The Oceans pH Level Is Falling

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LESS COMERCIAL FISHING indeed, maybe its time for some inland SW fish farms...Large ponds of SW where the fish could be controlled and feed a more complete diet. This would also insure agianst disease from wild fish... We farm everything else for slaughter and consumption why not fish. Think of all the desiel fuel saved, and I'm sure selling your fleet of boats would finance the farm....Just an IDEAR... :)
 
Fish farms would help off set the loss of ocean life and help soak up C02, but whats really missing is the cycle of life in the ocean.
Its the lack of stuff falling to the bottom and locking the carbon down there.
Ever seen the whale eating lampre eels like fish which strip the flesh off big dead ocean creatures which fall to the bottom.
What do they eat when there are so few whales and big fish in circulation.
They say that Megladon the 40 foot shark had such an advantage over whales that there had to be seveal thousand whales per shark , just to keep these 40 foot sharks from decimating the supply.
The oceans may have had a likewise supply of ocean mamals just a few hundred years ago.
The whaling industry was big time in the early 1800s.
Many became extinct by 1850.
which I remind you was after the C02 levels started to rise on earth.
(1780s)
 
See I think the co2 rise could have alot more to do with land than water...TREES or lack there of to soak up the co2. The whale thing is a good point. The mamath ocean mamals are almost gone. But on the flip side sometimes we recognize something needs to be protected or resticted and we OVER Do it... Example White Tail deer, for many years the numbers dwindled due to over hunting, then so one noticed and the Wildlife agencies started limiting the animals bagged in a single year.. NOW you can't drive down a backroad without having one dart out in front or your car. I have seen 30-40 eating in the alfalpha fields in my area which is somthing you would have never seen 10 years ago. Some animals are just resiliant and rebound very quicky, then there are animals like tigers that take decades to even start seeing slight number boost...

The point is what if you over protect a species and they start envading the space of more delicate species. How do you know what the end outcome would be...
 
I will read the article, but still I am sceptical that the few years of recorded data that has been gathered on the subject will be conclusive HUMANS are causing serious change in a climate that has been going through cycles and changes for MILLIONS of YEARS. Thats like MR. Gore saying you can look with the naked eye at the ICE Samples gathered in ANTARTICA and tell when the UNITED STATES inacted the Clean AIR Act... I think it will take more than a couple of hundreds of years of human desctruction before we cause the planet to die. There were Thousands of active Valcano's on this planet for Hundreds of thousands of years and the Planet is still alive and kicking. And one Volcanic eruption has more toxic and greenhouse gases than all the US produces in a year.


You say ELEPHANT, I see a mouse.

I may be out there in my thoughts on this, I do think we should avoid adding to the changes as we can but I just don'tshare the apocaliptic outcome that some choose to see.
 
That is a far too simplistic view of the Oceans ability to hold C02.
There are three main sinks in which the Ocean can hold C02.
1.)Surface exchange of the water and air.

2.)The bio life swimming within the waves ( the flesh and proteins)

3.)and the deep water sludge holding Carbon from millions of years ago.

At this point there really is not any data to gauge how much C02 the Ocean takes in or takes out. It would take billions of samples daily all over the world just to begin understand.
Big changes like during a warm water event (El Nino) have shown a direct link to increased C02 levels in the Atmosphere when the Ocean acts up.
This Author seems hide from the reader.

This author paints a blanket over the entire ocean and pretends that only the surface waters play a role in Atmospheric interaction.
Ninety percent of the worlds Oxygen comes from the Ocean, its also the source of most of the C02.

I have also been reading some data which suggests that Oil is not organic and thus cant be the source of a decreasing C-13 to C-12 carbon isotope ratio.
But thats for another post.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7854288#post7854288 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Kalkbreath
That is a far too simplistic view of the Oceans ability to hold C02.
There are three main sinks in which the Ocean can hold C02.
1.)Surface exchange of the water and air.

2.)The bio life swimming within the waves ( the flesh and proteins)

3.)and the deep water sludge holding Carbon from millions of years ago.

At this point there really is not any data to gauge how much C02 the Ocean takes in or takes out. It would take billions of samples daily all over the world just to begin understand.
Big changes like during a warm water event (El Nino) have shown a direct link to increased C02 levels in the Atmosphere when the Ocean acts up.
This Author seems hide from the reader.

This author paints a blanket over the entire ocean and pretends that only the surface waters play a role in Atmospheric interaction.
Ninety percent of the worlds Oxygen comes from the Ocean, its also the source of most of the C02.

I have also been reading some data which suggests that Oil is not organic and thus cant be the source of a decreasing C-13 to C-12 carbon isotope ratio.
But thats for another post.
I don't think you gave that link and the cited material in the link as much focus as you should. Regardless, I think it's time you show some EVIDENCE for your claims. You can say "I believe this and that and you're wrong" all day, but unless you show some evidence, your argument doesn't hold up.

The abiotic source of oil is an unproven theory, at best. Again, isotopes are the key, don't overlook the isotopes.
 
Here's a new article posted today on CO2 effect on the oceans.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news...aug03,0,4042735.story?coll=orl-home-headlines

By comparing these measurements to past levels of carbon dioxide preserved in ice cores, the researchers determined that the average pH of the ocean surface has declined since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution by 0.1 units, from 8.16 to 8.05.
Richard Feely, a chemical oceanographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

If this is correct, a drop of 0.11 is huge! A doubleing or trippleing in the future and we're looking at a pH of 7.8 - 7.9

As aquarists we know this is the low range of keeping even the hardiest of corals.

Here is another NOAA article:

http://www.oar.noaa.gov/spotlite/archive/spot_gcc.html

If current trends in carbon dioxide emissions continue, the ocean will acidify to an extent and at rates that have not occurred for tens of millions of years. At present, ocean chemistry is changing at least 100 times more rapidly than it has changed in the 100,000 years preceding our industrial era.
The conclustion of 50 international climate experts.

Change can be good but not when it's happening 100X the normal.

If people aren't outraged at even the POSSIBILITY of this happening they're not paying attention.


J
 
I think the facts and evidence FOR the existence of global warming/CO2 entrapment/Ocean PH drop seem to be much stronger than any evidence AGAINST.

It sounds like a very real and very VERY scary situation we have put ourselves in!!

Just my non-scientific 2 cents heh heh... ok yall scientists can go back to arguing haha.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7874902#post7874902 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by supraeli
I think the facts and evidence FOR the existence of global warming/CO2 entrapment/Ocean PH drop seem to be much stronger than any evidence AGAINST.

It sounds like a very real and very VERY scary situation we have put ourselves in!!

Just my non-scientific 2 cents heh heh... ok yall scientists can go back to arguing haha.
You are absolutely right. And don't think that you have to be a scientist in order to have something intelligent to say. There have been a few 'educated' people in this thread that have said some silly things, and a few normal joes that have summed up the situation in the very important common-sense way. Not only that, but scientists don't control the world, so it's important that everybody understands what is happening. In fact, that is the only way we are going to move ourselves in the right direction. Environmentalists have done a poor job, IMO, of getting down to the grassroots level, explaining why these things are important to the average person, and showing that the problem IS solvable. But, I think that is changing. Hopefully.
 
Once again you placing your trust into these authors.
A quick look at tha data they site as the reason for their conclusions does not find anything to base their opinions.
The Earth has not increased in temperature by 1. degree.
An average for the earth of .6 to .1 increase has been recorded by ground and air measurements. (thats one tenth to six tenths) over a two hundred year period. No where near one full degree)The author is rounding up a bit.(a lot if you beleive NASA satelites over ground measurements)NASA recorded .1
And its an increase in limited areras like Brazil and China. Not North America or Europe .

The Oceans have not decreased .11
Several areas in the Pacific and Indian Oceans have decreased.
But the Atlantic and Carribean have increased in pH?
And its not due to C02 levels in the Atmosphere because that would effect all the Oceans.
Temperatures in America and most of the world have not increased at all in the past 200 years. (The record low temp for my city Atlanta Ga on july 30th was in 1997 and 58 degrees.)Thats the COLDEST is ever been in Atlanta on that date since 1860.
The Author is forgetting to tell the reader that the palces releasing the most man made C02 like the United states, actualy have the lowest atmosperic C02 levels and unchanging temperatures.

Its the third world locations that have recorded a temperature increase, and all signs point to those location going from jungles to concrete cities as the reason temps increased in growing cities.
Look at some of the Data for your self and stop letting talking heads
misleed you.

Its not what they tell you , its what they dont.

Like the volcano Tembora in the Pacific.
The 1815 eruption of Tambora was the largest eruption in historic time. About 150 cubic kilometers of ash were erupted (about 150 times more than the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens). Ash fell as far as 800 miles (1,300 km) from the volcano. In central Java and Kalimantan, 550 miles (900 km) from the eruption, one centimeter of ash fell. The Volcanic Explosivity of the eruption was 7. The eruption column reached a height of about 28 miles (44 km). The collapse of the eruption column produced numerous pyroclastic flows. As these hot pyroclastic flows reached the ocean where they caused additional explosions. During these explosions, most of the fine-fraction of the ash was removed. The eruption formed a caldera. An estimated 92,000 people were killed by the eruption. About 10,000 direct deaths were caused by bomb impacts, tephra fall, and pyroclastic flows. An estimated 82,000 were killed indirectly by the eruption by starvation, disease, and hunger.


Photo STS068-0263-0008 of Tambora from the Space Shuttle.

The 1815 eruption of Tambora caused the "Year without a Summer." Daily minimum temperatures were abnormally low in the northern hemisphere from late spring to early autumn. Famine was widespread because of crop failures.
In 1816 this volcano blew its top and released the largest amount of C02 and ash since Pompeii and mount vesuvius. 1700 years prior.
This 1816 blast vaporized into the atmospere a 7 mile by 7 mile by 5 mile deep mountain top.
The result was a year with out a Summer ...all over the world.
Temperatures in Europe never got out of freezing even in July!
Snow was falling in northern USA into june!
Summer temps didnt return until years after.
Many Scientist feel this blast is what started the C02 increase.
The increase of C02 did start around this time 1816.
35 years BEFORE the use of fossil fuels in 1850 even began .
 
When warming's 'hockey stick' breaks
By H. Sterling Burnett
Published August 4, 2006


When is a story on global warming not worth reporting accurately, or maybe not worth covering at all? Evidently, when it undermines the near universal belief in the popular press that the scientific debate is over: "Humans are causing catastrophic global warming and we have to do something about it."
Nowhere is this clearer than in the recent reporting surrounding the global warming "hockey stick." The hockey stick is an image used by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that shows relatively stable temperatures from A.D. 1000 (and in later versions from 0 A.D.) to 1900, and a dramatic temperature increase from 1900 to 2000. The conclusion drawn by authors of the image is that human energy use over the last 100 years has caused a dramatic and unprecedented rise in temperatures across the globe.
However, several independent studies called into question the hockey stick's conclusions. A number of climate experts noted that the Earth experienced both a widely recognized Medieval Warm Period from about A.D. 800 to 1400, as well as the Little Ice Age from 1600 to 1850. The hockey stick missed both of these significant climate trends. Other researchers found methodological flaws with the hockey stick, arguing some data sources were misused, several calculations were done incorrectly and some of the data were simply obsolete.
Because the hockey stick image has been regularly used to promote and justify proposed climate legislation, Congress asked the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to examine the hockey stick controversy. Their report, released in early July, confirmed many of the criticisms of the hockey stick. Whereas the authors of the research that produced the hockey stick concluded "the 1990s are likely the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, in at least a millennium," the NAS found little confidence could be placed in those claims.
The NAS also found the original researchers used proxy data for past temperature reconstructions that were unreliable, the historic climate reconstruction failed important tests for verifiability and the methods used underestimated the uncertainty in the conclusions reached.
However, one would hardly know from news reports that the hockey stick had largely failed to pass scientific muster. Rather, press reports typically highlighted the limited areas where the NAS supported the hockey stick research and downplayed the substantive flaws the NAS confirmed.
The best spin the NAS could put on the hockey stick research was that the present temperature was likely warmer than at any time in the last 400 years. Yet, this finding is hardly controversial, since 400 years ago we were in the midst of a little ice age and hardly corroborates the "hockey stick" image of climate history, since it missed the little ice age entirely.
On July 20, a second analysis requested by Congress was released at a hearing concerning the validity of the Hockey Stick findings. According to Edward Wegman, his team's research found serious statistical flaws that undermine the main conclusion of the hockey stick study. Mr. Wegman and his colleagues concluded, based on the evidence cited and the methodology used by the hockey stick researchers, the idea that the planet is experiencing unprecedented global warming "cannot be supported." Mr. Wegman and his team also concluded that the close ties between scientists in the small paleoclimatology community prevented true peer review of the hockey stick and related analyses.
The mainstream media -- both print and broadcast -- were largely, deafeningly silent on the congressional hearings and its findings.
The Earth's climate over the last 2,000 years has been characterized by periods of warmer -- as well as significantly cooler -- temperatures than the present. The "hockey stick" picture of dramatic temperature rise in the last 100 years following 1,900 years of relatively constant temperature, is flawed. Public policy -- especially public policy with such wide-ranging consequences as this -- should be based on science, not spin.
Yet in recent months, the mainstream press has largely abdicated its role as a provider of objective, balanced reporting on global warming and has adopted the role of advocate. In doing so, the press has done the public, scientific progress and the journalistic profession a profound disservice. It's time for respected reporters to turn their normally skeptical eye to the claims made by all sides in the important debate concerning global warming.

H. Sterling Burnett is a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis.
 
you can't cite people who work for right wing think tanks that don't do any research, please go back in this thread and notice we allready had that discussion, and both "sides" feel that citing non-research is pointless.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7876118#post7876118 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Kalkbreath
Like the volcano Tembora in the Pacific.

In 1816 this volcano blew its top and released the largest amount of C02 and ash since Pompeii and mount vesuvius. 1700 years prior.
This 1816 blast vaporized into the atmospere a 7 mile by 7 mile by 5 mile deep mountain top.
The result was a year with out a Summer ...all over the world.
Temperatures in Europe never got out of freezing even in July!
Snow was falling in northern USA into june!
Summer temps didnt return until years after.
Many Scientist feel this blast is what started the C02 increase.
The increase of C02 did start around this time 1816.
35 years BEFORE the use of fossil fuels in 1850 even began .


You are aware that the volume of CO2 put into the atmosphere had no effect on the cooling process that subsequently took place after the erruption right? cooling after a volcanic eruption around the globe is due to particulate matter in the atmosphere reducing the amount of light that reaches the surface by increasing albedo.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7876118#post7876118 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Kalkbreath
The Earth has not increased in temperature by 1. degree.
An average for the earth of .6 to .1 increase has been recorded by ground and air measurements. (thats one tenth to six tenths) over a two hundred year period. No where near one full degree)The author is rounding up a bit.(a lot if you beleive NASA satelites over ground measurements)NASA recorded .1
And its an increase in limited areras like Brazil and China. Not North America or Europe .

And its not due to C02 levels in the Atmosphere because that would effect all the Oceans.

The Author is forgetting to tell the reader that the palces releasing the most man made C02 like the United states, actualy have the lowest atmosperic C02 levels and unchanging temperatures.

Its the third world locations that have recorded a temperature increase, and all signs point to those location going from jungles to concrete cities as the reason temps increased in growing cities.
Look at some of the Data for your self and stop letting talking heads
misleed you.

Earth has increased by 1.1 degree fahrenheit, 0.6 degrees Celsius, get your conversions straight.

You have a major misconception blocking your ability to understand a very important aspect of this issue. You seem to think that the planet is homogeneous, and that things such as CO2 don't move around, but stay where they were released (EDIT: Actually, it seems you believe that local changes should have local effects. I don't know, you contradict yourself a lot). I can assure you, that isn't the case. CO2 released in the US can affect other areas of the planet, and vice versa. The ocean pH is just like land suface temps; they have variation. That doesn't mean there isn't an overall increase or decrease, and it most certainly doesn't rule out human emissions.

The urban heat island effect has been shown to be negligible:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island

And, the NASA satellite/ground thermometer discrepancy is no longer an issue. In fact, satellite readings have showed MORE warming than ground based readings over the last 20 years.
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2004/0315skintemp.html

Also, stop insulting myself and others by saying we're letting 'talking heads' determine what we believe. I actually READ credible papers. Where are your sources coming from?

EDIT again. I figured it out. You think that CO2 released into the atmosphere will only affect the land temperatures where the CO2 was released. BUT, you also think that CO2 released into the atmosphere will affect ocean pH globally. Well, which is it? Does CO2 have a global or local effect?
 
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Well, if the ocean is dropping this rapidly - given the sheer volume of water it is, it is going to nearly be impossible to stop the trend within our lifetimes.


I think it's funny people talk about how powerful nature is and that "the Earth with go on no matter what we do to it" yeah, sure - without us, and without other life. Is that what we want? I guess should the Earth turn into a wasteland and it still exists, you can always say "I told you so"


Anyway, for you group to have a fruitful argument you must follow some rules to argue or else you aren't really talking to each other, you are talking to yourselves. If ad hominems are fair game with regards to your sources, then so be it. Perhaps you should first define what is a quality source?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7878407#post7878407 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Earl45
Perhaps you should first define what is a quality source?
We did already. Basically we said no more think tanks, politically motivated commentary, or lone wolf 'scientists' who don't subject themselves to peer review. Those things aren't science, it's confusion.
 
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