“THE oceans take out our anthropogenic carbon dioxide gas by quickly dissolving it as bicarbonate HCO3-, which in turn forms solid calcium carbonate either organically in calcareous organisms or precipitates inorganically. The CaCO3 is precipitating and not dissolving during this process, because buffering in the ocean maintains a stable pH around 8. We also see that CO2 reacts very fast with the water, contrary to the claim by the IPCC that it takes 50 – 200 years for this to happen.” That’s according to geologist, Tom Segalstad.
Update – see comments in thread for comprehensive rebuttal
Tom Segalstad, performs an experiment to demonstrate this claim.
“This video shows that a candle floating on water, burning in the air inside a glass, converts the oxygen in the air to CO2. The water rises in the glass because the CO2, which replaced the oxygen, is quickly dissolved in the water. The water contains calcium ions Ca++, because we initially dissolved calcium hydroxide Ca(OH)2 in the water. The CO2 produced during oxygen burning reacts with the calcium ions to produce solid calcium carbonate CaCO3, which is easily visible as a whitening of the water when we switch on a flashlight. This little kitchen experiment demonstrates the inorganic carbon cycle in nature.”
Reminiscent of Julius Sumner Miller? You can now watch Professor Sumner Miller on the internet, click here http://www.abc.net.au/science/features/whyisitso/
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
I think this is way over simplified. The pH of saturated lime water is much too high to reflect reality. It is 12.3 vs 8 for sea water. What really happens in sea water is a lot more interesting. Calcium carbonate is one of those odd salts that’s actually less soluble in warm water than cold. So the oceans can hold more calcium and more carbon dioxide when its cold because of the formation of calcium bi-carbonate. When sea water gets warmed up (such as when currents carry it to lower latitudes) the calcium bi-carbonate becomes unstable, decomposing to limestone and CO2. This decomposition only deposits limestone in shallow seas because in deeper water, the cold temperature in the deep oceans and the carbonic acid dissolved in it will dissolve the calcuim carbonate before it hits the bottom. If you want to enhance the oceans ability to sequester CO2 as limestone, it seems you’s want to pump cold water from the deeper parts of the ocean off shore, let it absorbe CO2 from the atmosphere at the surface while cold, then use solar heat to warm up the Co2 saturated sea water in broad shallow estuaries and allow the sea water, minus some calcium and carbonate to return the ocean.
Sean,
upwelling is cold deep ocean water being brought to the surface by tides and winds. The colder water loses CO2 as it equilibrates. Downwelling at the poles is due to an increase in density from cooling and the additional salt due to the expelling of salt from water that freezes carrying a higher CO2 density down. A lot of the upwelling is close to shore so some of the estuary stuff probably happens also.
Of course, why would we want to sequester our plant fertilizer???
This goes along with what JAXA is claiming:
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=8573
O/T Jen but Matt Ridley’s Royal Soc lecture in Edinburgh was priceless:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2011/11/1/scientific-heresy.html
@kuhnkat
Nonetheless, Sean is correct:
>Calcium carbonate is one of those odd salts that’s actually less soluble in warm water than cold. So the oceans can hold more calcium and more carbon dioxide when its cold because of the formation of calcium bi-carbonate. When sea water gets warmed up (such as when currents carry it to lower latitudes) the calcium bi-carbonate becomes unstable, decomposing to limestone and CO2<
I have read quite a number of peer-reviewed papers on this (mostly from the geological viewpoint of rate of limestone deposition) and a common speculation from these is that the observed lag of atmospheric CO2 concentration behind temperature increase – 800/1000 years – is due to the time taken for oceans to warm sufficiently to de-gas the dissolved bicarbonate from earlier, cooler periods back into the atmosphere as CO2
As noted, speculation. But based on the known Ksp of CO2 in seawater … as Sean has described
Where is your scepticism. It has nothing to do with CO2 dissolving.
@Luke
“It has nothing to do with CO2 dissolving.”
I’m afraid I have to concur with Luke here, it’s all to do with reduced pressure in the jar.
I too would like to see the glass already in place, then the candle electrically ignited.
A bit alegorecal Jennifer.
In general, I’m not much impressed by “kitchen experiments”. They may illustrate a principal quite well, but often a closer analyses reveals weaknesses. In this one it’s both the reduced pressure in the container,and the concentration of CO2 in the air after combustion. The latter would be hundreds of times greater than the concentration in the atmosphere over sea-water.
I’m more impressed by the equilibrium times reported in experiments where CO2-enriched air is maintained over sea-water in a closed container, as a precursor to measurements of the effects of elevated CO2 levels on marine organisms. The times range from hours to a few days, depending on both CO2 concentration and temperature. (and maybe how careful the experimenters are). If the water is agitated, or the air is bubbled through the water, the times reduce significantly. These times have to be taken in context however, as the CO2 concentrations may be 50%, 100% (or more) of atmospheric levels, far greater than the year-to-year or decade-to-decade increases seen in the real atmosphere. However, it must be clear that atmospheric increases won’t take decades or centuries to be absorbed.
While on the subject of such experiments, it’s worth mentioning that they are most often of very short duration. CO2 Science reports that “Of those experiments in the database that report the length of time the organisms were subjected to reduced pH levels, for example, the median value was only four days. And many of the experiments were conducted over periods of only a few hours, which is much too short a time for organisms to adapt or evolve to successfully cope with new environmental conditions.”
http://www.co2science.org/education/reports/prudentpath/ch10.php
I’d say those studies are effectively worthless. So much for “settled science”.
Of course for those who think it’s CO2 – simply bubble CO2 into a cylinder like above and see if it disappears (dissolves) quickly
Two things happening in the video above – 2 O2s used for every CO2 produced.
Heat air expands and cooler air contracts.
Recent studies by limnologists show that the freshwater systems of the Earth are much more prominent in the CO2 cycle than previously understood.
This is a big deal.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080507105549.htm
Clearly the implications of this has not been well addressed at all in the AGW community.
As to the experiment, I would in this case side with Luke, God forbid, because it seems far too simple and uncontrolled.
ian8888,
I wasn’t disagreeing with Sean, only pointing out that it was the natural cycle. Also that I don’t want to “improve” it!!
O/T I know but the market trading co2 according to Greg Sheridan is halfway between a fantasy and a fraud.
We’ll have the world’s biggest co2 tax and waste billions buying fake credits every year yet we may as well be buying pixie dust for all the good it will do.
Of course the climate and the temp won’t change in the slightest, so a zero dividend is guaranteed.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/no_market_but_lots_of_scams/#commentsmore
Well, well, luke may have a point other than the top of his head; of course he will still maintain the heating effect of CO2 which was established by Arrhenius’s similar experiment which was hopelessly flawed.
Well Cohenite, the candle is burning (nyuk nyuk) illustration how sceptics get sucked into nonsense.
>Where is your scepticism. It has nothing to do with CO2 dissolving<
I wasn't commenting on Tom Segalstad's experiment. Just the known Ksp of CO2 in seawater
A perspective from Hans Schreuder:
“As I see it:
1. flame heats air inside the glass
2. warm air expands and some bubbles can be seen to escape at the glass/water boundary in similar tests
3. oxygen is used up by candle flame and replaced with CO2
4. as soon as the source of heat is extinguished due to lack of oxygen, the cooling down of the remaining air is what causes the water to rise up into the glass
5. the CO2 reacts with the calcium hydroxide for one reason only: a precipitate is formed, which is one of the fundamental reasons why chemical reactions take place.
6. similar tests without having dissolved Ca(OH)2 give the same result.
7. nothing to do with water taking up CO2 – it’s the calcium hydroxide that reacts with the CO2, not the water.
8. oceans are the drivers of atmospheric CO2, not the other way around, IMHO.”
And a in support of Tom Segalstad’s interpretation:
“Just exhaling through a straw into a calcium hydroxide solution will produce the same result, a precipitate of calcium carbonate. In water alone, dissolved CO2 becomes an acid, HCO3. But since calcium hydroxide, a base, is also present in seawater, this HCO3 will react with it. Thus you get what always happens when an acid reacts with a base: water plus a salt, the salt being calcium carbonate in this case.”
“As for “changes in atmospheric CO2 by PPM will have ZERO impact on dissolved CO2 levels,” that seems flat wrong to me and I’d say that a review of Henry’s Law is called for. Water seeks to maintain an approximate 50 to 1 ratio with atmospheric CO2, and this ratio applies in both directions. Excess CO2 in air will be swallowed. Excess CO2 in water will be disgorged – all to equilibrate at 50 to 1.”
Dry air at standard conditions is 20.95% Oxygen. Depending on the combustion material, the range of combustion is minimum of 12 to 15% of O2. Increasing CO2 from 390 PPM to 6% has no relationship to changes of just PPM only. This experiment is shown invalid here http://www.nsw.noaa.gov/educ/activit/oxygen.htm
Valid concepts require looking a both sides of the equation, in this case the “massive pools of liquid CO2 on the ocean floor” per “Volcanic CO2” by geologist Timothy Casey at http://contact.geologist-1011.com
With a reservoir of CO2 keeping the ocean at maximum saturation, it is doubtful that PPM changes in the air govern. When you open a carbonated beverage the first bubbles are released from reduced pressure…and more as the beverage warms…all due to Boyles Law.
Sunlight has no warming effect below twenty feet. The ocean is average depth of over a mile and average temperature of ~40F. If the warming (and increased CO2 production) is from changes in the Earth’s fission rate, then the liquid CO2 is right at the source of the heat. More on this in the article “Earth’s Missing Geothermal Flux” at http://www.FauxScienceSlayer.com
There is an Earth science model that has no mysteries or anomalies….it is just “unconventional”.
The arguments about calcium in sea water is fallacious. Sea water contains over three times as much magnesium ions than calcium ions and magnesium carbonate which is close to insoluble in water will form and settle if carbon dioxide is introduced.
If our power stations were near sea water all the carbon dioxide could be extracted from the waste gas and the magnesium carbonate probably recovered. The problem would be that hydrogen ions would replace the magnesium ions in the clean water discharge and the water returned to the ocean would be more acidic.
Here’s the proper link Faux Science Slayer:
http://geologist-1011.net/
@ John Sayers…Thanks ! !
Timothy Caseys “Volcanic CO2” is a must read to see the missing factors in the Earth and climate science debate. In addition Tim has posted the full Tyndall’s “Heat as Mode of Motion” experiment at http://tyndall1861.geologist-1011.mobi/ As Tim mentions in his endnotes, Tyndall actually measured opacity and not absorption by various gases.
Tim also has an original translation of Fourier’s comments on heat in a glass covered box at http://greenhouse.geologist-1011.net/ At the time of Fouriers comments there was no electromagnatic spectrum and no periodic table. Warmist claims concerning Fourier and Tyndall support of GHE are distortions. There is a false provenence provided by warmist to embellish their very limited historic acceptance of their false science. A better summary is provided by Dr Vincent Gray at his NZ Newsletter of July, 2011.
More comment received by email:
“It’s silly – as a recovering aquarist I can tell you it’s hard to get CO2 into water (to turbo-charge plant growth) – all sorts of diffusers are needed and the water loses dissolved CO2 quickly with any surface disturbance.
With access to a lab one could simply get a glass jar and fill it with CO2 from a cylinder (no candles). Bet the level in the jar doesn’t move quickly.
Some good web analysis on the topic …. http://www.math.harvard.edu/~knill/pedagogy/waterexperiment/index.html “
from Yonaton Hyland
FIRST…
If you want a quick idea of what I’m talking about, take an empty plastic soda bottle, and uncap it. Run it under very hot tap water, and after about 10 seconds, cap it while it’s still under the water. (Longer time is needed because hot tap water isn’t as effective as a 600 deg Centigrade candle flame.) Then take it out, and as it cools, it will noticeably contract. (I did that myself, to see if it would give a good effect, and at least I was satisfied with it. Perhaps you will be, too.)
And, yes, while “lime water” (CaOH solution) can absorb CO2, it requires pretty vigorous agitation, which they did not supply in the video. The water will rise anyway, even without the added chemical, because of the vacuum created by heating the air prior to immersing the cover. (I just tried that one, as well, with just water, and it also works, but not because of CO2, which cannot dissolve that quickly in plain water.)
I’m sure it’s due primarily, if not entirely, to the vacuum created by the initial heating of the gas in the glass cover. Note how they tilt the glass cover before putting it in the water, which allows the heated air to escape, which is what causes the vacuum that draws the water up after (and ONLY after) the candle goes out, and the air begins to cool.
One way to measure elevated CO2 levels is with a “Fyrite” detector, a video of which can bee seen here. It’s standard equipment for Tissue-/Cell-Culture Incubators, which use CO2 to maintain the proper pH of the media the tissue or cells are maintained in. The red liquid contains KOH (It’s better than CaOH, though more hazardous to use), to extract the CO2. But you MUST thoroughly agitate it by inverting it twice (seen @ time ~66 seconds trough 1 min 18 seconds), otherwise the absorption will be far too slow to see. Same with the CaOH, only more so.
Also, note in the video that they only turn the light on to show the cloudy water AFTER their “experiment” shows the water rise. But, if you look carefully, you will see that the water was already cloudy BEFORE they even put the glass over the flame. You have to ask, if it’s such a great effect, why not have the light on the whole time to see it become cloudy? Because it really doesn’t show what they want, is the obvious answer. Limewater at about 1% is as clear as water, so having the light on the whole time would have been better, if they really had something to show. I say they didn’t, because they couldn’t, at least not the way they did it.
Also, Limewater has a pH of about 12, which is not at all natural, and they could precipitate (not dissolve) the CO2 out (by agitating properly, which they didn’t do), in a way that never happens in nature, but it still wouldn’t have been a proof of anything. Removing CO2 by precipitating it would be much faster than were it to just dissolve by itself.
SECOND…
Most gratefully appreciated detailed experimental protocol.
Here’s the money quote: “Bubble CO2 through the lime water solution until the precipitate is well established (20-30 seconds)”
There PURE CO2 is being “bubbled” (i.e., applying vigorous agitation) through the lime water, and it still takes “20 to 30 seconds” for the effect to be complete.
It could not possibly happen in a few seconds with no agitation whatever, as allegedly shown in the video. The volume change is simply due to PV=nRT, or dV~dT, i.e., as the temp drops when the candle goes out, the volume of the gas decreases, sucking water into the glass.
Again, I repeat, that the “demonstration” in the video should have had the light on from beginning to end in order to see a precipitate form from a clear solution. But they didn’t have the light on throughout, because it would not show that, since the precipitate can be seen at the beginning, if you look carefully: the solution was already cloudy.
Regards
PS – I am not a warmist. I have no doubt that CO2 is not responsible for any measurable warming of the planet, nor is it anywhere near close to toxic concentrations for fauna, or anything else for that matter, but is in fact beneficial to plants (and so food production) at the very least. My only concern here is that the video demonstration is sloppy, and doesn’t show what it claims to show, for the reasons I’ve given.
What about the considerable amount of hydrogen in the candle wax? It would make water out of the oxygen in the air and raise the water level.
Thanks
JK
Yonaton,
As a layman maybe I would say a fair amount of agitation would occur between atmospheric CO2 and seawater during storms at sea. 🙂
The remarkable thing about this discussion is that the skeptics/’deniers’ did not automatically glom onto this kitchen-table ‘proof’. Obviously, skeptics/’deniers’ demand substantial evidence, which is what sets them apart from ‘the consensus’.
Bunk Schiller – a great discussion on CO2 in water started – I was the one who said it was wrong !
And in other news the acidity of the ocean is rising.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=rising-acidity-in-the-ocean
Luke
Running the risk of being a nitpicker, may I remind you that you were the FIRST
not the ONE to comment along those lines.
It’s only a matter of timing, some of us have other duties than read blogs as they are posted, but yes you were right and so were the others to pick it up.
blush
More from Yoland Hyland
Here’s a pertinent bit of info., relating to the video allegedly proving CO2 is rapidly absorbed in water.
I offer for your consideration the following, regarding the chemistry of burning paraffin.
Toward the bottom of the article we read these damning facts…
2 POINTS…
(1) – “A quick rise of water in the jar after the candle is extinguished is mainly due to a decrease in pressure as a result of a decrease in amount of air in the jar due to thermal expansion during the process of placing the jar on the candles . . .
(2) – The amount of CO2 dissolved in water is minimal in the 30-40 minutes during which experiment is conducted.” — [and so naturally the few seconds the video demo lasted couldn’t possibly be a demonstration of rapid CO2 dissolution in water.]
Also a factor, dealt with at the top of the article, is volume decrease in the confined gas after the candle goes out, which is due to the condensation of the water vapor produced in the reaction.
“The chemical aspect: oxygen O2 and paraffin Cn H2n+2 react. The burning produces water H2O and carbon dioxide CO2. For n=1 we balance the equation as follows: 2 O2 + C H 4 = C O 2 + 2 H 2 O
Because twice as much oxygen is burned than carbon dioxide released, the air volume decreases.”
So, not only does the candle flame cause some air to be heated, and so blown out as the glass is put on to cover it, but as the candle burns under the glass, potentially converting twice as much oxygen to water as to CO2, the volume of gas under the glass will be less when cooled after the candle goes out, and the volume will rise.
It’s not due to CO2 absorption by water at all.
Just thought you would like to know.
(Don’t feel bad, you weren’t the only one fooled by that trick.)
Cheers
Just a comment about the Mg vs. Ca in sea water. There is in fact 3-5x more Mg in sea water than Ca. However, Calcium Carbonate is 50x less soluble than than Magnesium Carbonate so its no longer a big factor in sequestering CO2. One other thing, the amout of Calcium ions is 3x higher than bi-carbonate ions so there is plenty of Ca to tie up CO2. One other thing, this web site has some interesting information on the make up of ocean water: http://www.seafriends.org.nz/oceano/seawater.htm#gases
FWIW Henry’s Law does not apply for CO2 esp in sea water because there is a complex equilibrium involving multiple species. Henry’s law applies to the solubility of molecular gases which do not chemically change.
This is a chemical reaction of a caustic solution.
This is not neutral ph water.
Sea water is not caustic, it too is near neutral ph.
It does not show the absorption of co2 in sea water.