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cunudiun at 14:05 PM on 3 August 2014Medieval project gone wrong
Thanks. I've been a big fan of SS for some time, but this is my first post here. I got that medieval map sprung on me tonight by a commenter over at Mother Jones, so this article was an invaluable find. I had already noticed a few weird things in many of the map's data sets, e.g. spikes going both up and down at almost the same "medieval" time, but Hoskibui really lays it out in all its idiocy.
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One Planet Only Forever at 10:40 AM on 3 August 2014Sen Whitehouse Schools Sen Inhofe about Global Warming on the Senate Floor
John Michael Carter,
I think one of the reasons it is challenging to get more people to be better informed is the simple fact that many people "want to personally benefit as much as possible", and understanding this issue would require them to give up some of the lazy, easy, damaging and wasteful ways they have grown accustomed to benefiting, meaning they would have to admit they do not deserve all the benefit they currently enjoy.
That desire to continue benefiting from things that are becoming better understood to be damaging and unsustainable leads many people to refuse to better understand. It makes them want to reinforce their misunderstanding. And Faux News abuses that gullibility to attract a target audience they can deliver to marketers who want access to people with a proven willingness to be influenced that way. It is just "good business" to attract solid advertising revenue.
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Leto at 10:36 AM on 3 August 2014Error identified in satellite record may have overestimated Antarctic sea ice expansion
Bojan D,
You are mistaken if you think that the comment you linked to is best characterised as a rational contribution to a scientific disagreement.
Note the first substantive paragraph at your link:
"The massive growth of Antarctica’s ice sheets has confounded scientists for years now, as global warming was expected to shrink the polar ice caps. But while the Arctic has shrank some, Antarctic sea ice coverage has broken hundreds of records this year alone. On July 25, the South Pole sea ice reached 436,681 square miles above the 1981 to 2010 average — the 127th daily record for the year."
The more obvious clues that this is propaganda rather than science are the failure to distinguish between land ice and sea ice in the first sentence; the readiness of the author to dismiss Arctic ice loss non-quantitatively as ''shrank some" in contrast to the eager documentation of the square miles of loss of Antarctic sea ice; and what appears to be a fundamentally misleading approach to the tallying of broken records, such that a high extent of ice that persists is counted as multiple daily records. Throughout the rest of the article there is an obvious lack of effort on the author's part to put the modest extent gains into the context of the quantitatively greater losses throughout most of the cryosphere, or to consider, for instance, that melting Antarctic land ice and other climatic changes could be a major contributor to the sea ice extent growth.
You would be well advised to read the many useful links on this site that - in contrast to your link - consider the full planetary budget of ice.
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Klaus Flemløse at 01:55 AM on 3 August 2014Error identified in satellite record may have overestimated Antarctic sea ice expansion
Thank you to John Abraham for this post. It is a highly relevant topic to address.
I am studying the development of SST of the Southern Ocean(60S-90S). Until now, I been looking at data from GISS, NOAA, Berkeley, NCDC,… and I'm surprised how different trends in SST are. Some point to a decreasing SST other to growing SST.
Additional, I have been looking at Sea Ice Cover(SIC) and beyond the possible errors mentioned by John Abraham, there is an error in 2009. Both errors are calibrating errors by shift of satellite. The latter error has not been corrected on all dataset I can find at KNMI.
What’s my point up to now: - you can’t trust SST and you can’t trust SIC!
I would be pleased if some could point me to the best data for analyzing SST and SIC for Southern Ocean.
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BojanD at 18:20 PM on 2 August 2014Error identified in satellite record may have overestimated Antarctic sea ice expansion
Nice article, but could be much better if NASA's Comiso comment:
"That error has already been corrected and the expansion being reported now has also been reported by other groups as well using different techniques."
was discussed, too. I find these disagreements between scientists great as you can learn a lot. -
citizenschallenge at 01:06 AM on 2 August 2014Sen Whitehouse Schools Sen Inhofe about Global Warming on the Senate Floor
Thank you for posting this.
I have reposted it at http://whatsupwiththatwatts.blogspot.com/2014/08/senator-whitehouse-schools-sen-inhofe.html
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John Michael Carter at 23:25 PM on 1 August 2014Sen Whitehouse Schools Sen Inhofe about Global Warming on the Senate Floor
The same problem loop exists on numerous issues. We have allowed 'facts' and 'reality' to become matters of 'opinion' and we are paying a steep price for it. The news media wouldn't do it if it didn't work,
CB,
In general I agree with you, and some of the politicians probably have or had conflicting opinions, pushed one way, then another, and want to lean that way anyway, etc..
There is no Fourth Estate anymore, and now popularity has become the arbiter of truth. Which I know is popular to think works, but I don't think it does. It goes to the most aptly expressed rhetoric, so almost anything can be alleged, and those who frame, win. A minority is framing both sides of this issue and creating a lot of doubt in their own minds (where it is reinforced) and the public, whereas the level of misinformation and the illogic (or basic misunderstanding of the issue) of the most basic of refuter arguments, if anything, further augments the case for CC. But it's not been effectively shown, or framed.
And our "media" turns into "so this side 'says,' relayer, rather than one of elucidation illumination, and explication. But I don't know if a lot of that is being done to a broader audience anymore, anywhere. SScience tries, but it's online and that tends to be self selecting, and misinformed advocates come here armed with reams of misleading studies from Watts up, along with a fervent belief, and an already established ability to dismiss anything ss says because they "know" "skeptical science misleads" and all the other stuff they mistakenly say.
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John Michael Carter at 23:11 PM on 1 August 2014Sen Whitehouse Schools Sen Inhofe about Global Warming on the Senate Floor
I'd say rather that they purport to not believe CC is real. I suspect that most of them know it is real, but they also know that it would be nearly impossible to get elected as a Republican if they acknowledged reality.
This is a reasonable view, but I don't agree at all, and I think this is a big (if, obviously, inadvertent) part of the problem, along with misinformation itself. There is an insularity in the world of self selected reinforcing misinformation on the issue. But the same sort of thing happens among those who "know" or think they know the "truer" facts on this issue (facts more in line with what most actual scientists — not ideologues - who study the issues are saying).
That is, those who don't are liars, and politicians who dont, "really do know." And so the divide is even furthered, as those who dont know are relegated to not even having the ability, the right, to have a "different view" or be wrong, but just a bunch of dismissed deceivers.
Which pushes their righteousness much futher, and only causes their heesls to dig in much further.
I try to convince misinformers of their basic misconstruction of the issue, and it is like arguing with a stone wall. They "know better." I try to convince those, who do know better about the issue, that a lot of people really don't know better, and or are led by zealous belief and a confusing and often self selectively reinforcing world of misinformation out there and a lot of great rhetoric that has really discredited climate scientists, and it is still somewhat, sometimes, like arguing with a stone wall.
Insularity all around, and the knowledge (or belief conflated as knowledge) that "I have" and the views "I have" are what everybody else has. So, as generalization anyway, for refuters, all non refuters have an agenda, and for non refuters, all refuters are liars, or purposefully deceiving.
Yeah, there are exceptions that actually do support those notions (particularly in the latter direction one would imagine, I don't see much of an agenda in the Climate Change direction, but the conspiracist mind has different imaginations), but they are the exception, not the rule, and they don't make the pattern. Unfortunately, once perceived that way, any hint of it only serves to reinforce the overall notion.
Maybe this is not the case here, and it is why I take the time to respond, as I hope this pattern changes.
It needs to, to make any real progress on this issue, which, as the basic physics of the issue haven't really changed for a long time now, is something we should have already been effectively addressing years ago. And still, essentially, as it greatly compounds, are not.
Here's a link. Fox ("News") is contributing greatly to this problem of misinformation as well, and is a big part of it. And along with the incredible reinforcing nature of rampant misinformation projected as "reasoned science" on the issue, is itself the real news story about how this issue is being covered. But again, a lot of people take Fox as a real news site, and it is nearly impossible not to be intensely misinformed on this issue if that is a main source. And, as the leading national news source in America, it is a pretty "main" source.
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Nylo at 22:25 PM on 1 August 2014A Rough Guide to the Jet Stream: what it is, how it works and how it is responding to enhanced Arctic warming
Sorry, where I said stational, I meant seasonal (english not being my first language and all that...)
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Nylo at 22:23 PM on 1 August 2014A Rough Guide to the Jet Stream: what it is, how it works and how it is responding to enhanced Arctic warming
Hello everyone, this is my first post here.
As the article says, the claim that the jet stream is stronger when the temperature gradient between North Pole and Ecuator is greater, is supported by the observational fact that it is typically stronger in winter than in summer. My question is: how much stronger?
In winter, the temperature gradient is of more than 50ºC (North Pole typically less than -30ºC, Ecuator over +20ºC). In summer, the temperature gradient is less than 30ºC (North Pole slightly over 0ºC, Ecuator still the same). The temperature gradient has reduced to about HALF of what it was in winter, and in absolute terms, it has reduced by aproximately 25ºC. Does the jet stream change A LOT in response to this, or does it only change a little bit?
My main problem with this theory, is that it is true that we are reducing the gradient between North Pole and Ecuator, but we are talking about a reduction of what, half a degree? One degree? (it depends on which dataset you go to check) of this gradient, for the last 20 years. If this had the possibility of affecting the Jet Stream big time in any sense, then we should see HUGE differences in jet stream behaviour between winter and summer, every year. Is the difference in its behaviour, indeed, huge? We are talking of a stational variation of the temperature gradient that is roughly between 1 and 2 orders of magnitude bigger than the anthropogenic effect. In the months when the arctic is warming up, this gradient is reducing at a rate of one full centigrate degree every week!
So to get an idea of what we can expect, I would like to see a typical picture of the jet stream in winter, together with a typical picture of the jet stream in summer, to see the differences, divide the difference in its behaviour by 20 or 30, and then understand what kind of variation we are introducing with the anthropogenic warming of the arctic, quantitatively. Thanks.
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CBDunkerson at 21:07 PM on 1 August 2014Sen Whitehouse Schools Sen Inhofe about Global Warming on the Senate Floor
John Michael Carter wrote: "Well over a third or more of those serving in Congress don't even think CC is real."
I'd say rather that they purport to not believe CC is real. I suspect that most of them know it is real, but they also know that it would be nearly impossible to get elected as a Republican if they acknowledged reality. Nearly every GOP politician who previously acknowledged the reality of AGW has reversed course as the disinformation campaign ratcheted up. As you note, the bigger issue is that GOP voters don't believe in CC... because all of the news media they follow insist that it is a fraud.
The same problem loop exists on numerous issues. We have allowed 'facts' and 'reality' to become matters of 'opinion' and we are paying a steep price for it. The news media wouldn't do it if it didn't work, and it only works because people allow themselves to be lied to.
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chriskoz at 19:38 PM on 1 August 2014Sen Whitehouse Schools Sen Inhofe about Global Warming on the Senate Floor
The escalator was first used by Sen Whitehouse on the Sanete floor in December 2012 also reported by SKS. So, it's been his debunking tool of choice for over 2 years now.
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John Michael Carter at 19:29 PM on 1 August 2014Sen Whitehouse Schools Sen Inhofe about Global Warming on the Senate Floor
Apparently I don't know how to insert links on here.
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John Michael Carter at 19:23 PM on 1 August 2014Sen Whitehouse Schools Sen Inhofe about Global Warming on the Senate Floor
Well over a third or more of those serving in Congress don't even think CC is real.
There is no way to to strategically address this issue intelligently if many in Congress itself don't even think it's real. Just because the majority do doesn't mean that the best policies can even be discussed, bc much of the attention gets focused on a false debate. When the real debate - range of threat level and most sensible response (<a href="http://theworldofairaboveus.blogspot.com/2014/07/by-far-easiest-simplest-most-efficient.html">yeah, link because I think this is a good idea, and limits government intrusion and maximizes response</a>) - thus gets subverted and our entire response thus skewed.
The reason for such misperception in Congress (as well as in Australia) is because of misperception in the populace. That comes from a wild and really focused array of dedicated climate change refutation websites, maybe some industry backed, but mainly really driven by self reinforcing belief. And dedication.
On Wattsup, if one cites this (skepticalscience) site, one is immediately derided because this site is [lots of unfair negative stuff I won't repeat], which makes the phrase the pot calling the kettle black maybe the understated metaphor of the millenium.
This creates public perception, and also the perception of our legislators in total, and shapes our world.
I know it's easy to say Inofe has "heard the facts." And yes Whitehouse effectively presents things; but once one gets a hardened view, everything gets filtered through that view. It's like a religion on CC refutation (which of course, in order to self perpetuate the belief that it is really objective assessment driving this "sensible" "reasoned" view, then causes the labeling of all climate change concern and effective advocacy as "religion.")
Inhofe likely has a natural bent to not want to acknowledge that we could radically afffect the earth long term, a natural fealty toward the right of business even over what harm it might do to our own interests, and maybe even over near basic rights of individuals, but mainly there is just an avalanche of misconstrued information, and misinformation, on this issue that is (mis) driving world perception (and that supports Inhofe's predisposed view.)
And it is mainly in the Internet/pseudo social media, which drives much of the world's perception today, and which is incredingly self selective and self reinforcing.
This has to be looked at as a major broader phenonenon on this issue. Our national and international conversions — not talking about self selection on the blogosphere, even among far more accurate sites, etc — are being wildly affected, and the overall assessments we are making as a world, are exceedingly poor, as a result.
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Jonas at 18:30 PM on 1 August 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #31A
Thank you for compiling this list all the time. I don't have the time to view all the sources, so I am extremely happy about this compilation.
Out of this one for instance, I took the article on mental health and forwarded it to a psychology professional who has written a book on the subject (in German ..., Andreas Meissner, "Mensch was nun?": http://www.mensch-was-nun.de ).
So, you radiate far beyond direct readership: it's a network with highly concentrated nodes of knowledge, oversight and effort (sks) and lower level relay stations going to the public at large.
Moderator Response:[JH] Thanks for the posiitive feedback. It is most welcome.
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Jonas at 18:20 PM on 1 August 2014Sen Whitehouse Schools Sen Inhofe about Global Warming on the Senate Floor
There are videos where I like to start applauding ...
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Chris G at 15:11 PM on 1 August 2014Sen Whitehouse Schools Sen Inhofe about Global Warming on the Senate Floor
One Planet,
I think some people are inherently more resistant to change (conservatives) than others (liberals), and the idea of climate change slams into that wall hard. Because, it represents change no matter what course we take. Either we change our energy production, or we change how (if) we grow food. In the face of this calamity of inevitable change, it is easy to sow seeds of happy thoughts that this is all not really a problem and/or attempting to mitigate the problem will make our situation worse.
I've seen one person argue both that it is too small problem to worry about and that it is too big a problem for us to do anything about, and I sat there wondering how his head did not explode. I suspect that many conservatives really just don't want to see themselves as agents of change.
For some, the reality is that mitigation will be disruptive, if you make your living from fossil fuels, yes, mitigating climate change will change how you live and make a living. In the US, that is 7% of the GDP, and that is something we need to be realistic about ourselves.
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Chris G at 14:47 PM on 1 August 2014Sen Whitehouse Schools Sen Inhofe about Global Warming on the Senate Floor
You've done most excellent work here, and you should be proud, but you were not the only one to look and the oscillations on the temperature graph and ask why anyone thinks this latest one is the last one. Although, the escalator analogy is the best I've seen; waves on the incoming tide is another good one, but not sure how many people relate as well to waves and tides.
I particularly liked the 'alternate reality' phrase. Had a chance to hear him speak once; he is a good motivator. Not sure how he manages to put emotion and technical content into the same words.
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One Planet Only Forever at 14:39 PM on 1 August 2014Sen Whitehouse Schools Sen Inhofe about Global Warming on the Senate Floor
Landskov,
I believe Whitehouse is one of many Senators who can eloquently present the case for action to change the damaging direction things have developed in.
As he pointed out, the problem is those who are willing and able to eloquently present absolute nonsense that they hope will be believed.
Another problem he didn`t mention was the tendency many voters have to want to beleive nonsense that supports or defends their desired pursuits of personal benefit. And climate change is not the only issue stirring up resentment for better understanding and dislike of those who develop and communicate that better understanding.
There are many other developed profitable and popular activities we are learning are unacceptable. And each one has its fans who dislike learning how unacceptable their way of benefiting and enjoying life is.
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Tom Curtis at 09:49 AM on 1 August 2014State Department cuts through the acid political environment on oceans and climate
jim@16, and following comment:
1) Here is the marine ecologists discussion of this issue in his own words:
Fish in the twilight cast new light on ocean ecosystem
2) He was clearly wrong if he implied that mesopelagic fish are not subject to fishing. In particular the Patagonian and Antarctic toothfish are mesopelogic predators that have been subject to extensive fishing since 1996. In 1999-2000, 26,000 tonnes of tooth fish were caught in southern waters. That represents, perhaps, just 0.1% of the total mesopelagic fish mass (using the upper estimate from the article linked above, and allowing for the extension to 70N-70S discussed the paper refferenced therein).
Toothfish are primarilly caught by longlines. That means the methods of evasion discussed in the article are not relevant to them. In fact, the method rather works in the reverse, with keen eyesight and the ability to swim rapidly extending their area of vulnerability to a longline.
3) The majority of mesopelagic fish feed on pykoplankton (PP), and hence are presumably not liable to be caught by long line fishing. However, predatory PP fish are. In addition to tooth fish, Duarte mentions two other predators of mesopelagic fish (Tuna and Swordfish) that are currently being actively fished, and indeed overfished. He has described current fishing of Tuna as so far from sustainable that it amounts to a "war on tuna".
The first lesson in ecology anybody learns is the effect of removing a top predator from an ecosystem. The result is a population boom in the predators prey. The prey then over feeds on its food source, leeding to a collapse of population of the foodsource, followed by that of the prey with the result of a series of osscilations in populations that are chaotic, and hence not predictable. Given that, and the known overfishing of predators of mesopelogic fish, a one time sample of mesopelagic fish cannot be assumed to represent a stable population - particularly when that assumption leads to a further assumption of much greater then expected efficiency in grazing on primary production.
4) Despite that, this is good news in terms of long term ocean health, if irrelevant for the human centered question of whether or not we are sustainably fishing the planet. (It is irrelevant to question of whether we are fishing at a rate that will allow us to catch fish at the same rate sustainably into the future if we suddenly discover a large population of uncatchable fish.)
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Landskov at 09:26 AM on 1 August 2014Sen Whitehouse Schools Sen Inhofe about Global Warming on the Senate Floor
Senator Whitehouse is the most eloquent and accurate Senator to speak on global warming. Well done.
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jim10940 at 07:58 AM on 1 August 2014State Department cuts through the acid political environment on oceans and climate
@ Rob P Thank you for the comments, very helpful. The visiting scholar was a seagrass expert and well regarded. I didn't want to put his name out because I might be misrepresenting his arguments. The context was in a closed student question and answer session and he was giving many reasons why he was optimistic about global warming. He gave the two reasons above plus a bunch of evidence that I can't remember the reference for as to why he thought there was a lot of adaptation potential in the ocean ecosystems. I would call him a climate change optimist. He seems to think that nutrient pollution is a huge problem while climate change CO2 is a minor problem. I dont want to attribute anything I just said to him because I am sure he would be much more nuanced. However that was my take away.
Here is an article in his own words:
http://theconversation.com/is-the-ocean-broken-19453There is obviously a lot of unknowns about how the ocean ecology will respond in the future. It seems in the dearth of evidence there is room for both optimistic and pessimistic arguments. I honestly dont know how to approach this except to keep an open mind and ask for more research.
Moderator Response:(Rob P) - Fair enough Jim - something nuanced can certainly get lost in translation. Don't get me wrong, as far as ocean acidification is concerned we are not locked into an extinction scenario, but we had better start taking it very seriously very soon.
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Stephen Baines at 06:06 AM on 1 August 2014State Department cuts through the acid political environment on oceans and climate
jim,
De'ath et al did not consider acidification effects on reefs, and they explicitly state that they probably underestimate coral reef decline on the Great Barrier Reef as a result. Just because a study only focusses on some factors affecting coral reefs does not mean that it concludes others are not important.
Also, it's important to realize that while human nutrient pollution, resource harvesting and land use have been fairly advanced for some time, ocean acidification is in many ways only beginning. Negative effects on corals are likely, and sometimes observed, but many won't be fully manifest for some time, prehaps until pH in these regions approaches the saturation point for calcite/aragonite. Unlike those other problems, which we largely dealt with post-hoc, we are a touch ahead of the curve in assessing the impacts of ocean acidification, even if we're not necessarily coming up with solutions.
The fact that waters off the east coast of the US are acidifying faster than elsewhere means only that factors other than the increase in atmospheric CO2 also influence local patterns in pH, as I pointed out, and it is important to understand those other factors. However, it also means that fully one third of the increase in LIS and Chesapeake Bay ecosystems is directly attributable to increased CO2 in the atmosphere. This effect exacerbates the effect of the other factors on pH, and it will only increase in importance in the future. It makes it much more likely that critical thresholds will be crossed under extreme conditions. Future increases in CO2 may also render attempts at remediation of pH through pollution control unworkable.
In short, I'm not sure it makes sense from a risk avodance point of view to think about ocean acidification as a process that is important in one place and not another. Yes, organisms adapted to more constant conditions are likely to be more vulnerable, but so may be organisms in cold areas that are already acidic, or organisms at the northern ends of their ranges who may be near thresholds. Moreover, the combination of local variation with a longterm trend in pH could mean that critical thresholds could be crossed sooner in coastal systems under extreme conditions. Since we depend heavily on the living resources of coastal ecosystems, it would be unwise to deny that risk until we know more.
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jim10940 at 04:51 AM on 1 August 2014State Department cuts through the acid political environment on oceans and climate
@ Stephan just saw your second post. Thats helpful. I just found this feely paper that i am reading that seems to answer some of where these effects are occurring. however its a broad simulation not detailed. http://www.tos.org/oceanography/archive/22-4_feely.pdf
From figure 7 perhaps the greatest concern is arctic waters. This is a complex issue.
Im still not sure how to refute my initial statement that ocean acidification due to CO2 is primarily a problem in the open ocean and not near coastal waters.
I guess my answer will be that more needs to be done on specific areas. Also, it's wrong to imply that most of the ocean community we are concerned with is dominated by the effects of runoff.
What i can find on corals seems to indicate it is nutrient run off, invasive species and warming water that is a problem. http://www.pnas.org/content/109/44/17995.full
Moderator Response:(Rob P) - Eutrophication (excess nutrient run-off) of coastal waters simply accelerates the acidification process, it doesn't mean that CO2 is somehow magically not dissolving into coastal seawater.
Ocean acidification is indeed a global phenomenon, but some areas - such as the polar seas where colder water is able to absorb more carbon dioxide - are more susceptible. The same applies to polar land regions which are now undergoing thaw.
All that extra organic material being flushed into the ocean is broken down by bacteria and releases CO2 into the water column - thus accelerating the acidification process. This is soon going to be a huge problem in the Arctic.
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jim10940 at 04:25 AM on 1 August 2014State Department cuts through the acid political environment on oceans and climate
@ John H Thanks for the article it is helpful. However, the upwelling along the pacific coast supports the case was arguing. "Although seasonal upwelling of the undersaturated waters onto the shelf is a natural phenomenon in this region, the ocean uptake of anthropogenic CO2 has increased the areal extent of the affected area." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18497259
The acidified ocean off the pacific coast is natural unique feature to the area that CO2 increase has enhanced, not a general feature coastal waters.
from your link: "On the East Coast, instead of upwelling, acidification is a result of nutrification - adding nutrients like agricultural waste, fertilizers and waste water treatment facilities. The Chesapeake Bay, which receives runoff from one of the most densely-populated watersheds in the United States, is acidifying three times faster than the rest of the world's oceans. Long Island Sound, Narragansett Bay and the Gulf of Mexico are all showing signs of rapid acidification."
Again this seems to support the case that it is coastal features that are important to the ocean acidification problem. In the east coast the acidification is due to nutrient run off and not atmospheric CO2.
I suppose my question is where will ocean acidification from atmospheric CO2 be a problem? As far as i can tell it is only in specific locations where that deep ocean water is brought near the coasts. I would still like to have a better idea where this process is occurring.
@ Stephan that was the study I saw. I appreciate the answer.
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Stephen Baines at 03:48 AM on 1 August 2014State Department cuts through the acid political environment on oceans and climate
jim @16,
I'm not sure what your question is, but the basic story is that it depends on where you are.
Variations in pH in coastal regions reflect the balance of respiration in plankton and in deep sediments (which produces CO2), photosynthesis (which consumes CO2), upwelling of deep water (which has lots of CO2) and inputs of rivers (which often also have a fair amount of CO2 as well as other inorganic and organic acids). As a result, pH can vary a fair amount (easily 0.5 units) over time scales of days in coastal systems with variable upwelling, high algal growth, shallow water columns and large rivers. It's also true that organisms growing in such environments are often capable of handling, and even preferring, variations in pH that result, while open ocean species are typically less equipped to handle such variation.
However, its also true that progressive acidification combined with such variation makes it more likely for pH to drop to levels that may be outside the typical environmental conditions to which these organisms are adapted. The parallel with how gradual atmospheric warming combines with weather variability to produce a large increase in the probability of damaging extreme temperature events is obvious. We don't know in many cases what the critical pH thresholds are for many species, or how long pH must stay below them to have a significant impact.
Also, as indicated by the article to which John Hartz points, atmospheric CO2 in the past influences the pH of deep water brought to the surface now, and current CO2 will lead to lower pH in such water in the future in regions exposed to upwelling, so the the effects of upwelling and atmospheric CO2 on acidification are not really independent, just lagged in time.
The generalization about coral reefs is completely off the mark. There is a reason we don't see coral reefs off of heavily populated temperate coasts. Reef building corals require warm waters with relatively high pH that are not subject to upwelling of deep water. They also do not like the extra nutrients and sediments that are brought in by rivers or are introduced as a result of human activity. Because they prefer those factors be absent, and because they need relatively high pH to build calcium carbonate shells, corals in particular are likely to be directly affected by ocean acidification.
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Stephen Baines at 02:58 AM on 1 August 2014State Department cuts through the acid political environment on oceans and climate
John H.,
He's probably referring to this Nature communications article by Irigoien et al from February of this year. It's an attempt to estimate mesopelagic fish biomass from acoustic data rather than trawls, which are presumed to be biased. These fish are presumed to be so abundant because they feed low down on the food chain (being small) and are not preyed upon very heavily because of their nightly migration from the deep. I'm not sure how they ground truth the acoustic scattering data since all other methods are considered biased.
In any case, they are a giant red herring (so to speak). We don't know if the mesopelagic fish are "untouched." It's possible humans have had a positive impact on these organisms by removing large pelagic predators. That could in turn have effects on the extent and intensity of oxygen minumum zones at depth, through respiration. It's also possible there are negative consequences of ocean acidification on the food base of these organisms, which are organisms in the surface layers to which they migrate daily. Then there is also the general increase in gelinous zooplankton in many region sof the world.
Basically, the biology of the "mesopelagic twlight zone," as it's called, is all up for grabs and subject of an extensive research effort right now. To use that lack of knowledge as proof that all is alright is profoundly silly.
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John Hartz at 02:03 AM on 1 August 2014State Department cuts through the acid political environment on oceans and climate
@ Jim #16: Your second paragraph includes the following:
Most of the ocean fish biomass is in middle deep living fish that can't be caught in nets (i looked it up its true), and this ecology has been basically untouched by humans.
Please provide the source of your information.
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John Hartz at 01:56 AM on 1 August 2014State Department cuts through the acid political environment on oceans and climate
@ Jim #16: The assertions contained in your first paragraph do not seem to square with what's happening up and down the Pacific Coast, from California to British Columbia to Alaska.
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jim10940 at 01:47 AM on 1 August 2014State Department cuts through the acid political environment on oceans and climate
I hope someone can answer this question about ocean acidification. An oceanographer/ecologist that visited our university claimed that ocean ph around the coasts is mostly controlled by runoff and ocean acidification wont have a strong effect. The only places ocean acidification will have strong effects is away from coasts and where deep ocean upwelling occurs next to coasts. Since most corals are in coastal waters ocean acidification is not an important problem for corals.
also
Most of the ocean fish biomass is in middle deep living fish that can't be caught in nets (i looked it up its true), and this ecology has been basically untouched by humans. Since the largest amount of ocean fish biomass is untouched the oceans are better off than we think and the fish we do take are such a small part of the ecosystem that its not a real problem. I guess my answer is just because its the largest biomass does not mean its the only important thing about the ocean but maybe someone can add to this.Moderator Response:(Rob P) - Why would an oceanographer/ecologist speak at your university on a topic they clearly know very little about?
The geological record indicates that ocean acidification was a kill mechanism in 3 of the 5 major extinction events, and contrary to popular belief, reef-building coral of today are not the same ones which lived in the oceans hundreds of millions of years ago - those ancient coral became extinct when the tropical surface ocean became too warm and too corrosive. This is why there are a number of 'reef gaps' in the fossil record.
The oceans are now acidifying faster than at any time in the last 300 million years and, as might be expected, coral worldwide are in rapid decline (not only due to acidification though).
It would be nice to be optimistic about all of this, but the evidence paints a rather gloomy future.
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Joel_Huberman at 23:56 PM on 31 July 2014Nigel Lawson suggests he's not a skeptic, proceeds to deny global warming
scaddenp @ 15:
Thanks very much for the clarification. I found Wunsch's letter. For the benefit of other readers, here's Wunsch's letter (The Australian, July 28, 2014):
Understanding the ocean
THE article by Graham Lloyd will likely leave a mis-impression with many of your readers concerning the substance of our paper that will appear in the Journal of Physical Oceanography (“Puzzle of deep ocean cooling”, 25/7).
We never assert that global warming and warming of the oceans are not occurring — we do find an ocean warming, particularly in the upper regions.
Contrary to the implications of Lloyd’s article, parts of the deep ocean are warming, parts are cooling, and although the global abyssal average is negative, the value is tiny in a global warming context.
Those parts of the abyss that are warming are most directly linked to the surface (as pointed out by Andy Hogg from the ANU).
Scientifically, we need to better understand what is going on everywhere, and that is an issue oceanographers must address over the next few years — a challenging observational problem that our paper is intended to raise.
Carl Wunsch, Harvard University and Massachusetts, Institute of Technology -
denisaf at 21:28 PM on 31 July 2014State Department cuts through the acid political environment on oceans and climate
The article contains the comment 'Unlike marine pollution and overfishing, which require multifaceted solutions, ocean acidification has only one primary cause: excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It therefore has an obvious solution: limit carbon emissions.' There is no possible solution in the time frame relevent to civilization. The current carbon dioxide concentration level is 400 ppm, well above the preindustrial level, and this excess carbon dioxide is causing the ocean acidification. Limiting future (rates of) carbom dioxide emissions will only slow down the the rate of increase of the concentration level, so the rate of ocean acidification.
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Ken in Oz at 17:50 PM on 31 July 2014Nigel Lawson suggests he's not a skeptic, proceeds to deny global warming
Ocean heat content - or more correctly, global heat content within the climate system, of which ocean is the largest component - is a more direct measurement of something fundamental. I also think it's more generally comprehensible as direct evidence of a warming world. And I don't think you can pick out a period even as short as 5 years within the past few decades that could be claimed to show a pause or slowdown. Meanwhile, surface air temperatures look more like a secondary consequence of sea surface temperatures and subject to a lot of variability because of phenomena that move and mix ocean water around.
We can and should try for more ocean temperature coverage, especially of deep ocean that is not well covered but what is known surely does not, for example support Ian Plimer's undersea volcanoes heating the world from below; on the contrary it is quite consistent with warming from above.
What we can't or shouldn't do is vacillate whilst we wait for every cubic metre to be measured continuously and every cool spell, cold spot or instance of glacial advance is understood and explained to the satisfaction of people like Nigel Lawson. We know more than enough to know we need to commit to action on emissions reductions.
Of course, in the current political climate - at least in my nation of Australia, and apparently in USA and Canada - if any part of the ocean, or world for that matter, doesn't show continuous and incremental warming it will be used by opponents of action on climate to distract and deceive and promote inaction. Recall the "world is cooling" hype when the eastern USA had a winter that was colder than average, despite far more of the world simultaneously showing much warmer than average conditions.
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scaddenp at 12:09 PM on 31 July 2014Nigel Lawson suggests he's not a skeptic, proceeds to deny global warming
It links to letters to editor. Go to the bottom for the Wunsch letter.
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Joel_Huberman at 11:02 AM on 31 July 2014Nigel Lawson suggests he's not a skeptic, proceeds to deny global warming
Scaddenp @ 13:
I would like to see the response by Wunsch. Unfortunately, the current link directs me to an article in The Australian about the Gaza conflict. Please help.
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Tom Curtis at 09:54 AM on 31 July 2014State Department cuts through the acid political environment on oceans and climate
Russ R @7, as one of the original respondents to your first post, I trust the moderators will not see me as "piling on".
1 a) In fact it is very difficult to get good proxies with millenial resolution in the distant past, let alone decadal. However, your original question was focussed on episodes of sustained depressed ocean pH. During those sustained periods there were shell building organisms present (made possible by buffering by increased weathering). You have now switched your question, and you are no longer entitled to your assumption of onging existence of shell building organisms.
For example, there have been sustained periods in the past with a noted absence of reef building organisms in the ocean:
(Source)
Several of these events are associated with periods of rapid increase in CO2 levels in geological terms, on which more below.
The question will obviously arise, if the corals go extinct, how do they come back in 5 million years. The obvious answer is that while members of the same family, or order of corals survive, members of the same genus and species do not. In particular, what probably has occured is that either a related soft coral has evolved to occupy the vacated niche; or a surviving species or small number of species of hard corals have successfully made the transition to a soft coral niche, and then reevolved the reef forming habit once conditions were more suitable.
We can be sure that some measure of evolution was involved because of the 5 million year gaps. Had a small number of hard corals retained the hard coral habit in refugia (isolated areas were pH is sustained and higher levels by local geochemistry), restoration would have been almost instantaneious in geological terms (100,000 years or less).
So, on the plus side, rapid ocean acidification will likely only eliminate coral reefs for the next five million years. Is that really any different from eliminating them forever in human terms? And once the five million years are up, related corals may take up the reef forming habit. Or perhaps not. After all, to previous forms of corals (Rugosa and Tabulata) did not come back after the end Permian extinction, being replaced by an entirely different form of coral.
1 b) It is highly unlikely that many past excursions in CO2 concentration have been as rapid as the current excursion. Among the most rapid (geologically speaking) causes of increased are large igneous provinces such as the deccan traps, of which wikipedia says:
"The Deccan Traps are a large igneous province located on the Deccan Plateau of west-central India (between 17°–24°N, 73°–74°E) and one of the largest volcanic features on Earth. They consist of multiple layers of solidified flood basalt that together are more than 2,000 m (6,562 ft) thick and cover an area of 500,000 km2 (193,051 sq mi) and a volume of 512,000 km3 (123,000 cu mi)."
(My emphasis)
The CO2 content of flood basalts as a proportion of mass is well known. So also are the timings of eruptions in flood basalts (igneous rock being the easiest to date). That has allowed Self et al (2006) to estimate the rate CO2 emissions as a result of the formation of the Deccan traps:
"This calculation shows that approximately 1.4×1010 kg, or 14 Tg of CO2, could be released for every 1 km3 of basaltic lava erupted (assuming a density of 2750 kg m−3), thus the total release from an erupted lava volume of 1000 km3 would be "14×103 Tg CO2. Whilst this is a very large mass, it should be noted that it represents less than 1/200th of the CO2 present in the modern atmosphere ("3 million Tg, or 3×1015 kg), and
only about 3% of the current annual land–atmosphere CO2 flux. In effect, even an instantaneous release of this quantity of CO2 would increase the content of the current atmosphere (i.e. "365 ppmv) by only 1.7 ppmv. This compares with the current, largely anthropogenic, annual increase of 1 ppmv since 1958."Even assuming the entire Deccan traps were formed over the 33 million years of peak erruption, that amounts to an annual average emission rate equivalent to of 0.03 ppmv. Human emissions are currently 100 times that rate.
If even the formation of the Deccan traps cannot hope to match current human emission rates, and hence current rates of change in ocean pH, rates of change in ocean pH equivalent to the modern must be rare to non-existent in the past. It is possible that such rates have been matched by either large scale clathrate release (PETM) or large igneous provinces igniting larger reservoirs of fossil fuels (suggested for the end Permian extinction), but all such potential instances are associated with large scale extinction events, particularly among animal types known to be vulnerable to ocean acidification.
2 a) You cite pH values for water intake at Monterey bay. In enclosed waters such as bays, pH values are often far lower than in the open ocean, and are far more variable. A more appropriate comparison (because not all threatened species live in bays) is with monthly variations in open ocean pH:
There you see a peak intra-annual increase of just 0.07 pH over four months, and peak declines of slighty less magnitude. That is, the peak monthly change in open ocean pH is less than the change in open ocean pH already brought about by anthropogenic emissions of CO2.
2 b) scaddenp @13 correctly notes that changes in seasonal values do not have the same impact as changes in annual averages. Specifically, molluscs in Monterey bay, for example, may have an annual cycle in which they build up shell thickness during periods of high pH, can loose shell thickness during periods of low pH. A general lowering of pH may then restrict the build up in one season and increase the decline in shell thickness in the other - weakening shells overall and (if sustained) eventually eliminating them.
You can reasonably point out that that is a hypothetical mechanism, but what you cannot reasonably do is ignore the numerous examples of recorded shell loss, or depleted reef construction rates, and of inability of reefs to colonized otherwise suitable areas with low pH in the wild. The adverse impacts of low pH on a number of marine animals is not hypothetical. It is observed.
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scaddenp at 07:58 AM on 31 July 2014Nigel Lawson suggests he's not a skeptic, proceeds to deny global warming
And see the response by Wunsch to mispresentation of the paper here.
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KR at 07:22 AM on 31 July 2014Nigel Lawson suggests he's not a skeptic, proceeds to deny global warming
bjchip - I've seen the 'buzz', and it's based on a nonsense interpretation of Wunsch 2014.
From the abstract:
Interpretation requires close attention to the long memory of the deep ocean, and implying that meteorological forcing of decades to thousands of years ago should still be producing trend-like changes in abyssal heat content. At the present time, warming is seen in the deep western Atlantic and Southern Ocean, roughly consistent with those regions of the ocean expected to display the earliest responses to surface disturbances. Parts of the deeper ocean, below 3600 m, show cooling. (emphasis added)
In short, while there are sections of the abyssal ocean that show cooling, they are consistent with the timescale for long past temperature changes to reach those sections (LIA?), while those portions of the ocean expected to be responding to recent changes are indeed warming.
The current portrayal of this paper on the denialist blogs relies on taking portions of it out of context, which is just sad. But not IMO terribly surprising...
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bjchip at 06:59 AM on 31 July 2014Nigel Lawson suggests he's not a skeptic, proceeds to deny global warming
One observes that if we are to discuss ocean heat content we're also going to have to address Wunsch's recent paper. My cursory read was that he is saying that he can't say... but a more authoritative and deeper analysis is going to be needed. The echo chamber is alread abuzz with the notion that the "ocean is cooling".
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scaddenp at 05:56 AM on 31 July 2014State Department cuts through the acid political environment on oceans and climate
We can cope with a 10 degree difference in temperature between spring and summer but we surely cant cope with a 10 degree change in average temperature. Ditto to seasonal change in pH. Most shellfish also have a highly seasonal pattern to shell growth as well.
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CBDunkerson at 04:41 AM on 31 July 2014State Department cuts through the acid political environment on oceans and climate
Russ R asked: "Since the ocean pH at >8 isn't in the "acidic" range of the scale, and since pH isn't even the primary issue here, isn't the term "Ocean Acidification" more than a bit misleading?"
As Tom & KR explained, 'acidification' is the correct term. It's the claims to the contrary which are, "more than a bit misleasing". Whereever you are getting this stuff... skepticism ought to impel you to start asking why they are feeding you nonsense.
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KR at 04:20 AM on 31 July 2014State Department cuts through the acid political environment on oceans and climate
A side note on terminology.
"Acidic" describes chemicals that are currently of low pH, defined as below 7.0. It is an adjective modifying the noun, the chemical. "Acidification" describes shifting from current pH to a lower one, the change thereof, and is an adverb for changing pH, modifying the implicit verb and indicating direction.
Different parts of speech entirely. Yes, the oceans are currently about pH 8.1, alkaline. Which is roughly a 30% change in H+ ion concentration since pre-industrial levels (Jacobson 2005), an acidification. People who object to properly discussing the direction of that change are missing some essentials of grammar.
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MA Rodger at 03:43 AM on 31 July 2014Southern sea ice is increasing
Klaus Flemløse @12.
What exactly is it you are hoping your last graph demonstrates? I recognise the first three of your graphs. I am not sure of the purpose of the fourth, which appears to be some spectral analysis.
But the last graph, and I may be mistaken, is plotting Antarctic SIA against SST (90S-60S) and in my book simply demonstrates that ice cover around Antarctica is greater when SST is lower, ie during the Antarctic winter.
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John Hartz at 01:44 AM on 31 July 2014State Department cuts through the acid political environment on oceans and climate
Ocean acidification imperils Alaska’s fishing-dependent economy, says a new study funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
For details, see:
Southeast, southwest Alaska communities at highest risk from ocean acidification, study says by Yereth Rosen, Alaskan Disptach News, July 29, 2014
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KR at 01:42 AM on 31 July 2014State Department cuts through the acid political environment on oceans and climate
Russ R. - Regarding past episodes of acidification, Hönisch et al 2012, The Geological Record of Ocean Acidification, is a recent and relevant paper. They examine among other data boron isotope composition for pH, calcium-to-trace element ratios for ambient CO2, and alkenone carbon isotope composition for aqueous CO2.
In table S1 of the paper (supplemental data) they compare these past episodes to the present, and find the only really comparable episode is the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). The PETM notably had a mass extinction of shell-forming foraminifera. This recent work with direct proxies for pH and CO2 changes agrees with previous research on the PETM and its similarities to the present.
Regarding your "hard to believe" question (Argument from Incredulity?) on pH swings, seasonal variations are short term and can be managed by many organisms, while longer term average pH changes induce energy costs (energy of fixation in shells) and the lifespan availability of aragonite and calcite needed to build shells. And yes, there are nonlinear thresholds (Ries et al 2010) for many organisms.
Finally, the correct and proper chemical terminology for lowering pH is indeed "acidification" - semantic arguments in that regard don't affect changing H3O+ concentrations, and are irrelevant red herrings. If you start at the South Pole and travel a few hundred km in any direction, you are moving north (northification?) despite still being in the Southern Hemisphere, and the weather will be correspondingly different there.
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Tom Dayton at 01:28 AM on 31 July 2014State Department cuts through the acid political environment on oceans and climate
Russ R., regarding your question #3: No, "acidification" is not misleading. It was a common term long before the human cause of ocean acidification was a hot topic. Saying "it is acidifying" instead of saying "it is becoming less alkaline" is no more misleading than saying "it is warming" instead of "it is becoming less cold."
Also, please do follow Dikran's advice about the background reading.
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Russ R. at 00:40 AM on 31 July 2014State Department cuts through the acid political environment on oceans and climate
Good responses all. Highly informative.
Three followup questions, two scientific and one semantic.
- The argument that "the rate of change is higher today than in the past" rests on an unstated premise that the rate of change in the past was actually low. What proxies (of atmospheric CO2, seawater pH, or carbonate ion concentrations) have resolution to decades and can show that the rate of change in the geological past was consistently low?
- The man-made rate of change in average pH today (around -0.19 pH units per century)
is miniscule compared to the range of natural variability of pH (often more than 0.3 ph units in a month) http://sanctuarymonitoring.org/regional_docs/monitoring_projects/100240_167.pdf I find it hard to believe that marine species which have adapted to deal with such a large pH variations from month to month and from year to year somehow can't deal with a much smaller shift over a century. Is there some sort of non-linearity or threshold level that comes into effect? - Since the ocean pH at >8 isn't in the "acidic" range of the scale, and since pH isn't even the primary issue here, isn't the term "Ocean Acidification" more than a bit misleading?
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Klaus Flemløse at 20:14 PM on 30 July 2014Southern sea ice is increasing
Southern Ocean: Sea Ice Concentration and Sea Surface Temperature
Recently there has been a discussion about the link between SST and SIC in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica. It is claimed that there has been a drop in temperature in the Southern Ocean with a consequent increase in ice concentration. This is contrary to what you can read on the SKS. However, there are conflicting data.If you use data from GISS, HADLEY or Berkeley, it seems that SST is growing in the Southern Ocean. If you are use data from NOAA you arrive at the opposite conclusion, namely that the SST is decreasing.
So there is a reconciliation issue between the different data sources. At present I have not found any discussions that shed light on the causes of this. NOAA, however, stresses a possible cause:
“The optimum interpolation (OI) sea surface temperature (SST) analysis is produced weekly on a one-degree grid. The analysis uses in situ and satellite SST's plus SST's simulated by sea-ice cover. Before the analysis is computed, the satellite data is adjusted for biases using the method of Reynolds (1988) and Reynolds and Marsico (1993).”
This means that you start with ice cover and then you simulate the SST and let this go into calculating the SST. In this way there will be a strong correlation between SST and SIC.
The following graph shows the development of SST around Antarctica (60S-90S) using data from NOAA monthy sst and sic
There is at strong correlation beween SST and SIC
My questions are:
Is the NOAA data a fact or an artifact?
Is this in general a story of bad data? -
Dikran Marsupial at 20:12 PM on 30 July 2014State Department cuts through the acid political environment on oceans and climate
Russ R, Doug Mackie wrote an excellent series of blog posts called OA is not OK that is well worth reading to understand the basics (there are 20 posts, which show there is quite a lot you need to know and "simple chemistry" isn't quite enough).
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Tom Curtis at 17:05 PM on 30 July 2014Challenges in Constraining Climate Sensitivity: Should IPCC AR5’s Lower Bound Be Revised Upward?
Victor @5, I assume by "the computation", you are referring to that in Otto et al. In that case, their preferred value is that derived from the difference between the 1860-1879 to the 2000-2009 intervals. Using HadCRUT4 the trend over 2000-2009 is 0.087 C/decade. The interval is bracketed by the end of the 1999/2000 La nina at the start, and the 2008 La nina, and is either ENSO neutral (NINO 3.4) or has a negative ENSO trend (SOI). For comparison, the BEST trend is 0.116 C/decade over the same interval.
Recalculating the climate sensitivity (ECR) and transient climate response (TCR) using BEST data rather than HadCRUT4, but otherwise using Otto et al's data and methods, I find the following temperature differentials for the various periods used by Otto et al:
Interval_____|__HadCRU__|__BEST
1970-79___|__0.22_____|__0.27
1980-89___|__0.39_____|__0.44
1990-99___|__0.57_____|__0.60
2000-09___|__0.75_____|__0.81
1970-2009_|__0.48____|__0.53
That in turns results in the following ECS and TCR estimates, for HadCRUT4:
Interval____|__ECS__|__TCR
1970-79___|__1.40_|__1.01
1980-89___|__1.86_|__1.38
1990-99___|__1.92_|__1.62
2000-09___|__1.98_|__1.32
1970-2009_|__1.92_|__1.36And for BEST:
Interval____|__ECS__|__TCR
1970-79___|__1.70_|__1.23
1980-89___|__2.10_|__1.56
1990-99___|__2.04_|__1.72
2000-09___|__2.13_|__1.42
1970-2009_|__2.12_|__1.51From these figures I would find it difficult to argue the slight plateau in temperature increase. One obvious factor is that the difference in ECS or TCR calculated for different periods is entirely a function of differences in temperature. That temperature differential was greatest in the 2000s. Had the temperature differential in the 2000s been at the average value, the ECS calculated would have been 1.2% higher, a difference reasonably attributed to the "hiatus". Further, the RCP 4.5 forcings from CMIP 5 used in the method over estimate forcings in the last 2-4 years of the 2000s, so that there use would underestimate climate sensitivity. This is an indirect consequence of the "hiatus" in that lowered temperaures in those years are partly a consequence of the reduced forcings.
All in all, the temperature difference due to the hiatus may account for a 2% understatement of ECS, suggesting your insight was more perceptive than I allowed.
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