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Comments 121201 to 121250:

  1. Skeptical Science Housekeeping: Preview, translations and icons
    You can lead a horse to water, but can you make me properly use a preview function?
  2. Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
    BP writes: If natural variability is high, a little drift does not make any difference. How do you know that? Let's say a species is existing near the limit of its range in a given parameter (temperature, moisture, pH, whatever). There's some range of variation s around the mean x of that parameter which it has to be able to cope with. In other words, it has to be able to survive and reproduce through the range of conditions [x-s, x+s]. Now perturb x upward or downward to x'. That natural variability s doesn't disappear. The species is now subject to the range [x'-s, x'+s]. That's a different range of conditions and there's no guarantee the species will be able to survive under this new range. Of course, s may also change. That adds to the uncertainty. Your flat assertion that the existence of natural variability around the mean somehow immunizes the ecology to variability in the mean seems to be unjustified.
  3. Berényi Péter at 00:39 AM on 9 April 2010
    Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
    #29 Riccardo at 22:19 PM on 8 April, 2010 Modulation is one thing, long term decrease, eventually modulated, is another Of course it is, for us. For the creatures living there it is all the same. If natural variability is high, a little drift does not make any difference.
  4. Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
    Answer to malcuk @31: yes.
  5. Skeptical Science Housekeeping: Preview, translations and icons
    John: Thanks for the expansion and improvements to Skeptical Science. This site is the number-one place to send those relatives and friends who have heard mutterings about the so-called fallacy of AGW but truly want more information--a place largely free of rancorous tirades and name-calling. A call to readers to add translations for French, Russian, and Hindi. Also remember to click on the donate icon to help John maintain and expand this site!
  6. Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
    The sad thing about JRuss is that he substitute teaches classes, including science classes, in public schools. The "pools of CO2 at the bottom of the ocean" and stuff like this being taught to our children? Ooof.
  7. CO2 lags temperature
    The study you quote only indicated half a million years for 5000 gigatonnes. (And note these are just projections). Please reference the peer reviewed article that claims to know that the next ice age will definitely not occur for the next 50,000 years. Using your daughter is clearly an emotional argument- any scientist can recognize that. Is this a forum for emotional arguments? Why won't you answer the question about the beavers?
  8. Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
    Ah, was just being stupid I think (re my comment #30). Is a 0.1 decrease in pH roughly the same as a 26% increase in H+ in the water?
  9. CO2 lags temperature
    Use of the phrase "arguably occur hundreds of thousands of years in the future" is only consistent with your quoted scientific projections if and when the CO2 release reaches 5000 gigatonnes. Are you proposing that we should reach that level? Your reference to your daughter seems inconsistent with your stated posting policies.
    Response: If we emit 5000 gigatonnes of CO2, the ice age is postponed indefinitely. If 1000 gigatonnes, then still over 100,000 years. We've already gone past the 300 gigatonne mark which will postpone the ice age for at least 50,000 years. If you want to haggle over numbers, let's adopt the most pessimistic worst-case-scenario and say we're staring down the barrel of an ice age in 50,000 years.

    I'm not sure which posting policy I've violated - it seems fairly straightforward that immediate generations are a higher priority than descendents over 5000 generations away.
  10. Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
    I am finding this discussion of "pH units" a little uncomfortable. As I understand it, pH is a logarithmic scale, so a change of 0.1 pH units means a different change in H+ concentration depending on the starting pH. Is there data on the % change of H+ concentration, or would this be misleading?
  11. CO2 lags temperature
    On average, the climate of the last quarter million years have been very much less hospitable to humans and all life in general. It is less than 20% of time that the climate stay hospitable. Should humans allow the climate to naturally ebb back into terribly inhospitable cold? Do we actually know the mechanisms humans can use to delay the onset of the next apocalyptic ice age? Isn't the prevention or delay of ice ages terribly more important than slight rises in temperature? Do the druids and "humans should have no climate impact" scientists agree that allowing the globe to slip into the next ice age would be a bad thing? Somehow, I don't think so. Beavers had dramatic impact on climate and terrestrial life: If they had become smart enough to become self aware, should they have stopped transforming the planet?
    Response: The possibility of heading back into another ice age has been examined on multiple occasions in the peer-reviewed literature. Ice ages begin when northern ice sheets encroach further southward from year to year, gradually increasing the Earth's albedo. So if a huge ice sheet takes over northern Canada, then yes, be concerned.

    But in the meantime, the two largest ice sheets in the world, Greenland and Antarctica, are losing ice mass at an accelerating rate. You can rest assured that the imminent ice age has been postponed indefinitely. On the contrary, the accelerating mass loss from these ice sheets is predicted to raise sea levels by 1 to 2 metres by the end of this century. For the sake of my 10 year old daughter, I'm more concerned about the 1 to 2 metres sea level rise she'll see in her lifetime than a hypothetical ice age that will arguably occur hundreds of thousands of years into the future.
  12. A database of peer-reviewed papers on climate change
    Poptech, it's also worth noting this. From your comment above: [E&E is] Found at 44 libraries worldwide, at universities and the library of congress. Including an additional 78 in electronic form. That seems to be about the right order of magnitude. WorldCat says E&E is currently in 48 libraries worldwide. Now, that's a really, really small number of libraries. My own field is pretty narrow, and the journals are going to be inherently of less wide interest than a journal that publishes papers on "environment" and "energy" topics. I just looked up all of the main journals in my field, and they're all in at least 400-600 libraries according to WorldCat. As far as I can tell, E&E is part of a parallel infrastructure that's grown up to provide a safe and un-skeptical venue for promoting work that (a) questions the mainstream scientific consensus on climate change, and (b) isn't of high enough caliber to be considered in a "real" scientific venue. So, for example, there's the "NIPCC" report created by Fred Singer as a kind of shadow version of the actual IPCC reports. There's the Heartland climate "conference" which is likewise a kind of weak and nonserious response to actual scientific conferences (AGU, etc.). And then there's E&E, kind of a toy journal for outside-the-mainstream papers only. The advantage of publishing in E&E rather than a real journal, or presenting at a Heartland event rather than a real conference, is that your work won't actually be subjected to any kind of skeptical review.
  13. Berényi Péter at 22:28 PM on 8 April 2010
    Visual depictions of Sea Level Rise
    OK. I have visited the University of Colorado at Boulder Sea level change site and downloaded Global mean sea level satellite data (Inverted barometer applied, Seasonal signal removed, 1993-2009). It looks like this: I have calculated least square fit quadratic. It turns out sea level rise is actually decelerating in this 16 years long period. Acceleration term is -0.108 mm/y2. If linear term is also considered valid and current trend is extrapolated, sea level rise should stop by 2030 (21 mm above current level). Beyond that time it would start decrease. By 2100 sea level would be some 25 cm lower than now, decreasing at a 7.5 mm/year rate.
  14. Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
    Berényi Péter, "natural pH cycles can modulate the impact of ocean acidification on coral reef ecosystems." This is the conclusion of the original Pelejero et al 2005 paper that you did not quote. Modulation is one thing, long term decrease, eventually modulated, is another.
  15. A database of peer-reviewed papers on climate change
    Poptech, nobody (outside their editorial team) really knows how "review" functions at E&E. However, the proof of the pudding is in the eating as they say, and there is a long history of seriously and obviously flawed papers coming out in that journal. So either they're not being reviewed, or they're not being reviewed effectively. In either case the result is the same. Most scientists will (rightly, in my opinion) feel that it's not worth their time to read papers from E&E. Given the huge expansion in the number of journals and the number of papers being published, it's difficult enough to keep up with the literature as it is!
  16. Humans are too insignificant to affect global climate
    jmymac1958, you're comparing the quantity of CO2 emitted from burning gasoline to the total atmosphere. But the atmosphere is mostly made up of inert nitrogen and oxygen, which are irrelevant to the radiation balance. Instead, you need to compare the increase in CO2 to the total quantity of CO2. The mass of CO2 in the atmosphere is about 3E15 kg. The mass of CO2 produced annually by burning gasoline in the US is 1.2E12 kg. So US gasoline consumption increases CO2 in the atmosphere by about 0.04%. That's a small amount. But it accumulates over time, due to the long lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere, and gasoline in cars is not the only source of CO2 (see coal, natural gas, and petroleum not used in cars), and the US isn't the only country in the world. Thus, in a fairly short time, we are doubling the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere ... even in spite of the fact that some of the CO2 we produce is taken up by the oceans and the biosphere. It is sometimes hard to believe that a small quantity of something can have a serious impact. The lethal dose for arsenic is around 13-14 parts per million, for dioxin it's 0.02 parts per million (0.000002%). As John points out, it's quite possible to reduce our CO2 emissions with current technology and without destroying the economy. The Socolow and Pacala 2004 paper is a good place to start. And as Doug points out, we're going to have to move away from fossil fuels anyway, so why not start now? Oil is a very valuable substance for manufacturing and industry; it's stupid to just burn it all. Doesn't it seem a bit selfish to take a valuable resource that's accumulated over hundreds of millions of years and burn it all in the course of a century or so? One assumes that human civilization will still be around past 2100; even if you ignore the climate issue our descendants may not appreciate our profligate squandering of their inheritance. Finally, I'd politely suggest not making ad-hominem remarks in your posts (e.g., your references to Al Gore). It's much better to make your point without name-calling or insults, no matter how subtle and humorous you think you're being.
  17. Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
    JRuss, in addition to the mysterious "pools of liquid CO2" comment, I'd like to highlight this, which is also incorrect: Now that our globe is again warming, I expect the oceans to release vast quantities of CO2 and thus increase the pH of the ocean's surface. As long as humans are burning large quantities of fossil fuels, the direction of the CO2 flux is from the atmosphere to the ocean. It's true that warmer waters hold less CO2, but that means the oceans will take up less CO2 from the atmosphere, not that the oceans will be a net source of CO2 to the atmosphere. See: * Sabine et al. (2004). The Oceanic Sink for Anthropogenic CO2. Science, Vol. 305. no. 5682, pp. 367 - 371. * Takahashi et al. (2009). Climatological mean and decadal change in surface ocean pCO2, and net sea–air CO2 flux over the global oceans. Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography Volume 56, Issues 8-10, Pages 554-577.
  18. Berényi Péter at 20:23 PM on 8 April 2010
    Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
    Local diurnal/seasonal/interdecadal pH variability is rather larege comparedt to projected changes. Therefore marine ecosystems must have been evolved to deal with such excursions. Response to Comment on "Preindustrial to Modern Interdecadal Variability in Coral Reef pH" Pelejero & al. Science 27 October 2006: Vol. 314. no. 5799, p. 595 DOI: 10.1126/science.1128502
  19. Berényi Péter at 19:36 PM on 8 April 2010
    Oceans are cooling
    #23 contd. Looks like volumetric thermal coefficient of seawater also depends on pressure and (to a lesser extent)salinity. It is 2.44 × 10-4 K-1 at 0 °C, 108 Pa (bottom of abyss). Pressure dependence may close the gap. IES 80 (UNESCO International Equation of State of Seawater 1980) Algorithms for computation of fundamental properties of seawater by Fofonoff & Millard, 1983 Sea Water Equation of State Calculator, Johns Hopkins University, Applied Physics Laboratory, Ocean Remote Sensing Group However, there is still room for improvement
  20. Jacob Bock Axelsen at 19:22 PM on 8 April 2010
    Are we too stupid?
    Commenters in this thread have discussed the problem of population growth. In that respect it might interest the audience that many economists are coming to the sobering realization that the era of continous economic growth is probably soon coming to an end: Degrowth Conference Barcelona 2010.
  21. Jacob Bock Axelsen at 19:05 PM on 8 April 2010
    Are we too stupid?
    embb The point is, you need the same young generation applying the same peer pressure in China. Do you see that happening? No, because of censorship of the media. I was mostly thinking of societies where public opinion and public policy making is correlated. I do not think indirect reciprocity is the holy grail. However, something new is called for and tests show that it works specifically for this huge public goods game.
  22. Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
    JRuss wrote : During the global cooling from 2004 to 2009, our oceans did absorb more CO2 resulting in a decrease in pH. Do you have any figures or references for that global cooling in association with that decrease in pH ? How significant are the trends and the relationship between the two ?
  23. Are we too stupid?
    Jacob: "The reason indirect reciprocity has not been applied yet is because these results are rather recent. With social networking media for an entire young generation in place, perhaps social peer pressure could be much stronger than for us." The point is, you need the same young generation applying the same peer pressure in China. Do you see that happening?
  24. Are we too stupid?
    Gallopingcamel: it is even nicer - there is a real possibility of using thorium as a nuclear fuel, and there is plenty of it.
  25. Is the science settled?
    Riccardo (99): Do Santer et al say the opposite of what I claim? This is their closing remark: “We may never completely reconcile the divergent observational estimates of temperature changes in the tropical troposphere. We lack the unimpeachable observational records necessary for this task. The large structural uncertainties in observations hamper our ability to determine how well models simulate the tropospheric temperature changes that actually occurred over the satellite era. A truly definitive answer to this question may be difficult to obtain. Nevertheless, if structural uncertainties in observations and models are fully accounted for, a partial resolution of the long-standing ‘differential warming’ problem has now been achieved. The lessons learned from studying this problem can and should be applied towards the improvement of existing climate monitoring systems, so that future model evaluation studies are less sensitive to observational ambiguity.” Translated into normal language: ‘Sorry, we could not find the hot spot, that was predicted by the models. Our data are too ambiguous. Maybe in the future, we will have better observations to test our models.” On the other hand, Santer et al show, that Douglass’ claim is wrong, that he proved that the hot spot does not exist. Douglass has not yet got the opportunity to contradict this. These together show my point: that the science on this issue is not settled. Chris (105) “…Since paleoanalysis indicates that the warming of the last 30 years is exceptional at least in the context of the last millennium and likely last two millennia…”: We all know, that this claim is highly controversial. The use of carefully selected high quality treering data for the reconstruction of the temperature in the past two millennia is very tricky. There is no need to figure that out in this posting. Craig Loehle has shown, on the basis of non-treering proxies, that the present warm period is not exceptional (Energy & Environment 18(2007), 1049-1053). But the IPCC-figure 1 in Box 6.4 (AR4, page 468) does not justify this claim either, given the fact, that the post-1960 data have been replaced by thermometer measurements (the famous ‘divergence’ problem). My point was, that the science on this issue is not settled, and that remains true. Chris (105): “…ocean current contributions to 20th century warming indicates that these have made close to zero net contribution to warming over the last 100 years…” OK, you have a point. There is a clear correlation between the ups and downs of the ocean currents and the global temperature and the net effect of this multidecadal oscillation is about zero. The oscillation is superposed on a slow rise in temperature by 0.5 degrees per century, that the earth experiences since 1800. Whether that warming is related to CO2 is not settled. The warming in the last 30 years was probably the up going phase of the oscillation. You may know the clear analysis of Akasofu of these cycles (http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/pdf/two_natural_components_recent_climate_change.pdf). My point is not that Akasofu tells the ultimate story, but only, that the science on this issue is not settled. So, to return to John’s question: does less understanding on one issue invalidate better understanding on other issues? Of course not. But the most important issue has not been settled: will cutting our CO2-emmissions have any effect on the global climate? We don’t know.
  26. Are we too stupid?
    There is a ugly practical side to this question - when it comes to a mutually binding agreement it has to be seen as "fair". Now, emerging industrial nations like China or Brasil will definitely use the non-sensical argument that the "West" caused the problem so fair means that they should get a bigger share of the commons. This argument can also be used to reject any kind of emission control, and where does that leave us?
  27. A database of peer-reviewed papers on climate change
    There is a good case study of the process of writing, submitting, revising, and publishing a scientific article in a peer-reviewed journal, recounted on RealClimate's post Science Story: The Making of a Sea Level Study. Also there is an inline response by one of the authors of that journal article, Stefan: "I've certainly had more papers rejected than accepted by Nature and Science." (The inline response is to comment #8 by Andy S on 6 April). Stefan's professional and grateful attitude differs starkly from McKitrick's attitude.
  28. Doug Bostrom at 13:53 PM on 8 April 2010
    Climate's changed before
    Rogerthesurf, you'd do better to explain yourself. Failing that, presumably you won't care if your post is deleted?
  29. Doug Bostrom at 13:49 PM on 8 April 2010
    Humans are too insignificant to affect global climate
    jmymac1958, we're going to be forced to make a radical change in the amount of fossil C02 we liberate into the atmosphere not so far down the road, not necessarily because we actually care about the climate but because fossil fuels are a but a blip on our history, here today and gone tomorrow. Now-- while we still have "free" power available from fossil fuels-- is the time to figure out what our long term energy supply will be. We've got a limited amount of resources and time to sort out what our more permanent and reliable energy sources will be. Assuming we don't succumb to some sort of disaster, this era of fossil fuel usage we're living in right now will seem to our descendants as quaint and outmoded as do chipped flints to our own modern day chefs. Imagining that C02 is the only challenge we're facing w/regard to fossil fuels misses many future chapters of our story.
  30. gallopingcamel at 13:31 PM on 8 April 2010
    Are we too stupid?
    My last posts on this thread (#42 & 43) caused quite a reaction. While I don't like to disappoint my fans, I have some new courses that start next week so I have some preparation to do. One has to stay at least a week ahead of the students! My regard for this blog and its denizens remains undiminished so I plan to return when the pressure of work eases. I don't want my last post to be disagreeable so I will refrain from offering any opinions. All I ask is that you view a video. This is not an unreasonable request as many of you ask me to read material that you consider important. Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHs2Ugxo7-8 This video covers the science relating to the availability of fission fuels; the effects of mining activities on the environment; "burning" high level nuclear waste; reactor safety issues; reducing plutonium production; truck mounted reactors and much more. I see "4th generation" nukes as something that both sides of the AGW debate could support. Am I wasting my time and yours?
  31. Rogerthesurf at 12:52 PM on 8 April 2010
    Climate's changed before
    "What does past climate change tell us about global warming?" In case you dont know it, your explanation uses the AGW theory to explain the question when the question is really asking for some proof of the AGW theory. Cheers Roger http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com
  32. Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
    From Peru at #17: Both. Actually, not just frozen then fried, but fried then frozen then fried, as I understand it (no citations, so take it with a grain a salt). I believe one consequence of a large impact is an enormous amount of debris which spreads out over most of the planet, much of which is very hot (incandescant?) when it hits the ground, causing very widespread fires. There's your first fry-up. Of course, this also releases a *lot* of CO2 & aerosols. The aerosols (from the impact & subsequent burning) then have an enormous negative radiative forcing, causing the big freeze. As these aerosols settle out, though, over a relatively short period of time, the forcing from the massive GHG pulse becomes dominant, and the temperature heads north again. On the one hand, this GHG contribution would tend to prevent an impact from causing a snowball earth. On the other hand, such drastic climatic swings would almost certainly lead to mass extinctions. Sorry I don't have any references - this is just pulled from memory, but I'd love to read a paper examining climatic consequences of large impacts, if anyone knows of one (or more).
  33. Humans are too insignificant to affect global climate
    I'm not a scientist, so maybe I didn't get my point across: It's not possible for us to make a radical enough change to the amount of CO2 humans are putting into the atmosphere to make a difference. We'll have to live with it.
    Response: The question of whether it's possible to reduce our CO2 sufficiently has been examined in the peer-reviewed literature (Pacala 2004). The verdict:
    Humanity already possesses the fundamental scientific, technical, and industrial know-how to solve the carbon and climate problem for the next half-century. A portfolio of technologies now exists to meet the world's energy needs over the next 50 years and limit atmospheric CO2 to a trajectory that avoids a doubling of the preindustrial concentration. Every element in this portfolio has passed beyond the laboratory bench and demonstration project; many are already implemented somewhere at full industrial scale.
    To borrow from the Bionic Man, "we have the technology!"
  34. Humans are too insignificant to affect global climate
    PS: This is the best web site I've seen for rational debate. I haven't read one post where someone is called ....ing idiot or ....redneck. Very cool.
  35. Humans are too insignificant to affect global climate
    A Drop in a Bucket Volume of the Earth’s Atmosphere: How thick is the atmosphere? There are many different answers to this question. Everyone agrees that the atmosphere consists of 5 layers. The bottom layer, the troposphere, contains 75% of the gas. The thickness of this layer, depending on who you ask, varies between 8 km and 15km above the surface of the earth. For the purposes of this discussion, I’ll use the lower limit of 8 km. Also, for this discussion, I won’t consider the remaining 4 layers of the atmosphere, as there is very little gas in these layers. Volume of a sphere: The radius of the earth is 6,360 km This makes the radius of the earth plus the troposphere to be 6368 km (6,360 + 8). The formula for finding the volume a sphere is: 4/3 X π X r3. To determine the volume of the troposphere: (1) Plug in the larger number (radius of the earth plus the troposphere) (2) subtract the volume of the earth: (4/3) X (3.142) X (6,368km)3 = (4/3) X (3.142) X (258,231,468,032 km3) = 1,081,817,696,742. km3 For the earth: (4/3) X (3.142) X (6,360km)3 = (4/3) X (3.142) X (257,259,456,000 km3) = 1,077,745,614,336 km3 Subtract the volume of the earth from the volume of the volume of the earth plus the troposphere: 1,081,817,696,742 km3 – 1,077,745,614,336 km3 = 4,072,082,406 km3 = the volume of the troposphere For this discussion, I’m going to use 4.07 billion cubic kilometers as the volume of the troposphere. US Gasoline Use in 1 Year The U.S. Energy Information Administration says the United States uses 378 million gallons of gasoline, per day, for motor consumption. (378,000,000 x 365) = 137,970,000,000 gal/year For this discussion, I’m going to use 138 billion as the number of gallons of gasoline, for motor consumption (cars), burned in the U.S. in a single year. CO2 Emissions The International Carbon Bank and Exchange states that burning a gallon of gasoline produces 4.867m³ of CO2. Multiplying the 138 billion gallons of gasoline burned in the U.S. by the 4.867 m3: (138,000,000,000 x 4.867 m3) = 671,646,000,000 m3 There are 671.6 trillion cubic meters of CO2 produced by gasoline motors in the U.S. in one year. This is equal to 671.646 cubic kilometers. To give this unit a name, I’m calling it an ALGIT (Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth). One algit = 671.646 cubic kilometers = the volume of CO2 gas produced by all the gasoline motors in the US in one year. Percentage of the Atmosphere If the volume of the atmosphere is 4.07 billion km3, and an Algit is 671.646 km3, then the atmosphere contains (4.07 billion / 671.646) algits. This equals 6,059,739.80 algits. The CO2 produced by the U.S. (from gasoline burning motors), in a single year is equal to .0000165% of the atmosphere. Drops in a Bucket One drop of water is a minum. Twenty minums make a milliliter. If we consider a one gallon bucket, there are 3,785.4 milliliters in a gallon, so there are 75,708 minums (drops) in a bucket. The number of Algits in the atmosphere is 6,062,039, so there are 80 times (6,059,739.8 / 75,708) as many algits in the atmosphere as there are drops in bucket. Another way of looking at this is that it would take 80 years for all the gasoline motors in the U.S. to produce the amount of CO2 that would be the equivalent of a drop in a bucket. So if we stopped using all gasoline motors in the U.S. today (impossibility), each year would have the effect of 1/80th of a drop in the bucket of the atmosphere. Doesn’t seem worth it. The earth is warming up - let's spend our efforts (and $) figuring out what to do as it gets warmer. Buying electric cars and crappy lightbulbs won't do it.
    Response: Another way of looking at it, and I would argue the most appropriate way to look at it, is how much heat is this trace amount of CO2 trapping? This has been accurately determined by line-by-line calculations and confirmed by direct measurements by satellites and surface measurements. Observations in the real world confirm the increased greenhouse effect from more atmospheric CO2.

    But I agree, buying electric cars and more efficient lightbulbs are only a tiny drop, to borrow your metaphor, compared to the effort required to lower and eventually stop CO2 emissions.
  36. Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
    I find the level of analogy between the skeptic arguments regarding ocean acidification and those already debunked regarding climate to be remarkable. Er, perhaps the are homologous. Anyway, in comment #4, which I otherwise thought was a waste of time, the sixth point about buffer systems not being very well understood was worth adding to. Being a fish guy, I like this story, and so will you: "Fish an 'ally' against climate change." I haven't read enough papers on this topic yet, but I like the fourth one on Ari's CC Observer page Wooten et al (2008) pdf, particularly figures 1B and 2B. These show that things are already changing. A friend in the scallop farming industry tells me that there's been trouble with low pH so far this year. I can't help but think that the observed reduction in pH on the coast of the Pacific Northwest is too fast to be due directly to anthropogenic CO2 emissions (though those certainly can't help). I think I read somewhere or heard that changing wind patterns are bringing more ancient CO2 into surface waters than used to occur. Anyway, the changes in coastal invertebrate communities (like those shown in the Wooten et al paper) at this early stage are probably a bit of a window into the kinds of changes we'll be seeing in the open ocean in the next few decades.
  37. Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
    "Dinosaurs died frozen or cooked?" Does it really matter? The climate changed faster than the plants could adapt to the change, so the dinosaurs starved.
  38. Chris McGrath at 09:37 AM on 8 April 2010
    Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
    An important point, often overlooked, is the use of CO2-only figures in papers such as Pelejero et al (2010). However, most policy-makers use the term "carbon dioxide equivalents", rather than CO2-only targets, when discussing stabilisation targets for climate change. For example, targets for stabilizing temperature rises between 450-550 ppm "carbon dioxide equivalents" generally include all components of the atmosphere affecting global temperature rises, including CO2, other greenhouse gases and the cooling effects of aerosols. For further discussion, see: http://www.climateshifts.org/?p=683 John, this could be the subject of a useful post from you clarifying the differences between CO2-only and CO2-equivalents targets.
  39. Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
    JRuss, #18: "in the deep oceans there are lakes of almost pure CO2." I think you're mistaken. Do you have a reference for this?
  40. Berényi Péter at 09:13 AM on 8 April 2010
    Oceans are cooling
    BTW, even the Levitus OHC history reconstruction gives only a 0.14 °C increase in temperature for the upper 700 m of oceans for the entire 53 year period between 1955 and 2008. It is a problem indeed. Same author says average thermosteric sea level rise for this period was 0.39 mm/year. For a 700 m deep water column to expand by 20.7 mm in response to 0.14 °C warming, volumetric thermal expansion coefficient should be 2.1 × 10-4. It can only happen if average temperature of the upper 700 m is more than 20 °C. Now. In fact average temperature of ocean surface waters is 17 °C and this is the warmest layer. Below the thermocline (100-200 m on average) it gets really cold fast. At 700 m it can not be more than 5-6 °C. Therefore average temperature for the upper 700 m is somewhere around 10 °C. At this temperature volumetric expansion coefficient of water is only 0.88 × 10-4. It means that either OHC increased twice as much as Levitus claims or steric sea level rise was half of his value. There is of course a third, most unlikely possibility: temperature of seawater might have increased only in the warmest parts and layers of the ocean and nowhere else.
  41. Doug Bostrom at 07:56 AM on 8 April 2010
    Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
    JRuss, can you supply a pointer showing where we may read about naturally occurring pools of liquid C02 in the deep ocean?
  42. Jacob Bock Axelsen at 07:52 AM on 8 April 2010
    Are we too stupid?
    Alexandre I assume you mean some kind of voluntary action that would lead to the agents "preferring" to stay within the rules (even if informal rules)(...) I don´t see this happening in large scale (nation, world). The problem, of course, is that on the other hand coercion for nations could mean war. Lovelock actually mentions this in his interview. And you are right about the problem of air pollution. In fact, handling particle filters on diesel cars has turned out to be hard to control even with laws. The setup in Milinski's first game is that the collected funds will be used to publish a notice in the newspaper about the study. The more funds the bigger the notice. Admitted, a poor substitute for the cost of investing in sustainable energy sources, but it gets interesting because it makes the players cooperate much more when using indirect reciprocity and/or informing them. The reason indirect reciprocity has not been applied yet is because these results are rather recent. With social networking media for an entire young generation in place, perhaps social peer pressure could be much stronger than for us. I have already read newspaper stories about the difference in culture of young people e.g. being upset about leaving appliances on stand by, using less water, sorting trash etc. The children will naturally be better educated than our contrarian generation, so enlightenment is implied.
  43. Berényi Péter at 07:45 AM on 8 April 2010
    Oceans are cooling
    #21 Ned at 03:33 AM on 8 April, 2010 All that said, I think Doug Bostrom has the most important point here There are things I am as good at as an expert. Energy conservation is one of them. Here are the OHC anomaly data for each quarter between 1955 & 2009 according to the NODC Ocean Climate Laboratory: 1. quarter 2. quarter 3. quarter 4. quarter The error bars supplied are way too small if you take into account the differences between various reconstructions, but that's another story. According to the ISCCP-FD Radiative Fluxes database the 85-89 based Total Net Global Mean Anomaly at TOA is about -3 W/m2, basically flat between 2002 and 2005 with a rapid (sub-annual) oscillation. We do not know the correct offset, so the zero level is arbitrary, but there was no any climatically relevant change detected in this period. There might have been instrumental problems in 2000-2001, none later. Now. NODC OHC anomaly annual averages for 2002-2005 look like this: 2002 7.095 ± 0.527 × 1022 J 2003 10.481 ± 0.535 × 1022 J 2004 12.154 ± 0.494 × 1022 J 2005 11.247 ± 0.445 × 1022 J That is, from 2002 to 2003 OHC increased by 3.386± 0.751 × 1022 J and it has decreased by 0.907 ± 0.665 × 1022 J between 2004 and 2005. The difference is 4.293 ± 1 × 1022 J. It means that Earth has accumulated that much more heat in 2002-2003 than in 2004-2005. As Earth surface area is 5.1 × 1014 m2, the difference in net radiation balance is 8.42 ± 1.96 × 107 J/m2. A year is 3.16 × 107 sec. Therefore the difference in net radiation flux should have been 2.66 ± 0.62 W/m2. That is, from 2002-2003 to 2004-2005 Total Net Global Mean Anomaly at TOA should have decreased by at least 2 W/m2. It would be very visible in the ISCCP-FD graph, but in fact nothing like that can be seen. The extra heat needed to increase OHC in 2002-2003 could come from nowhere else than from TOA radiation anomaly, since there is no component in the climate system other than the oceans capable to store and supply that much energy. But it could not come from above. Therefore the NODC reconstruction is flawed. Q.E.D.
  44. Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
    I found some common misconceptions over the internet and here in the comments. The first, and the least important, is the use of the word acidification. Doug already clarified the meaning and its use; but neverthless, it's obviously irrelevant. Call it de-alkalinization or pH change, it doesn't matter, what's important is the effect. Some people think that CO2 in water forms HCO3- plus H+, the former then decomposes into CO3-- plus H+ and then increasing CO2 will increase CO3--. If true, it would favour the formation of calcium carbonate. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. The buffering effect to CO2 induced pH reduction consists in limiting the H+ concentration increase by formation of more HCO3- at the expenses of CO3--. Calcification is then limited not by availability of Ca++ but by CO3-- concentration, which is declining along with pH. pH has the same fate as CO2 in the sense that skeptics claim, for example, that it's not true that pH reduction influences corals growth, the latter being related to temperature. Did anyone ever say that corals growth is governed just by pH? Corals, as well as other shell forming organisms, respond (among other things) to temperature, true; but a reduced pH will increase their stress and limit the resilience to increasing temperature. Other human induced stresses (pollution) come also into play and clearly more stress means less resilience. Similarly, no one ever said that all species are getting into trouble, at least not in the short run. For example, some organisms (e.g. foraminifera) form calcite while others (e.g. corals) aragonite structures. The latter is more soluble than the former, so it is expected that aragonite forming organisms will be more vulnerable to pH reductions. And this is not the whole story. Some organisms, for example, are able to use different chemical paths to form their shells making them much more resilient to water acidification. The last myth that comes to my mind is that you need to have an acidic water (pH<7) to have any impact on calcium carbonate dissolution. This is not true, any alteration of a chemical equilibrium brings the reaction one way or another.
  45. Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
    The solubility of carbon dioxide in water varies greatly with temperature and pressure. At the surface of the ocean, [760 mm Hg] the solubility in grams of CO2 in 100 g (pure water)is .3346 @ 0 C, .2318 @ 10 C, .1688 @ 20 C, .1257 @ 30 C, etc. Global warming warms the ocean surface causing release of CO2. Global cooling allows the ocean to absorb CO2 as the ocean cools. But in the deep oceans there are lakes of almost pure CO2. Presumably, much of this is from under sea volcanoes where the pressure is high enough for CO2 to liquefy, and being denser the water, fall to the ocean floor. Slowly, this CO2 does migrate to the ocean surface. During the global cooling from 2004 to 2009, our oceans did absorb more CO2 resulting in a decrease in pH. Now that our globe is again warming, I expect the oceans to release vast quantities of CO2 and thus increase the pH of the ocean's surface. During of period of global warming, the amount of oceanic release of CO2 can be greater then all from all the power plants and vehicles man has made.
  46. Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
    So the K-T impact caused cooling or warming? Or to be more explicit, what happened , a "Nuclear Winter" or a "Greenhouse Oven"? Dinosaurs died frozen or cooked?
  47. Marcel Bökstedt at 06:02 AM on 8 April 2010
    Southern sea ice is increasing
    I’m not convinced that this problem is well understood yet. My feeling is that it is dangerous to use data from the sea off Antarctica as evidence either for or against AGW, until there is a consistent model covering the whole area. Unfortunately, it might not be so easy to provide one. I’ve been trying to read the literature, and intend to give my dumbed down version of it below, in the hope that someone with more expertise can correct me. OBSERVATIONS: Much of this depends on the “reanalysis” project, that tries to reconstruct climate data for the period 1957-96. It seems clear from Boning el al that there is a measured warming trend of the water of the Southern Ocean (between 30 and 60 degrees south, down to 2000 meters). The reanalysis of temperature records seem (Zhang) to show that in the interval 1979-2004 the air surface temperature in the much smaller “ice covered area” around Antarctica has been rising. There is also a measured increase in Antarctic sea ice extent (Turner et al and references therein) In addition to this there is also a further measured change, related to the Antarctic Oscillation (also called Southern Annular Mode). There are two modes (Thompson & Solomon): High index means cold polar temperatures, strong western winds, and low index means the opposite. This index has been rising, increasing winds and decreasing polar temperature. There is evidence that this development is driven by the “ozone hole”. All of the above seem to comparatively safe. In particular the simplistic argument “more ice means the South Polar Sea is colder” is nonsense, we do know that the Polar Sea is getting warmer, so that the extent of ice on the Ocean is definitely a bad proxy for temperature, But when it comes to explanations of what we see, things look a lot more murky to me. Two main players seem to be the layering of the Southern Ocean water (less dense water above denser water) and the constant western winds around 60 degree. THE EKMAN SPIRAL: The wind possibly contributes to the mixing of layers in an interesting way: the wind drives an ocean current which runs around the Antarctic moving from West to East. This current extends down into the ocean, with the surface water moving fastest, and deeper water moving in the same direction, but slower, Because of the Coriolis effect, the current will try to veer to the left, which means towards the North. Now, since the surface water moves faster than the deeper water, the net effect is stronger at the surface, So surface water will move to the North, which forces deep water to the south. This creates a down-welling North of the current, and an upwelling South of the current. This whole business is called an Ekman spiral. BONING: The paper by Boning et al. quotes measurements that seem to show that even if the circumpolar winds have been increasing, that “Ekman spiral” has not become stronger. They believe that the reason for this is that the increased wind also produces more eddies, which confuse the whole picture. They note the the models that has been used cannot resolve those eddies (they are too small). If they are right, the lack of enhanced mixing of layers in the ocean is not yet theoretically understood. ZHANG: Zhang’s paper is a pure model study The main point of the article is that he can construct a model of the South Sea that agrees with two important seemingly contradictory measured factS: it has a warming ocean, but an increase in sea ice. I think that the mechanism proposed by Zhang is slightly (but not essentially) different from what John describes. The motor driving various changes is the increase in surface temperature. This initially leads to a decrease in production of new sea ice. The top water gets warmer and less salty. Both these changes work in the same direction, they both make the top layer less dense. The next thing that happens is that since the top layer is gets dense, there is less upwelling of warm water. This means that less ice is melted. So now, both less ice is created and less ice is melted. The model says that the change in melting is bigger than the change in the creation of new ice, so the net effect is that we get less ice. But wait? If less ice melts in the top layer, the salinity will increase, counteracting the previous effect? Zhang says that this is so, but we still have to take the warming of the top layer into account! This warming makes the top layer lighter, decreasing mixing of layers. So now there are lots of things going on: Since the top water gets warmer, less ice is produced. On the other hand, less ice is melted by upwelling deeper warm water. Then there is precipitation, but Zhang does not believe that the increase in precipitation is the decisive effect. And the sum of the three effects "creating less new ice", “destroying less old ice" and "warming the water" is actually that the top layer gets less dense - driving the cycle. This all seems a bit subtle for my taste, taking the big uncertainties into account. For instance, what happened to Boning’s eddies, which were supposed to be important? But at least this is a testable model. TURNER: This paper seems to ignore questions of up and down convection in the oceans, the questions that dominated Boning et al. and Zhang.et al. Instead it focuses on the strengthening of the western wind – the high index of the Antarctic oscillation. Another important point of this paper is that they break down the increase in sea ice into geographical areas and seasons. In particular, the ice in the Ross sea (close to the pole) has been increasing, while the ice in the Bellinghausen-Amundsen sea (father from the pole) has been decreasing. This is clearly important, and the regional differences should be explained. There is some modeling going on, but the upshot seems to be unclear (they conclude that it could all be natural variability). The paper is often cited for explaining increased sea ice by the polynyas in the Ross sea. It seems to me that they only suggest this mechanism, but they don’t give strong arguments for it. Possibly I’m missing something.
  48. Are we too stupid?
    Jacob #56 Axelrod shows that a cluster of cooperating individuals can displace the defectors and persist against mutations, making tit-for-tat evolutionary stable. In other words, the fisherman could try to convince a small group to put trust in him. I´ll try to find the time to have a look at Axelrod´s paper. Ostrom´s research finds something different: even though she detects that impulse of autruistically staying within the rules, when you don´t have means to enforce the rule, in her lab experiments and field research, this usually collapses as free riders appear more and more. Of course, some means to "enforce the rules" can be some informal, cultural behaviour like diminishing one´s reputation or maybe some physical harassment. This has been observed in small fisher communities, for example. But I don´t see this working in some nationwide scale, let alone worldwide. BTW, in environmental issues I have never seen any successful case of solving air pollution without proper legislation. This is the coercion option Hardin finally resorts to in his paper. Not having the results of Axelrod and followers he still faces the problem of how to agree on the necessary reform. Coercion is a necessary part of any law. The most successful stories involve the users themselves working out an agreement (even if they resort to the state´s coercive power to enforce it). To reach the agreement can be difficult, but it´s a necessary step. You see any alternative? This is why Milinski's results are so interesting: it can be handled using indirect reciprocity alone. I assume you mean some kind of voluntary action that would lead to the agents "preferring" to stay within the rules (even if informal rules). I don´t see this happening in large scale (nation, world). And I don´t know any success stories with something as diffuse as air pollution. Think of car gas emissions - that´s only within a city, and I´ve never seen a city controlling this kind of pollution with indirect reciprocitiy alone.
  49. Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
    RSVP writes: "there are other examples of mass-extinctions coinciding with global warming and increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide" If I am not mistaken, in previous posts, arguments have been made against anthropogenic global warming as being faster than historically warmer periods produced solely by nature. Here is a switch that simply proves mankind is just as much a part of nature as anything else. You're right. In the 4.5 billion year history of the Earth, there have been six or more brief episodes of extreme climate change that each killed off a large fraction of life on the planet. If you use that as your yardstick, then our impact on the planet is not unprecedented in magnitude. I'm not sure what the policy relevance of this is, however. Does the fact that AGW won't be worse than a comet slamming into Yucatan mean that we shouldn't bother trying to prevent or reduce the impact of AGW? That's setting a pretty high bar for action, IMHO.
  50. A database of peer-reviewed papers on climate change
    Following up on Dennis's comment, compare E&E's web site to the clear and complete information for authors on the web site of the journal Science.

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