to build and maintain their shells. (Less carbonate available, I believe). This is a different issue from what your post is about, is it not?
2. In any event, your post does match up with what the Royal Society paper on ocean acidification indicates about saturation levels for calcite and aragonite. They talk in terms of undersaturation; not zero saturation.
I haven’t quite worked out all of this to my satisfaction yet, but I find it hard to believe that you alone have discovered a fatal flaw in their chemistry. Or indeed, why you have become world famous for pointing out the alleged flaw.
3. One of the creatures that they have concerns about in acidified oceans are pterpods. This quote is from a NOAA website http://tinyurl.com/6oqxzg :
“For organisms with external calcium carbonate skeletons, such as corals and pteropods, the consequences can be very negative if the oceans become undersaturated (corrosive) with respect to aragonite, a form of calcium carbonate. It has been demonstrated that pteropods, a planktonic mollusk, may not be able to maintain their shells in undersaturated waters. In some studies, live pteropods were subjected to waters that are undersaturated with respect to aragonite and their shells begin to dissolve within 48 hours (Feely et al., 2004; Orr et al 2005 ).”
I believe that the study was done using water at a pH and undersaturation levels based on predictions for polar ocean water in 2100.
If they are wrong, where did they go wrong? Again, couldn’t you be famous by pointing out why how this real life experiment went disastrously wrong?
4. You have recently made a point in a post about how could it be that higher atmospheric CO2 in earth’s past has allowed coral to grow. The Royal Society paper dealt with this: it’s because the oceans natural pH buffering system can cope with slow increases of CO2. Industrialisation, by contrast, is leading to a rapid (in geological terms) increase in atmospheric CO2, and it will take tens of thousands of years to reduce to get the pH back to pre-industrial levels.
That last point in particular makes me think you have not seriously looked at ocean acidification at all.
Sorry, a few typos in the last post. Of course I meant “why you have not become famous…etc”.
Oh, and you can stop the condescending tone too. I have read your posts; you might actually try addressing my counterarguments if you want to prove me (or, more importantly, hundred of ocean scientists) wrong.
The point is that corals do grow happily right up to about an atmospheric CO2 concentration of around 2500 ppmv and calcareous phytoplankton (foraminifera) do grow happily right up to about an atmospheric CO2 concentration of around 3400 ppmv. The SI has to go under zero for calcite and aragonite to begin to dissolve. This implies an absolute requirement for the near-surface layers of the ocean to be in equilibrium with an atmosphere above them which contains CO2 at a certain, mathematically determinable concentration.
Anything else is science faction (actually science fantasy).
Wakey, wakey – this is precisely why the measurement of O18, strontium, magnesium etc in fossil corals and the skeletons of foraminifera are standard and long-used tool in paleoclimatic studies going back 300 plus million years.
I give up. Basically, you are clearly an absolute idiot. You have no understanding of chemistry at all or any capacity or desire to understand. You do not deserve the courtesy I extended to you. Gawd save us from these arrogant post-modernist idiots and their paper-thin educations. In a word – eff orf.
“For SJT to call Bob Carter a “doofus” actually tells us a lot more about SJT than it does about Prof Carter.”
It tells you it’s hard to think of a term that is accurate enough to describe a man who claims to be a scientist, yet is quite willing to deliberately misrepresent what pollution is, or is so stupid he doesn’t understand what pollution is. A natural substance can be a pollutant, if it is in excess.
Let’s see my choice here: believing umpteen other scientists whose work on ocean acidification (including their understanding of ocean chemistry and biology) has been kicking around for a decade or two, or a geochemist who argues “I’m right, they are wrong and you are an idiot for doubting me.”
Not much of a choice at all, really.
Every day, in every way, I thank my lucky stars that some years ago now I had the foresight to buy that piece of paradise with plenty of water, land and trees up a winding and really nasty dirt road where my lady and I (in our declining years), my kids and their spouses, even their kids can, if need be, take refuge and survive in happiness the coming Dark Age brought on by the ever-spreading plague over our fair land of complete and utter drop kicks. There is even a precautionary stash of firepower to make absolutely sure that would-be Gestapo like yourself don’t get past the rustic and well worn sign down the bottom of the track which reads (with due reverence to Burt Reynolds and Jon Voight): Deliverance.
steven; you say;
“Industrialisation, by contrast, is leading to a rapid (in geological terms) increase in atmospheric CO2”
You have a fine sense of certainty; throw scorn on these sources disputing your point, and then later we can discuss Ruddiman;
http://www.warwickhughes.com/icecore/
http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2_supp.htm
Speaking of a sense of certainty; carbon pollution is a fine piece of Orwellian amphigory; what Prof Carter is upset about is the implacable and obfuscating conviction that the case about the level of CO2 being a pollutant has been made; it hasn’t.
Cohenite, I’m not setting myself up here as a defender of all things related to CO2 and global warming. My basic argument is that, regardless of uncertainties with what exactly will happen with temperature in the next century, expected changes to ocean ecology are enough of a worry to take serious steps to reduce CO2. And because doing that will be like turning around a supertanker moving at high speed, we ought to start doing it sooner rather than later.
Steven Watkinson
Science is not about belief in 13 scientists or 1 geochemist – the issue is the science and Steve’s exposition of the chemistry of CO2 vis a vis the oceans is simple enough.
And the amount of dissolved CO2 in sea water to its presence in air is about 1 in air to 50 in seawater. Tom Segaldstat of the Norwegian Geological Survey has explained this lay terms which put simply, there isn’t enough available fossil fuels available to humanity to burn and emit into the air to cause a soubling of the present CO2 in the atmosphere.
I’ll supply references if you wish, but this is basic chemistry – its the same principle behind soda-pop drinks.
Steve Short would well add further comment to this, albeit, simple relationship between Air and Sea water.
“expected changes”; what expected changes? Are these the same ones to do with expected sea rises?
But is the issue dissolution or calcification rates? http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/284/5411/118
“A natural substance can be a pollutant, if it is in excess.”
SJT,
Ya mean like some people?
CO2 is within 2% of its naturally occurring low.
Don’t seem like excess to me.
“By the middle of the next century, an increased concentration of carbon dioxide will decrease the aragonite saturation state in the tropics by 30 percent and biogenic aragonite precipitation by 14 to 30 percent.” From Kleypas et al.
Oh, goodie, another AGW prediction; this from a paper from 1999; princely; but 9 years have passed, so I wonder how the predictions are progressing? What is the current state of aragonite saturation and biogenic precipitation? For that matter, what is the current level of ocean ‘acidity’?
I think I might have come across a reason for the PR exercise to call carbon a pollutant. Pollution is an episode of the British comedy television series The Goodies.
Tim, Graeme and Bill go to the beach for a swim, but discover that the water is polluted. Then they notice how widespread the pollution is. They discover that the Ministry for Pollution is responsible for the problem.
The Goodies arrange for widespread grass to overcome the pollution, by seeding the clouds with grass seeds, and the results are far beyond their wildest dreams.
That is they turn the world Green.
Of course the climate change global warming debate is not about carbon but carbon dioxide, and as Professor Carter states: There is no empirical evidence that levels double or even treble those of today will be harmful, climatically or otherwise.
He points out that for the past few million years, the Earth has existed in a state of relative carbon dioxide starvation compared with earlier periods.
Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring, beneficial trace gas in the atmosphere.
Clearly his claim that neither Carbon or carbon dioxide is a pollutant is based on sound and well presented reasoning.
I could have expected that LRON would put in his robotic 5 cents worth. But this:
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.
Science 18 April 2008:
Vol. 320. no. 5874, pp. 336 – 340
DOI: 10.1126/science.1154122
Phytoplankton Calcification in a High-CO2 World
M. Debora Iglesias-Rodriguez,1* Paul R. Halloran,2* Rosalind E. M. Rickaby,2 Ian R. Hall,3 Elena Colmenero-Hidalgo,3{dagger} John R. Gittins,1 Darryl R. H. Green,1 Toby Tyrrell,1 Samantha J. Gibbs,1 Peter von Dassow,4 Eric Rehm,5 E. Virginia Armbrust,5 Karin P. Boessenkool3
At least some scientists still retain their integrity!
Bottom line is this:
Provided the SI of the form of calcium carbonate used by the organism exceeds 0.00 then the RATE of calcification (not decalcification – that doesn’t start until SI falls below 0.00) is a function, not of the SI (i.e. the thermodynamic degree of oversaturation), but of other factors such as:
the amount of available CaHCO3- ion in the water (itself a function of dissolved CO2 in the water and hence the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere with which at particular body of water is in equilibrium (Henry’s Law); and
other factors that relate to the vigorousness of the organism itself e.g. supply nutrients and micronutrients such as (in the case of calcareous phytoplankton, Fe(II) , Si, N species.
Thus, through paleohistory, the growth rates, and indeed origination rate of new species, of calcareous marine organism has actually INCREASED in proportion to the atmospheric partial pressure of CO2 (provided it was always below the thermodynamic limits previously identified), water temperature and other positive factors (see above) or DECREASED due to other negative environmental factors such as dissolved sulfide, heavy metals etc.
Steve Short,
A little OT, but would the old dead coral that used to abound in Moreton Bay before QCL dredged most of it for cement, constitute a proxy for the MWP?
In a word – yep – quite possible.
Acknowledge going a little OT – borne of extreme ‘drongo stress’ (no reflection upon yourself intended ;-).
FYI there is plenty of ‘old dead coral’ down the NSW coast as far as Jervis Bay (some small patches around Ulladulla and Bateman’s Bay too). All well known to recreational snorkelers and scuba divers.
I dated a fair bit of this while at ANSTO using the 230Th/234U technique. All clustered in the 2000 – 8000 y BP range. That was the warmer first half (?????) of this Holocene interglacial. Sea level was 1.0 – 1.5 m higher than now, despite the lack of AGW CO2 please note.
Just more of the sort of detail LRON hates to see leaking out.
And jumping over to the case of poor old Roy Spencer, let me put in this plug for his scientific integrity versus a lack of scientific integrity of the AGW ‘gods’ whose acolytes infest these pages like paper lice:
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2004/05/04/assault-from-above/
So how does figure 8 work?
http://www.tos.org/oceanography/issues/issue_archive/issue_pdfs/20_2/20.2_caldeira.pdf
worldclimatereport – gawd…
Well it’s better than being a fence sitter trying to look clever. Pielke-esque?
I think the web reference really says it all: http://www.tos.org
Ken Caldeira – another AGW ‘god’ who has the arrogance to think that no one reading his stuff ever got through Geochemistry 201.
Ducked it ! Perhaps reality is a problem for theorists.
And why did the pteropod shells here show dissolution.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v437/n7059/full/nature04095.html
Starting to think you’re full of shit. You’re arrogant enough.
I just loved this bit:
“Currently, the ocean is absorbing
carbon dioxide at about one-third
the rate that Americans are producing
it—the remainder is accumulating in
the atmosphere.”
In actual fact the atmospheric CO2 level is (still) increasing at very close to 0.45% per years. However, as at last year (date of the Caldeira paper) the rate of anthropogenic emissions to the atmosphere of CO2 was increasing at about 3.3%/year. This means that the oceans were absorbing about 3.3-0.45/3.3 = 86% of the CO2 ‘produced by Americans’, noting that the ocean doesn’t mysteriously ‘sort’ human-produced CO2 atoms from natural CO2 atoms so it is all done pro rata.
And that sums up the overall intellectual quality of the paper very nicely indeed.
And Bob does bung it on:
He debates with this:
“Use of the term carbon in this way is, of course, a deliberate political gambit, derived from the green ecosalvationist vocabulary and intended to convey a subliminal message about “dirty” coal.”
OK fair enough point.
BUT then does the same bullshit himself:
“Complex climate models are in effect sophisticated computer games, and their particular outputs are to a large degree predetermined by programmers’ predelictions.”
No hypocrisy here…
Obviously he’s neve rrun one himself – hardly a fun game. Complex stuff. And predetermined by programmers – well yea – like duh – programmers instead of little green men would have to have done it. But the implication is that it’s programmers divorced from scientists. Also any implication that model validation is not done. Indeed model validation is most of the actual activity.
So he’s just used the same techniques he’s attacked Penny Wong on. Not happy Bob – do better! If you’re trying to take the high moral ground do so properly.
Steve Shortdick lays smoke and ducks again.
Can’t hack the hard science can you LRON.
Your old E-meter shows the fear and loathing is rising again.
Better get the wifey back on the poison pen.
“You have a fine sense of certainty; throw scorn on these sources disputing your point, and then later we can discuss Ruddiman;”
So you throw up someone who deserves nothing but scorn. Jaworoski’s actually had to go to the most extreme nutballs out there on blogland to get his ‘paper’ published, Lyndon Larouche.
Here we go..
At last, a practical application of AGW “science” – based on latest Climate Modelling technology developed at NASA:
http://www.ilovemycarbondioxide.com/ipcc_oven.html
Steve Short: yes, I knew of the Science paper you referred to. It was a surprise, but I note that saturation levels for aragonite (as used in corals and pteropods) will drop well before saturation levels for calcite (used by coccolithophorids,) although the lag is only expected to be 50 to 100 years.
So, pointing to that study doesn’t answer the question as to what will happen to pteropods and aragonite corals within this century.
I see that according to your rules, scientists who publish something that indicates acidification might not be as bad – in the short term – for at least one species have “integrity”. Those who do studies that show other species in trouble have none, I guess?
And how about coming up with an answer as to why the pteropod experiment showed they started dissolving at saturation levels expected later this century.
If you don’t know, just say so. Or you could try abusing me as an idiot wannabe Gestapo, because, you know, that so increases your credibility.
“Notes on data released July 5, 2007:
June 2007 was the fifth warmest June in the past 29 years for both the globe
and the Northern Hemisphere, according to data released today by Dr. John
Christy, a professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System
Science Center (ESSC) at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH).
In the Northern Hemisphere, four of the five warmest Junes in the satellite
temperature record have been in the past five years; the warmest June was in
1998, during an major El Nino Pacific Ocean warming event.”
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/11/more-satellite-stuff/
Christy et al admit their 2004 temperature record was wrong.
“Notes on data released July 5, 2007:”
There’s gubmint science for you – a YEAR late and a dollar short!
Of course, if the sceptics did that, you’d be yelling “Cherry pickers!”
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V6N-4SDFSCK-4&_user=10&_coverDate=06%2F30%2F2008&_alid=772387105&_rdoc=4&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_cdi=5819&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=33&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=bf6dafebc30f008793cd5339b65f44b2“>http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V6N-4SDFSCK-4&_user=10&_coverDate=06%2F30%2F2008&_alid=772387105&_rdoc=4&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_cdi=5819&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=33&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=bf6dafebc30f008793cd5339b65f44b2″>http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V6N-4SDFSCK-4&_user=10&_coverDate=06%2F30%2F2008&_alid=772387105&_rdoc=4&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_cdi=5819&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=33&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=bf6dafebc30f008793cd5339b65f44b2″>http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V6N-4SDFSCK-4&_user=10&_coverDate=06%2F30%2F2008&_alid=772387105&_rdoc=4&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_cdi=5819&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=33&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=bf6dafebc30f008793cd5339b65f44b2″>http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V6N-4SDFSCK-4&_user=10&_coverDate=06%2F30%2F2008&_alid=772387105&_rdoc=4&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_cdi=5819&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=33&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=bf6dafebc30f008793cd5339b65f44b2
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V61-4NC4MCB-3&_user=10&_coverDate=06%2F15%2F2007&_alid=772387105&_rdoc=10&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_cdi=5801&_st=13&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=33&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=f3023e15e1b979222ab221fe8da01bd1
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2006GC001493.shtml
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2007GL032583.shtml
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2005/2004JD005220.shtml
“Better get the wifey back on the poison pen.” – that’s not bad actually. You’ve been trained well here at Mott’s school. Start out nice and end up narky. But anyway pay that ad hom. Bet your wife hits you for sexism.
Anyway ad homs aside – I am trying to work through – so stop being such a dick.
Hey LRON – if you are ‘working through’ why are you even here?
Is full on blogging permitted while on your ‘job’?
Might be more productive to keep the dick in and head down.
sjt; re; Christy’s ‘mistake’; Gordon Robertson takes that bit of garbage out on the the Roy W Spencer thread at 12.50 PM
Holy …
Steve has some pull around here boys.
For me it’s only three links to tilt.
I was looking at some pics of the Arctic sea ice and I scrolled down a few frames til I ended up looking at the Pacific, somewhere between the Aleutians and Hawaii. The water was discolored with a wide area of whitish ocean.
It’s a bloom of coccolith hundreds of miles wide.
You can see them from space.
“work through this issue” – sorreee Mr Toucheeeeee
“sjt; re; Christy’s ‘mistake’; Gordon Robertson takes that bit of garbage out on the the Roy W Spencer thread at 12.50 PM”
They admitted they were wrong.
Because readers here say they like to hear about real life, as opposed to models, try reading this abstract of a paper which looks at a real life model of reefs that are already under low carbonate saturation levels. (Short story appears to be – they don’t do so good.)
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2008/07/25/0712167105
Hmm, I should have said “real life example of reefs”, not “model”.
By the way, question for Steve Short. When you said:
“…the RATE of calcification (not decalcification – that doesn’t start until SI falls below 0.00) is a function, not of the SI (i.e. the thermodynamic degree of oversaturation), but of other factors such as:
the amount of available CaHCO3- ion in the water (itself a function of dissolved CO2 in the water and hence the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere with which at particular body of water is in equilibrium (Henry’s Law);”
are you agreeing that low levels of carbonate saturation, which can be expected with increased CO2 and lower ocean pH, will make the rate of calcification lower for at least some species?
Good luck getting a straight answer
This is what separates the men from the babies:
In seawater the key aqueous species which affect the rate of calcfication (not decalification) are the cationic calcium (Ca) species Ca+2, CaHCO3+, CaOH+ and CaHSO4+. However there are also other Ca species present, namely CaSO4, CaCO3 ion pairs which are not involved. Whenever there is a perturbation to the water chemistry such as input of dissolved phoshate species or humic and fulvic acids (anionic small and large molecular weight natural organic acids) then these also interact with Ca and change the pattern of speciation. This is why human pollution and/or outflows from rivers are well known to change the over all Ca speciation, hence the availability of Ca+2, CaHCO3+ etc, hence rates of coral growth (calcification). At the same time organic matter in the vicinity may well be decomposing aerobically and putting dissolved CO2 into the water column. This also affects Ca+2 and CaHCO3+ speciation and concentrations – some cases positively. There is a significant literature teasing out the mechanisms and kinetics of biogenic calcium carbonate deposition.
Don’t say I didn’t try!
But if that was all too hard, how about:
Goo, gooo, gah, gahhh, gurrrgle, gurrgle, hehhehehe, (tickle, tickle), whose mummies gorgeous little boy then…..
You were indeed right, Luke. Surely to God other readers who hold Dr Short in high esteem have to be having doubts about his clear reluctance to answer straight forward questions in a clear way.
I note that most short explanations of the effect of ocean acidification say that dissolved CO2 in seawater reduces the amount of carbonate ions available for use by calcifying creatures. That post talks a lot about factors other than CO2, but says next to nothing about the effect of CO2 in the water.
“are you agreeing that low levels of carbonate saturation, which can be expected with increased CO2 and lower ocean pH, will make the rate of calcification lower for at least some species?”
Possibly for some species (ALL other things being equal such as the equally significant effects listed above and previously – nutrients and micronutrients etc).
However, the bulk of the literature (both modern and paleoclimatic) shows that for most species CO2 (atm.) can go up to at least 800 ppmv (or higher in some cases)and calcification (growth) rates rise proportionately.
That is why, if for some specific species a reverse effect appeared to occur e.g. from a microcosm experiment, it is incumbent on the researcher to check for all potentially confounding factors. This is the natural ‘noise’ characteristic of the range of natural aquatic ecosystems.
It is noted that not only microcosm experiments are permissible as there are many natural instances e.g. shoreline springs, shallow waters with organic-rich sediments, bottom gas emissions etc where the level of dissolved CO2 in the water is maintained constantly at higher levels than would apply for equilibrium with 383 ppmv (atm.).
You have to walk the walk, if you want to be able to talk the talk.
SS: see that wasn’t so hard, was it.
But: your claim that “the bulk of the literature (both modern and paleoclimatic) shows that for most species CO2 (atm.) can go up to at least 800 ppmv (or higher in some cases)and calcification (growth) rates rise proportionately” is talking about species of what? Only phytoplankton? Because there’s a hell of a lot more calcifying creatures out there than that, and only a tiny number of them have been tested regarding sensitivity to lower pH. (The link for that proposition:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080521105251.htm )
Yes, I agree I’ve principally been talking about:
corals (for which there is a fabulous literature both modern and paleoclimatic); and
phytoplankton,
simply because that covers aragonite (which have very little atomic substitution) and calcite (the latter covering magnesian calcites and high Ca, Ba and P calcites too in some circumstances).
And if you are looking into the coral literature please don’t forget the important issue of species origination rates (at various levels of CO2 (atm.) and other environmental factors.
Read on! I’ve only been reading this stuff (or dating corals etc) for about…..26 years.
Oh – I nearly forgot to mention, seeing as you’re so ‘hot, hot, hot’ on specific species, taxa etc, please don’t forget about the wonderful aragonitic otoliths in the ‘ears’ of fish as well. Still a form of calcification. Still plenty of fossil otoliths lying around too, you know.
Rather mad keen on otoliths myself – after all I’m only (mildly) famous for inventing the isotopic ageing of modern fish otoliths (to calibrate fisheries management) using 226Ra and 210Pb. Think ‘the orange roughy on your plate is older that your granny’ and hey, I’m da man! Wanna cheap, slightly worn, 2nd hand reference (or ten, or…)?
OK, Steve, here’s something. On 10 July you posted here as follows (quoting the Australian Greenhouse Office):
” “At present the surface ocean is supersaturated with both calcite and aragonite. By about 2060, depending on future CO2 emissions, aragonite will become undersaturated in surface waters poleward of 60°S. High densities of pteropods with aragonite shells that live in the surface water of the polar and sub-polar regions are likely to be affected. Calcite undersaturation may follow in the next century.”
Nothing more, nor less, that an outrageously blatant lie!
Totally refutable by long established textbook chemothermodynamics. ”
You now say that lower carbonate saturation may “possibly” mean lower calcification rates for some species.
Seems to me that the statement you criticised is quite consistent with your position.
Apology to the author of that comment now due?
Here’s a few more points:
1. I can’t say that I have seen anything on the proposition that increased CO2 will increase the calcification rates of coral. (For phytoplankton, yes, but not for coral.) I know that some argue that higher temperatures will be good for coral, but that is a different issue.
What I have found is reference to many experiments on corals that show the opposite: higher CO2, less carbonate, less calcification. Here’s just a couple of references:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2000/1999GB001195.shtml
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3069000
Any reference supporting your suggestion is welcome.
2. You made a detailed post here on July 11 in which you asked for someone to explain to you “in plain english” how scientists could argue that coral were at risk when it would take (according to you) CO2 levels in excess of 2000ppm to get water capable of actually corroding coral. You repeated the argument in this thread.
I responded by saying that the rate of calcification is the thing. After copping much abuse from you, you now acknowledge that some calcifying creatures will “possibly” have lower rates of calcification at lower carbonate saturation, and as far as I can tell, you do not dispute that lower carbonate saturation in seawater will be a consequence of increased CO2.
You know there are studies (like the ones above) that show that lower rates of calcification for corals have been found in lab experiments.
Unless you do have the studies to hand to back up the idea that increased rates of calcification for coral under increased pH and low saturation is probable, it would be hard not to conclude that your post of 11 July was deliberately misleading.
3. I still have the distinct impression that your comments about high CO2 levels in the past do not address the point that it’s the high rate of CO2 increase (compared to past increases in the geologic record) which is the particular problem for ocean chemistry now. Many scientists talking about ocean acidification make this point.
4. Your mention of species origination rates leaves open the question of how fast that can happen. It may be little comfort for anyone who sees reef decline/destruction to be told that in (say) 10,000 years it will all be OK again.
That all said, I don’t deny that there is still much to be learnt about how ocean acidification will work out.
So an old Jedi mind trick eh? Of course disclosure has been less than complete.
Steve: “Goo, gooo, gah, gahhh, gurrrgle, gurrgle, hehhehehe, (tickle, tickle), whose mummies gorgeous little boy then….”
Frustrating isn’t it? You give a straight answer but it’s over their heads they say you haven’t answered.
While I am waiting for Dr Short’s comments, I want to ask one other point.
In February, there was a post here
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002756.html
indicating that you had begun to think that CO2 levels in ocean water was a serious issue. Indeed, you sounded distinctly green-ish with statements like:
“Personally, I am coming round to the view that this is the real paradigm which the human race needs to embrace in order to manage issues such as AGW (to the extent it actually exists and is significant) and (perhaps more importantly) the levels of dissolved CO2 and O2 in the surface layers of the ocean (i.e. pH, cyanobacterial, bacterial and zooplankton activity issues) and the sustainability and purposes of the continental multicellular plant biomass.”
And this:
“In my view what is inarguable is that we now exploiting this planet in an almost mindless way which is largely unsustainable.
For example, our critical relationship (via the O2 we breath) with the oceanic cyanobacteria surely tells us that it is that relationship which must lie at the heart of the solution to AGW.”
Now, all your effort seems to be towards dismissing CO2’s effect on oceans as important.
Seems a distinct change of tone and approach to me, which maybe you’ve explained elsewhere, but I haven’t spotted it yet.
Ah found it. http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/single.php?2008212/crefl2_143.A2008212150000-2008212150500.4km.jpg
This isn’t the Pacific photo I refered to before.
It’s an Aqua satellite photo of the mid Atlantic, but it shows a simular bloom of plankton.
The way I heard it, the oceans already contain 50 times as much dissolved co2 as the atmosphere. And yet this “heightened” state of carbonation has left the ocean decidedly alkaline.
Watkinson what are you trying to drum up? It seems like you are fishing for a new booger to pick while the world inconveniently cools off in step with the sunspot cycle.
I find it funny that while Corals have been around for a few hundred million years.With atmosphere CO2 levels from 4,000 to 180 ppm.Dealing with the effects of high and low levels of CO2.
Now we have AGW believers who wails over a still historically low CO2 level of around 385 ppm.Being profoundly worried on what it will do to the ocean.On what it will do to the shells and so on.
They are still here anyway.Maybe ocean acidification worries are premature.I think this nonsense is going on because the old idea that CO2 is the driver of warming.Have been exposed as being false.
James, no one is arguing that the ocean actually become acid. People sometimes complain that “acidification” sounds like that is what is being suggested, but if you want, you can call it “decreased alkalinity”. Doesn’t make much difference what you call it; it’s the lowering of the pH and its effect on carbonate chemistry in the ocean that is the issue.
A cooling world makes little difference to the acidification issue. (Actually, I expect that it probably makes it worse, as cold water absorbs more CO2.) But that is why it is an issue worth taking seriously, even if tomorrow someone came up with proof that CO2 is not going to cause significantly increased temperatures.
It is true that ocean acidification as a concern seems to have had only a decade or so of serious attention. Doesn’t matter much when a potential problem is recognized, if it is shown to genuinely be a problem.
You might want to read the Discover magazine’s easy to read article about it, although there is a mistake in one figure (the amount of greenhouse gases released during PETM should be 4.5 Gigatons, not 4.5 million tons). They will correct that figure in the next issue. Here’s the article:
http://discovermagazine.com/2008/jul/16-ocean-acidification-a-global-case-of-osteoporosis
I know there is heaps that Steve Short will dispute in the article, and I also know that it does not reflect the very recent papers indicating that phytoplankton may respond well (at least up to a point). Still, you should know what lot of other scientists are saying. There is a very wide range of them quoted in the article.
Um, I’ll say it again, but the ocean acidification researchers point out that the difference between CO2 increases now and in the past is the rapid rate of this century’s increase. To take the dramatic example from the Discover article (and I correct the “tons” myself):
“Drastic as the PETM was, the event is tame compared with acidification today. “Back then,” Zachos says, “4.5 giga tons of CO2 were released over a period of 1,000 to 10,000 years. Industrial activities will release the same amount in a mere 300 years—so quickly that the ocean’s buffering system doesn’t even come into play.” ”
steve watkinson:
“OK, Steve, here’s something. On 10 July you posted here as follows (quoting the Australian Greenhouse Office):
” “At present the surface ocean is supersaturated with both calcite and aragonite. By about 2060, depending on future CO2 emissions, aragonite will become undersaturated in surface waters poleward of 60°S. High densities of pteropods with aragonite shells that live in the surface water of the polar and sub-polar regions are likely to be affected. Calcite undersaturation may follow in the next century.”
Nothing more, nor less, that an outrageously blatant lie!
Totally refutable by long established textbook chemothermodynamics. ”
You now say that lower carbonate saturation may “possibly” mean lower calcification rates for some species.
Seems to me that the statement you criticised is quite consistent with your position.
Apology to the author of that comment now due?”
NO APOLOGIES ARE REQUIRED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It is a scientific fact that the AGO statement is technically incorrect to the point of being a blatant lie.
Unfortunately, due to your total lack of knowledge of geochemistry and a logical and discerning intelligence, you seem incapable of understanding the DISTINCT chemical difference between the saturation state of a mineral and its potential dissolution (decalcification) OR its formation rates (calcification) i.e. the distinction between the THERMODYNAMIC and KINETIC constraints which apply.
Saturation state (as measured by Saturation Index; SI) is a thermodynamic CONSTRAINT i.e. if SI>0.00 decalcification is thermodynamically FOBIDDEN. This is precisely why the AGO were telling a definite lie. However, if SI>0.00 mineral formation (calcification) is thermodynamically allowed. That SI says NOTHING about whether it will then happen a a slow or fast rate.
You are utterly confusing the equilibrium thermodynamic condition that ALLOWS calcification (or not) with the kinetic condition(s) that CONTROLS calcification RATE.
The latter is affected, as I pointed out, by a large number of chemical/environmental variable and indeed by the health of the organism forming the biogenic calcium carbonate – which may be affected by metabolic (and hence subject to environmental stress) factors quite unrelated to the DIC (Dissolved Inorganic Carbon) status of the seawater.
I told you right at the start of your interminable, technically ignorant, but utterly arrogant nit picking posts that I really didn’t have the time to start at high school chemistry and work up from there.
It is clear you have no capacity to appreciate, absorb and understand the fascinating and wonderful complexity of the natural world and feel a neurotic need to reduce everything to moronic simplifications and logical confusions.
You simple minded, post-modernist arrogance, clearly founded on an abysmal lack of the appropriate technical education, exemplifies for me everything that is so deeply distasteful in the monolithic behaviour of the hordes of acolytes of the apocalyptic religion of anthropogenic global warming.
These ‘deep greenies’ by and large have only a wafer-thin, comic book-style understanding of the beautiful depths and subtleties of Nature.
“that I really didn’t have the time to start at high school chemistry and work up from there.” bunk – but you have plenty of time to rant and rave.
Ever thought you might make a few wins with a high school chemistry walk through the issues instead of PhD chemist ram raid. Hardly conducive to winning your opponents over. Wouldn’t be beneath you.
You are the one that does all the ranting and raving.
A collection of your insults and hyperbole stretching back over the several years since you popped up on this blog is simply astonishing in extent when one checks back.
You are the one who pretends you are across the issues in every single discipline. I have yet to see you stand back from any single AGW-related field and resist the urge to wade in, boots, sarcasm and all – on this blog that is. Was your humility organ surgically removed at an early age?
On any of the technically harder blogs I note you are only able to muster the occasional tiny squeak of incredibly ephemeral content.
Your posts are most often based on the throwing of bulk references, many of which you have either failed to read carefully and/or have sufficient education to actually comprehend their technical depth.
Really came a big cropper recently with the Australian groundwater paper you quoted as evidence there is no influence of the PDO didn’t you – a deathly silence on that one noticed by all here. Yet it elegantly showed precisely the reverse of what you claimed! And most of the 30,000 bores on your home turf as well!
You must have a Bundy clock that broke years ago, a boss who never takes you to task for all the hours you spend blogging and a 4 pm knock off time.
Hey, you weren’t even familiar with the term ‘working through’ – which out in the real world means that you stay in your office working through in to the night, or if e.g. the mine or whatever is starting a new production phase, through the night.
All this – and in the Public Service too (of course), your entire salary paid for by poor mug tax payers!
Steve: all the AGO woman said was that pteropods with aragonite shells are “likely to be affected”. She did not specify that they will be dissolved by the mechanism you keep talking about as being impossible (although in fact damage to the shells is what actual experiments by NOAA found). It is quite possible to read her comment as meaning they will find it hard to calcify in the first place. If that is the case (which you admitted is a “possibility” for some species in low carbonate saturated waters) then they are still “affected”.
And readers should be reminded what the actual experimenters said in their abstract:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v437/n7059/full/nature04095.html
“When live pteropods were exposed to our predicted level of undersaturation during a two-day shipboard experiment, their aragonite shells showed notable dissolution.”
Sounds like an “effect” on the pteropods to me, regardless of the mechanism.
I do not have full access to the paper. How are you saying that this experiment went wrong? I presume you have access, and you might find the answer in a flash.
It also sounds to me like you are backpeddling on your earlier admission that low saturation of carbonate “possibly” might affect some species. And you surely know that there are many experiments showing that indeed is the case for some corals and other creatures.
There are various other points I have made that remain uncommented on.
You are, no doubt, a smart enough guy in your field. However, your debating tactics alone show that your credibility on ocean acidification issues is not looking all that flash.
In the time taken to write that you could have given us a chemistry lesson and answered the question instead of being evasive and trying to be offensive. I think your transformation here on blog from nice science guy to acid thrower is pretty interesting actually.
The PDO paper was tabled to show influence on groundwater on climate – in refutation to Louis’s claims to the contrary of climate not being an influence. I wonder how you have reached the conclusion above. But really I don’t care if that’s your analysis.
And thanks – gee I did not know that “working through” meant that – does it really. I myself only work 9-5 and never do anything like that 🙂
Anyway unimpressed with your stinky levels of PhD smoke you’ve dispersed across this debate. You’ve avoided as long as you could and been totally evasive. Very very slick mate.
Unlike yourself I’ve never made any claims about expertise. There are a fair number of scientists are not in agreement with your position on ocean acidification, and published in the literature, so it’s only reasonable the we non-experts seek to ask some questions. I note you have made no serious comment about the Nature paper except to imply they were dreaming.
Do you think your comments above are really warranted. Really invites some pretty nasty counter-comments but overall leaves me despondent that you hold that level of contempt. I note the intense selectivity of your moral dignity upon myself – says a lot too.
Hey Luke, are you similarly puzzled about the change of tone between that February post by our friend, and his later attitude?
Well indeed – some heartfelt concern for the planet, bioengineered solutions offered and now full on dismissal. But that’s before the bipolar personality switch flipped. EQ ~ 0 I suspect. Not related to SI.
Well, looks like the boys have discovered the new front in the AGW war; are you a lawyer steven?
Where’s LRON?
Oh he’s just doing another one of his usual ‘Feast of the Bottom Feeders’ bits right down at the end of the Bob Carter/Green Paper thread.
You know, his ‘Hi, I’m Dr. Jackal and I’m here to support me vicious little mate Mr. Hide’ routine.
Oooooh – we’re all so, so intimidated.
Looks like the big interests might be rewarding Short to mark the man. Good tactic. Just another contract I guess. Beats measuring properties of cesspits.
“To label carbon dioxide a “pollutant” is an abuse of language, logic and science”.
There has been some discussion here about what is a pollutant. My take on this issue is that by collecting human CO2 emissions in a highly concentrated form and then sequestrating it down some underground mine shaft is bluddy dangerous as well as a seriously anti-life stooopidity.
e.g. If this highly concentrated sequestrated gas belches out of the ground as has happened it will kill anyone in the near environment. Charming people these Al-AGW jokers.
“e.g. If this highly concentrated sequestrated gas belches out of the ground as has happened it will kill anyone in the near environment. Charming people these Al-AGW jokers.”
Denialists would have it happen in Third World countries where the loss of a few poor people wouldn’t matter. Can’t have these greedy little Indians or West Africans trying to take all our oil can we?
Trebble
Climate rationalists wouldn’t have it happening to anyone.
Now kindly take your trolling elsewhere.
Yes Jan and Keiran can stay coz although he makes offensive remarks he is on your side. Exactly why the comment about denialists is true.
Anonymous troll Andrea loves trolls.
There is very little that can be more offensive than comparing those who disagree with you with holocaust deniers as you have just done along with the anonymous troll Trebble.
“There is very little that can be more offensive than comparing those who disagree with you with holocaust deniers as you have just done along with the anonymous troll Trebble.”
Get over yourself Jan. Kerian compares AGW supporters with terrorists and Al-Queada, but that’s ok by you isn’t it? As for your Holocaust deniers crap, it’s just a diversion. You really are a hypocritical bunch of idiotic trolls who can only argue about what title you should or should not be given. All superficial, just like your arguments.
“but that’s ok by you isn’t it?
No it isn’t don’t be silly, and in covering for them you are every bit as bad as they are.
Amazing. or not so amazing.
AGW supporters label us as deniers and then become indignant when their own weapons are used against them.
“AGW supporters label us as deniers and then become indignant when their own weapons are used against them.”
You really are stupid aren’t you Louis, not to mention blind. Ever heard of the term eco-nazi, or eco-terrorist? How many times have deniers here labelled AGW people using such offensive terms, not to mention Keiran happily throwing in his 2 bob’s worth? I barely read of any “indignation” or ire when you use such terms to describe AGW supporters, but as soon as the term denier is used you are all jumping up and down screaming about the Holocaust. Grow up and get over it. Besides Louis Hissink, wasn’t it YOU who was recently bemoaning the Third World countries taking our oil and how we had to keep it from them? How very telling.
Brian; “but as soon as the term denier is used you are all jumping up and down screaming about the Holocaus”
It was the source and the inspiration for the term. However all that aside it is simply the shallowest possible form of “argument” that you can come up with.
Jan Pompe, when you can agree that the terms you people sling around are as grotesque and offensive as denier, then maybe you will be worth paying attention to.
It has long been recognized that fossil records of shelled pteropods are relatively poor, primarily because their thin and fragile aragonitic shells are more susceptible to chemical and mechanical damage in comparison to calcitic skeletal remains of other marine organisms like foraminifers.
Pteropods, and particularly those living in circum-polar waters are widely recognized as being a highly susceptible (probably the most highly susceptible) organism to potential decalcification due to the facts that their shells are aragonite rather than (the various) forms of calcite, the those shells are relatively thin and the solubility of CO2 increases with decreasing temperature (which in turns maximizes the solubility of calcium carbonate).
However, once again it is relatively easy to model, using any solution thermodynamic code the point at which the shells of living pteropods would be susceptible to dissolution (decalcification).
I’d therefore like to specifically address thermodynamically the issue of pteropods and in particular Arctic and Antarctic pteropods living in water at (say) 0 C i.e. the ABSOLUTE EXTREME CASE.
At 0 C the Saturation Index of aragonite drops to 0.00 when the partial pressure of CO2 with which the water is equilibrated is 741 ppmv. Only at that point is decalcification of aragonite thermodynamically permitted and hence decalcification rates will begin to rise (from a base level of zero). BTW, the pH of water is also still well above 7.0 at this point i.e. it is not acid.
At present rates (previously discussed) of atmospheric CO2 rise (0.45%/year), this estreme state would be reached in the year 2171 i.e. 168 years from now.
Clearly, noting the above described conditions represent the absolute extreme imaginable case (pteropods at 0 C) this could not occur ‘any time soon now’, as mr. watkinson insists and certainly not by 2060 such as AGW alarmist bodies such as AGO would have it, by a long shot.
End of another unfounded AGW alarmist story.
The above post shows clearly that even those scientists who are preparing and perhaps even successfully publishing papers on the ‘ocean acidification effects’ of AGW (and some of those publications definitely indicate sub-standard reviewing) should carefully check beforehand with geochemist colleagues in their various institutions to make absolutely sure they are not drawing conclusions which fly in the face of fundamental, long-established solution thermodynamics.
For the various thermodynamic checks I have described in the preceding posts, I used the United Sates Geological Survey (USGS) open-source model PHREEQC version 2.15.02, please refer:
http://wwwbrr.cr.usgs.gov/projects/GWC_coupled/phreeqc/
I would be happy to post to any site or email to any person the (ASCII text) input and output files for my model runs to facilitate full and transparent verification of my assertions in this blog regarding the unassailable chemothermodynamic constraints to the formation or decalcification of biogenic aragonite and calcite under the full range of conceivable environmental conditions.
Brian Holland: You seem to also be a wearer of the fabled “angry pants”. Relax mate, get your super statement out, and start wondering if under the new economic paradigm you’ll be able to afford retirement.
http://business.smh.com.au/business/chaney-sees-further-woes-20080803-3p6o.html
And as posted on another thresd:
http://www.kitco.com/ind/Wallenwein/jul282008.html
Food for thought?
WJP, another hypocrite.
You seem to miss the point BH. I would much rather have a robust diverse economy with a broad tax base, and as a consequence an economy that can more readily withstand external shock and hopefully be cleanish and greenish at the same time. Not much of an ask, no? But spare me eco-nazis please.
With the US mired in a credit crisis that’s become a global phenomenen, banks everywhere are tightening lending criteria to the point where even interbank lending is much reduced.
http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto080320081459253705&referrer_id=yahoofinance
New world order?
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aPAyYwJYe.Mg&refer=home
Gauno, Rudd, Wong et al. appear to only too willing to shoot us in both feet on the strength of an ideal that seems spurious at best.
Wong: “Carbon pollution is causing climate change……”
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/4274
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24122325-20142,00.html
Me? Hypocrite, don’t think so. I just put my money where my mouth is. What about you?
You’re an idiot WJP.