Acidic Ocean

[Poorcollegereef]

There is a difference between academic models and commercial modeling programs. The models at the local news station are complex, but not to the level of high end climatologists. Even the models of government agencies are not as complex as the high end academic models. It is kind of a tough issue to compare the two.

There is a type of academic prejudice that really does not always care about localized problems. I do "small models" as far as their complexity, and I still look at global issues. Academia likes to be able to generalize about a population, ect. There are exceptions, but that is not an issue about climate change. For instance, I don't (always) care what happens at specific roadways, but people expect that as a transportation expert that I can fix their stoplight. Yes, it may be important for some... life and death important, but I don't get down in the details over mundane localized issues unless the local issue is extremely rare or interesting... even then try and bring I it back to a global stage. Although I projected shipping activity for the east coast in 2040, I didn't bother worrying about predicting the exact number of containers entering into the Port of Charleston... it is just not that important from my research experience.

Hate to say it, but the academic modelers don't care about predicting the weather for Pickens County South Carolina, or any other place... unless it is of significance for whatever reason. There are Extension Programs of Universities that work with the farmers and other public entities, however predicting rainfall includes different variables that climate change. In addition there is the difference between models predicting trends and the big picture and predicting precise localized conditions. I not sure if rain fall predictions are accurate, I have never done research into that... I would guess someone, somewhere, has a decent model, but that still would not prevent farmers or ag-companies for still pumping and irrigating.

PS: The choice to use gasoline as a standard fuel was the result of the early automobile and oil industries coming together to solidify profit. Consider it a mutual business deal. One of the worst things that ever happened in academia was the extension of Adam Smith and the wealth of nations into other fields. It does not even work within economics IMO. I believe that both the concept of a true market system, even with the natural/social sciences is bunk... never existing in anything other than imaginary theory, like a socialist/communism counterpart... it always happens in an imperfect form of exploitation.

 

[wld1783]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14692963#post14692963 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Megalodon
The batteries for things like hybrids... the metals in them are recycled and reused (instead of ending up in landfills and having to be re-mined) aren't they?

I don't know, I'm just asking. I hope that's more clear.

I don’t know either...They have a diesel truck to pick up my bottles, I really don't know what happens to the batteries other than the crusher and land fill…I hope I’m wrong.

Bill

 

[wld1783]

Poorcollegereef

Correct me if I'm wrong but diesel was the first choice.

We killed too many whales to light our lamps and were running low on lamp oil.

Gasoline was a waste product in the refining of the early 1900's It was even dumped into rivers and streams.

Bill

 

[wld1783]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14693844#post14693844 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Poorcollegereef


Hate to say it, but the academic modelers don't care about predicting the weather for Pickens County South Carolina, or any other place... unless it is of significance for whatever reason.

 

[Poorcollegereef]

actually, there were several early options for fuel ethanol and organic oils. Actually Diesel engines ran on peanut oil early on (Late 1890-1910ish), people really used anything they could find... so as long as it burned. As for diesel fuels, I think the fuel type was actually settled/standardized later on.

What is funny is that fuel choice has less bearing on the Climate change issue. Although the different fuels have different CO2/NOX/Sulfur byproducts after combustion, changing to ethanol, for example, will not have that much of an effect. In fact, since ethanol burns more quickly, it may pollute more(given a certain set of conditions).

Yep my "don't care" quote is a bit harsh, but Pickens County (where Clemson is located) does not mean a lot within the academic world. One can present a model for a small area, but unless it is an important ecosystem, population center, or a ground breaking model in and of itself, then the academic community says "so what". Here is a like example: Its like your airline industry. Delta or whoever will not have a 747 flight scheduled to fun between Norris SC and Lebanon VA... there is not enough people to customers to justify a large capacity flight between two very small communities. They may only get one or two passengers and waste a lot of resources. Modeling for very small specific locations is very similar tho this concept. Delta want to fly high passenger capacity between Atlanta and NY because they can (hopefully) fill the plan and maximize occupancy for the expense it takes to fly. Especially since the cost of trip stays relatively the same if the plan is half full or completely full. The same principle is kinda working in the modeling community. The big ticket (ie global conditions) take precedence over little specifics in localized areas.

 

[greenbean36191]

I would like to know a hard number of how many millions of tons of CO2 mother nature produces and not a guess using a seismograph to measure CO2, and I would like a refresher on how many million tons we produce.

AGAIN, no one is guessing on these numbers. Since 1955 we have been directly measuring the ratios of atmospheric and oceanic CO2 resulting from anthropogenic sources vs. natural sources (which is actually 3 years longer than we've been directly measuring the rate of total CO2 increase). They have not been based on estimates for the last half century. We know this from the ratio of C13/C12 in the atmosphere, oceans, and in tree and coral cores. The C13/C12 ratio was stable for the last 10,000 years, then suddenly during the industrial revolution the ratio started to drop as CO2 increased. The rate of change was 5x faster than natural changes that occur between ice ages and interglacial periods and the CO2 signature matches that of CO2 from fossil fuels, not from natural sources.

Number-wise humans contribute about 6 gigatons of carbon per year, compared to about 210 gigatons produced by all natural sources. However, sources and sinks were roughly in balance for at least the past 10,000 years- taking up about 210 gigatons per year. That's no longer the case, and CO2 is increasing by roughly 2 ppm/yr on average for the past decade, though it's close to 3 ppm/yr for the past few years. Cumulatively that amounts to roughly 100 ppm of additional atmospheric CO2 due entirely to human activities- after more than half of our total contribution has been removed by sinks like the ocean and plants.

Like Bill already pointed out, that's important not for the absolute value of the number, but because of how it affects the system. Our 3% contribution represents a 3% departure from equilibrium. A good analogy is that if your normal body temp increased just 3% above normal you'd be running quite a fever.

There are a few grains of sand in the ocean and I'm sure that will help along with algae. I really don’t think a 10% increase in CO2 would be "dissolving the worlds corals".

Most of the sand in the ocean is siliceous, not aragonitic. Most of the aragonitic sand is located in the same areas as coral reefs- they are the source of most of it. That sand is chemically identical to the corals and is not dissolved preferentially. Chemistry that dissolves the sand also dissolves corals.

Also, we aren't talking about a potential 10% decrease. We're talking about a drop to 7.8-7.6 by the end of the century, which is roughly the range at which aragonite starts to dissolve. Actual dissolution isn't the real worry, at least for coral reefs. Long before pH drops that low, calcification slows as it becomes less energetically favorable. A slight slowing of growth is all it takes to knock most reefs from a "keep-up" state to a "give-up" state where growth is overwhelmed by erosion. That doesn't mean corals are dissolving. They're still growing, but the reefs are not.

Again to try to hammer home the difference between coral growth and net reef growth, imagine you have a nice big acro colony in your tank that's producing a 1" frag each month. For some reason or another you cut your lighting in half, so growth slows a bit, but you still keep fragging off 1" each month. The coral is still growing, but the net result is that it's getting smaller because negative growth hasn't changed while positive growth has slowed.

I've always believed an ecosystem is much like a true market economy...These cars then consume the gas till eventually there will be none. Algae, plants some bacteria all consume CO2 like a car consumes gasoline.

Ecosystems don't work like that. If they did then there would be no increase in CO2 in the first place as it would be quickly taken up by photosynthesizing organisms. Each organism needs several resources and they are limited by the most scarce resource (i.e. Liebig's law of the minimum). Most plants and algae are not CO2 limited, so with a few exceptions (poison ivy and kudzu for example) adding more CO2 without also increasing their limiting resource does not increase their growth or rates of uptake.

I know with a high degree of certainty what the weather will be like at my destination several hours away and what it will be like the next day, and in most cases the day after.

This is an issue of scale. On a short-term (hours to days) regional scale, weather is governed by non-chaotic factors. On larger spatial scales or longer time scales weather is chaotic. For example, tomorrow's weather is highly related to today's humidity, pressure, and temperature, as well as the weather to the west (at least in the US). However, the weather 6 weeks from now is not, nor is the current weather in Tokyo. I cannot look at the current or 7 day forecasts for Topeka, the continental US, or even the Western Hemisphere and say anything about the weather in Tokyo today or any point in the near future because the relationship is chaotic.

Likewise, I can't look at the temperature today and tell you what it will be next year on this date. However, I can tell you though that on average, for the next decade, today will be warmer than Christmas day (by 4 degrees here). I can also tell you that on this date Ft. Lauderdale averages 26 degrees warmer than NYC. That is climate. Weather on the other hand tells us that today it's 28 degrees warmer than NYC and Christmas was 7 degrees warmer than today here.

This is not just some talking point at all, but a very fundamental point that has to be understood to comprehend the discussion. It's statistics 101. Almost any real-world data has noise in it due to natural variation. While there may be a trend to it if you simply plot it out, unless the trend is larger than the variation you can't say whether it is real or if it's due to chance occurances. The more variation there is the more datapoints it takes for a statistically significant trend to show up. For climate measurements that means more geographic coverage or longer time periods (or both). That's why claims like "it hasn't warmed since 1998," "we're in a cooling trend," or "this winter disproves global warming" are not statistically valid. They do not use time periods long enough to distinguish a trend from the variability.

When the models do that then I might start drinking the cool aid. As of now they cannot predict the rainfall in the Mid West this spring. Think of the advantage farmers will have if they have an accurate estimate on the spring rainfall. Am I really supposed to believe that they can predict the temperature 30 years from now.

Weather models and climate models are distinct entities. Climate models are not the same models used to predict the weather and weather models are not used to predict climate. The skill of one can't be used to judge the skill of the other. The climate models are independent and have shown quite a good degree of skill in their projections. James Hansen's 1988 scenario B, for example is still tracking right along with the real-world observations.

And yes it was warmer down under but what was the total global temp change this year?

According to the Hadley center, from Jan 08-09 was .3 C, which is ~12 times model projections- again highlighting the difference between climate and weather. No one would be silly enough to run around claiming that the world is warming 12 times faster than we thought.

 

[wld1783]

greenbean36191

Thanks for the hard numbers at 6 gigatons vs 210 gigatons.

So is it true we produce less than 3% of the total CO2 in the world? I really thought it would be more.

I really do equate ecosystems and economies simply by their complexity and countless interrelationships. My example was rather basic but as far as algae go are they really limited? Costal development and farming accounts for tons of nutrients for these guys.

Also thanks for pointing out the difference between climate and weather I always thought the same guys did the models as climate and weather are related in my opinion.

Poorcollegereef


Don’t know what happened to my last post but I was trying to point out that the guys who do these models should care about the weather for Pickens County South Carolina. If they can get it right, think of the advantage farmers would have. They can tailor their crops to the rainfall and maximize their harvest and help feed the world.


Bill

 

[LockeOak]

Algae are generally not considered to be carbon-limited at the ecological scale, though in some temporary cases they may be limited at the chloroplast (that is, the cells can't bring in carbon as fast as it could be used by photosynthesis). They are limited by other nutrients or trace metals. If they weren't limited the oceans would be green, not blue. Coastal flows of nutrients do cause algal blooms, but if we're talking about a global scale there are no point sources of nutrients in the middle of the oceans. The mid-Pacific, for example, is one of the most barren environments on the planet. The only abundant resources in the photic zone are light and water. There has been a huge amount of research conducted on which nutrients are limiting in the ocean, and it's generally either fixed nitrogen or phosphorous (as phosphates). In some cases trace metals such as iron can be limiting. Many phytoplankton have molecules called siderophores that function in binding trace metals from the water column for the use of the organism. Nutrient input in the mid-ocean is through upwelling of deep, nutrient-rich water at the equator.

 

[Megalodon]

A biology high school teacher's response to me this morning when I told him that too much CO2 (and likewise, too little CO2) is a problem for the Earth, both to people and other animals.

This is his response. Please pick it apart, thank you.

well, no- it isn't. CO2 is essential to keeping this planet habitable. The levels fluctuate all the time- there are mechanisms to fix carbon- (plant and algae) and there are mechanisms to release it.

It could happen that the reefs get above (83F)- it's really more a matter of what the sun does. The planet is currently cooling and has been for the last decade.

The planet is dynamic- always has been. Look up "snowball Earth".

 

[LockeOak]

I think this teacher's concept of the scale of these processes is limited. Yes, inorganic carbon is necessary for life on Earth. The levels "fluctuate", but over much longer periods of time than the 150-200 years since the industrial revolution.

"It could happen that the reefs get above that"-- not really sure what is meant here.

As for the effects of variation in insolation, that is accounted for in the models, both the short-term and long-term known cycles.

"The planet is currently cooling"--Simply incorrect. The average temperature of the past decade is significantly higher than the average of the decades in the middle of the 20th century.

"The planet is dynamic--always has been." Yes, but again, the problem is less the degree of change in atmospheric/oceanic carbon, but the rate and whether or not the resulting effects outpace the capabilities of adaptation (both in the ecological and evolutionary sense). The question has to be will reefs recover within a period of time on a human scale, not whether they can recover over the evolutionary time scale. It's cold comfort (pardon the pun) to know that reefs will someday recover if no human being will ever see it.

 

[Megalodon]

Thank you, Lock, I really appreciate it! What he meant was, the reefs might go over 83F. I have since clarified by editing that post.

Here's another one of his responses I just got...

The planet is currently cooling and CO2 hasn't climbed much in the last century, the climb such as it is hasn't correlated with global temperature phenomena- that's because the sun is less active and our planet is cooling. Probably will be for 20 years. If it drops just a few degrees, we can expect most agriculture to collapse with wide-spread starvation.

Of course it's difficult to know exactly what's happening because there are very few sites that sample CO2 at all. For that matter, many of the weather stations that sample "global temperature" are located near artificial heat sources and are unreliable...

 

[ctenophors rule]

this may sound..... off topic, but what is it in freshwater snails and crustaceans that allows them to survive in low ph's, while marine organisms die?

i would also like to use the increased level or carbon in the upper layers of arctic ice as irrefutable evidence that co2 levels have been rising, and considerably, i feel that their are some who dont believe that. i bring the arctic up because their are no artificial heating sources their, and the carbon wouldn't float up, it is more dendse than ice, are their any other variables that could explain this besides a rise in anthropogenic atmospheric co2?

 

[wld1783]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14697982#post14697982 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by LockeOak


"The planet is currently cooling"--Simply incorrect. The average temperature of the past decade is significantly higher than the average of the decades in the middle of the 20th century.

To say that the earth is not cooling ignores the fact that it was a lot warmer when the Vikings settled Greenland. I still do not think the models are reliable enough to come to a warming conclusion. When it comes to climate change I tend to trust the guy who founded the weather channel a bit more than the guy who won an academy award.

Warming trends and cooling trends are as natural as winter and summer. Do we need to reduce emmisions...Yes. Do we do it because of climate change? I really don't think so.

I know that industrialization is responsible for less than 3% of CO2.

What I don’t know is what season the earth is in, spring, summer or fall. Also I would like to know the world’s average temperature. An average based on global temp between the last two Ice Ages would be a good baseline.

I learned a lot with this thread and after a little homework I've changed my mind on a few things but I still not drinking the coolaid.

Bill

 

[ctenophors rule]

bill the season depends on your position on the earth. if you are located on the equator the season is always summer, if you are located in the much higher latitudes you predominately have winters.

however, many people are saying that the earth is or isn't warming. and questioning wheather is comes from anthropogenic c02.

a lot of the answers are able to be warped to fit various conclusions, but enough symantecs.

if you consider that as green house gases increase, so does the temperature of our atmosphere, then their is no denying that anthropogenic co2 increases the temperature of the earth.

now that that fact is established, the more complex theories of excess heat creats excess water vapor, which , being a green house gas, increases temperature even more, etc.

also when lockeoak stated that the earth is not cooling, he was using an average of a long time period.

i can go back a say it snowed in florida a few decades ago, but that doesn't mean florida is getting colder.

and , although i havent read the entire thread word for word, i speed readed it (how do you say that in past tense) and was surprised not to find anyone noting the fact that our reefs will start dissolving far sooner than the coral will because the corraline algae, which have a skeleton of magnesium calcite (something along those lines) and that skeleton dissolves earlkier than our araganite and calcite corals do, the reefs very well might start toppling onto them selves.

hope i didn't repeat.

 

[greenbean36191]

The planet is currently cooling and CO2 hasn't climbed much in the last century

Ask him to prove his cooling claim using standard statistical methods- in particular, using a period that produces a statistically significant trend. I guarantee he can't do it.

As for CO2 not climbing much, he'd have a hard time even using fuzzy stats to show that. It's risen from 316 ppm in 1958 to 384 in 2007 based on direct measurements. Prior to that, direct measurements are more sparse and less reliable, but they and proxies converge on values of about 270-285 for the mid to late 1800s. Even 68 ppm in the last 50 years is a huge change given that the variation between ice ages and interglacials is about 80-90 ppm.

the climb such as it is hasn't correlated with global temperature phenomena- that's because the sun is less active and our planet is cooling.

Yes, the sun is very slightly less active, but it hasn't resulted in cooling. It, as well as a moderately strong la nina are likely responsible for a recent slowdown in warming- but the CO2 is still there and it's still a greenhouse gas. Despite that slowdown, CO2 still correlates with temperature about as well as you would expect from a forcing that is only one of several factors.

Of course it's difficult to know exactly what's happening because there are very few sites that sample CO2 at all.

Again he seems to have a different idea of "few" than most people would.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/iadv/

For that matter, many of the weather stations that sample "global temperature" are located near artificial heat sources and are unreliable...

And many aren't. Global temperature data also comes from ship-based measurements, satellite measurement, and ocean temperature measurements, which don't suffer from urban heat island effects. Land based readings are also quality controlled and corrected for UHI- you can find each source's procedures for corrections on their websites. Even if all of the "unreliable" land based readings were removed from the record, the warming trend still stands.

 

[ctenophors rule]

megaladon- those are the kind of answers you get from CANADIAN teachers! lol.

(please none of the "your anti canadian" crap, i happen to have dual citizenship with the canadains)

 

[greenbean36191]

To say that the earth is not cooling ignores the fact that it was a lot warmer when the Vikings settled Greenland.

No, Greenland was warmer when the Vikings settled. The same does not seem to be true for most of the rest of the world.

When it comes to climate change I tend to trust the guy who founded the weather channel a bit more than the guy who won an academy award.

You're committing a few logical fallacies here. The merit of an argument rests on the evidence and logical soundness of it- not on who makes it. Coleman seems to have a lot of trouble with both areas (though Gore isn't great himself). Both are about equally qualified as experts though.

I know that industrialization is responsible for less than 3% of CO2.

No. It's only responsible for 3-4% of annual global production in total. However, that amounts to roughly 200% of the annual increase in CO2 and a cumulative total of about 30% of all atmospheric CO2.

An average based on global temp between the last two Ice Ages would be a good baseline.

Why? No civilization has infrastructure that was based on those temperatures. They are irrelevant to the range of conditions society evolved under.

 

[Megalodon]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14699585#post14699585 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ctenophors rule
megaladon- those are the kind of answers you get from CANADIAN teachers! lol.

He's in Florida.

 

[Megalodon]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14699529#post14699529 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by greenbean36191
Ask him to prove his cooling claim using standard statistical methods- in particular, using a period that produces a statistically significant trend. I guarantee he can't do it.

As for CO2 not climbing much, he'd have a hard time even using fuzzy stats to show that. It's risen from 316 ppm in 1958 to 384 in 2007 based on direct measurements. Prior to that, direct measurements are more sparse and less reliable, but they and proxies converge on values of about 270-285 for the mid to late 1800s. Even 68 ppm in the last 50 years is a huge change given that the variation between ice ages and interglacials is about 80-90 ppm.


Yes, the sun is very slightly less active, but it hasn't resulted in cooling. It, as well as a moderately strong la nina are likely responsible for a recent slowdown in warming- but the CO2 is still there and it's still a greenhouse gas. Despite that slowdown, CO2 still correlates with temperature about as well as you would expect from a forcing that is only one of several factors.


Again he seems to have a different idea of "few" than most people would.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/iadv/


And many aren't. Global temperature data also comes from ship-based measurements, satellite measurement, and ocean temperature measurements, which don't suffer from urban heat island effects. Land based readings are also quality controlled and corrected for UHI- you can find each source's procedures for corrections on their websites. Even if all of the "unreliable" land based readings were removed from the record, the warming trend still stands.

Thanks Greenbean!

 

[ctenophors rule]

oh, well the school system hear isn't much better, trust me, i go to a florida high school , and the school system cant accomadate a sophomore taking chemistry and oceanograohy, because you have to be 16 to take oceanography, so i have to take physics and chemistry next year, even thoguh i could just have easily passed physics, over the summer and taken oceanography next year.

some times i wish i lived in new york, then i think of the yankees. lol