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Comments 38951 to 39000:

  1. Ocean Acidification Is Fatal To Fish

    Ive been searching for info on the ph range of the Menidia beryllina to no avail (anyone?)

    also wasnt the experiment rather futile as the fish may not have spawned in such low ph water?

  2. OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    @61 in another 400 years? its dropped 0.1 in 200

  3. Dikran Marsupial at 04:25 AM on 5 February 2014
    Ocean Acidification Is Fatal To Fish

    Second thoughts, I have gone back to thinking you are just trolling.  You have no basis for saying that "0.1 ph rise is nowhere near the same as a 15 degree rise in mean tem".  pHs and temperatures are not directly comparable without reference to the effects they have on the environment.  UK flora and fauna has no problem with a 15 degree C daily variability, fish have no problem with a daily or seasonal 0.1 change in pH.  That doesn't mean that fish can cope with a permanent change of 0.1 in pH and more than UK flora and fauna can deal with a permanent change of 15 degrees C in mean temperature.

    The real slice of baloney though is the comment about the inuit.  Sure inuit can adapt, but you may have noticed that the flora and fauna they encounter is rather different to the flora and fauna you are likely to encounter in the U.K.  Do you think that just possibly the difference in mean temperature might be the reason?

    Sorry, life is too short for this sort of persiflage when genuine discussion of the science is so much more interesting.

  4. Why rainbows and oil slicks help to show the greenhouse effect

    Super article, Mark. Thanks!

    ...there can’t be radiation coming down from the atmosphere and heating us up.

    Leaving aside Mark's lovely explanation, what I've never seen fully developed by skeptics (dismissives; whatever) making claims about the destination and ultimate fate of radiation is how photons know where they're supposed to be going. If somehow radiation avoids going from a cooler body to a wamer body, that behavior would require superluminal information transfer, a mechanism for photons to sort and choose their destinations, etc.  A whole pile of "somehow" is left unaddressed.

  5. Dikran Marsupial at 04:18 AM on 5 February 2014
    Ocean Acidification Is Fatal To Fish

    vonnegut wrote "youre suggesting that its harder to adapt over time than it is day by day?"

    No, I am saying that oscillatory vairiablity is easier to adapt to than long term effectively permanent change.  I would have thought that was obvious from my contrasting "diurnal and seasonal temperature changes" with "permanent change".

    I notice that on this thread again you are ignoring the example I gave.  Do you think that UK native flora and fauna could adapt to a permanent drop of 15 degrees C in temperature, yes or no? 

  6. Warming oceans consistent with rising sea level & global energy imbalance

    I tried to calculate the energy imbalance based on this updated graph from Levitus et al. 2012. Each data point is a 5-year average, so the last point (2011) covers the period 2009-2013. This is my result:

    Period               Heat accumulationEnergy imbalance
    1961-1971-0.9 x 1022 J-0.06 W/m2
    1971-1981+4.3 x 1022 J+0.27 W/m2
    1981-1991+4.4 x 1022 J+0.27 W/m2
    1991-2001+5.2 x 1022 J+0.32 W/m2
    2001-2011+8.4 x 1022 J+0.52 W/m2
       
    1961-2011+21.4 x 1022 J+0.27 W/m2

    There is of course a significant uncertainty in these numbers, but they indicate that the average energy imbalance for the last decade was about twice that of the last 50 years.

    According to figure 10 in James Hansen's Earth's energy imbalance and implications the contribution from oceans deeper than 2000 m and around Antarctica is slightly less than 0.1 Watt/m2 and from non-ocean about 0.06-0.07 W/m2. That brings the total energy imbalance for the last decade up to about 0.65-0.7 W/m2.

    What I find most striking is the fact that even if the atmospheric warming in the last decade had continued at the same rate as before 2000 (0.2oC/decade), this would only add about 1 percent (!!) to the present energy imbalance.

    Therefore a "hiatus" in the surface warming does not disprove AGW as long as the oceans continue to warm at their present rate!

  7. Corrections to Curry's Erroneous Comments on Ocean Heating

    MA Rodger #16 Yes, it's the fallacious argument that a mass cannot warm a warmer mass, used in both atmosphere (radiation) and ocean comments (the fallacy that heat cannot increase at depth with also increasing shallower, and this "heat gone forever" one). It ignores the underpinning of the entire topic, that the system has heat transfer dynamic near-balance  on kiloyear time scales, with a warming system and a cooling system near-balanced to keep it their. If part of the cooling system is warmed (deep cold waters that well up various places) then the whole system eventually warms to a new higher near-balanced temperature. I think the skeptic position on that is actually philosophical, even if not stated, because it's really saying it'll not be our grandchildren when it's (deep heat) moved from nuisance to catastrophe so we shouldn't consider it (OT for this post so I'm not commenting).

  8. Ocean Acidification Is Fatal To Fish

    @43 youre suggesting that its harder to adapt over time than it is day by day?

    0.1 ph rise is nowhere near the same as a 15 degree rise in mean temp, oddly enough using that analogy has made me think of Inuit, wonder what their average mean is?

  9. Ocean Acidification Is Fatal To Fish

    I guess asking how the coelacanth made it to modern day is futile :)

  10. Dikran Marsupial at 03:54 AM on 5 February 2014
    Ocean Acidification Is Fatal To Fish

    vonnegut wrote "the same way they adapt to changes in Ph and temp every day? bit by bit."

    This is the same discussion we had on the other thread, just because X is tolerant to short term variations in Y does not imply that X is tolerant of long term changes in Y of similar magnitude.  As I pointed out on the other thread, UK native fauna and flora can quite happily adapt to a diurnal and seasonal temperature changes of 15 degrees C, not much of it could adapt to a permanent change of 15 degrees C.

  11. OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    Vonnegut, are you really arguing that the fact some sea creatures can survive daily swings from 8.6 to 7.6 pH means that those same creatures will be able to survive daily swings from 6.6 to 7.6 pH after ocean acidification?

  12. Ocean Acidification Is Fatal To Fish

    @41 the same way they adapt to changes in Ph and temp every day? bit by bit.

    Take a fish from 58 degrees and drop in 80f water and it will die within hours if you do small increases over a few weeks they can survive.

    Fair point ,noted.

  13. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

     

    So, it seems like there are two separate ways of analyzing the consensus being considered here;
    • Studies: 'Nearly all climate scientists surveyed agree that AGW is happening.'
    • Vonnegut: 'You did not ask every climate scientist so, statistical sampling be damned, there could be vast hordes of unasked climate scientists who do not agree.'
    • Logic: Why haven't these vast hordes of disagreeing climate scientists come forward to contest the studies?

     

     

    • Studies: 'Nearly all climate science research papers agree that AGW is happening.'
    • Vonnegut: 'Not every research paper explicitly says "AGW is happening" so there could be vast hordes of papers by authors who disagree that were mis-categorized.'
    • Logic: Why haven't the authors of these vast hordes of mis-categorized papers come forward to contest the studies?
  14. Dikran Marsupial at 03:04 AM on 5 February 2014
    Ocean Acidification Is Fatal To Fish

    vonnegut, how could fish adapt to the change in as little as only 96 years?

    The inland silverside is a fish that lives in estuaries and freshwater, this to me at least makes it surprising that OA proved to be such a problem for them.  The fact that the work was published in a journal suggests that the outcome was non-obvious and the experiments were not pointless.

    I should point out again that your posting style is not going to work well here, dismissing scientific research as pointless without paing attention to details (such as the natural habitat of the inland silverside) does not give confidence.

  15. Ocean Acidification Is Fatal To Fish

    Vonnegut, even if something looks obvious, it still needs to be confirmed via the scientific method.  There is a variety of information discoverable well beyond the basic confirmation or rejection of the primary hypothesis.  

    To me, it's obvious that anthropogenic global warming is occurring and that humans are overhwlemingly responsible for the trend of the last 50 years.  So why are we paying these scientists to work out the details.  How pointless!

  16. Ocean Acidification Is Fatal To Fish

    I think the experiments above were pointless, who didnt know if you keep seafish in almost neutral water they would die and produce deoformed fry especially when they havent had 96 years to adapt to the change?

  17. Dikran Marsupial at 02:37 AM on 5 February 2014
    OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    The quoted paragraph seems pretty clear that the amounts involved are rather small.  There is about 400ppmv CO2 in the atmosphere at the moment, so taking it all out in 3,500 year is about 0.1ppmv per year on average.  The rate at which atmospheric CO2 is currently rising is about 1.5-2 ppmv IIRC, and that is about half of what anthropogenic emissions are actually contributing to the atmosphere.  So without considering the effects of calcification a rough estimate might be that it accounts for 5% of anthropogenic emissions.

    If we were to stop all emissions today, atmospheric CO2 levels would fall rapidly for 60 years or so until the atmosphere had equilibriated with the oceans, then more slowly as the upper layers of the ocean equilibriate with the deep ocean and but the full return to "pre-industrial" equilibrium will take tens to thousands of year to achive, largely by chemical weathering.  See the work of David Archer (I've probably explained that badly and maybe have some details inaccurate, but the paper is a good one). 

  18. OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    Its in part 6 of the part 1 summary, It isnt clear how much co2 is being consumed by natural rocks.

    This leads to mildly acidic rainwater (pH 5.7). Weathering consumes CO2 and means that river water contains a lot of bicarbonate. The amount of bicarbonate added to the ocean by rivers is equal to the amount of CO2 consumed and is sufficient to remove all CO2 from the atmosphere in 3500 years. Plainly this hasn't happened in the past. Something is returning CO2 to the atmosphere. That something is Eq. 1 for calcification

    Moderator Response:

    [PW] Vonnegut, this will be your first and *last* warning, from me: your repeated violations of the Comment Policy of this blog will no longer be tolerated. do it again, and your subsequent posts will be deleted in their entirety, and no explanation will be given. You've been repeatedly warned, yet persist in sloganeering. Cease.

  19. Dikran Marsupial at 02:07 AM on 5 February 2014
    OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    vonnegut, it might be best to deal with one question at a time.  What "missing CO2" are you referring to and what sort of reaction with limestone do you have in mind?  I suspect this might not be the most appropriate thread for this particular question.

  20. OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    Is the missing co2 reacting with all the limestone across the globe?

    Ive not seen any science where marine animals have been grown in a carbonate saturated and co2 heavy atmosphere to know if its true or not.do you?

    Sorry to say it bu Palau comes close to an experiment doesnt it?

  21. Google Earth: how much has global warming raised temperatures near you?

    Thanks heb0, fixed.

  22. Dikran Marsupial at 01:55 AM on 5 February 2014
    OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    vonnegut, I am happy to hear that trolling was not your intention, however your behaviour on the thread so far is just what you would expect to see from someone who was trolling, so perhaps you may want to revise your posting style.  Science is a search for the truth, so nobody here is going to give you a hard time if you ask specific direct questions to help you understand the arguments, and give direct answers to direct questions.

  23. Google Earth: how much has global warming raised temperatures near you?

    It looks like the "Click here to read the rest" link is broken.

  24. OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    I didnt know I was disagreeing with anyone. I wasnt aware the sea was in a state of saturation regarding carbonates.

    Anyway I was wrong, please stop accusing me of trolling Im trying to learn thats all.

  25. Dikran Marsupial at 01:19 AM on 5 February 2014
    OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    vonnegut wrote "Co2 for shell making...indirectly not directly. I saw the arguments posted on the first few pages, dont need to revisit thse do we?"


    No, I didn't think you would admit you were wrong, I didn't think you would be able to prove Doug Mackie wrong either, and oddly enough you didn't.  The fact that you blustered on anyway demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt that you are not here for a rational discussion of the science and are just trolling.

  26. OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    Ive not seen any science where marine animals have been grown in a carbonate saturated and co2 heavy atmosphere to know if its true or not. Sorry to say it bu Palau comes close to an experiment doesnt it?.

  27. OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    Co2 for shell making...indirectly not directly. I saw the arguments posted on the first few pages, dont need to revisit thse do we?

    Is the missing co2 reacting with all the limestone across the globe?

  28. Dikran Marsupial at 00:46 AM on 5 February 2014
    OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    vonnegut, You will note that I pointed out that you had made a statement that was factually incorrect, namely " I think most things in the ocean will be just fine, some even better for the extra co2 for shell making and food production," (emphasis mine), which is directly contradicted by the part 1 of the summary.  

    There is no point in discussing science with someone that can't admit when they are wrong, so I shall leave it at that unless:

    (i) you can show that Doug Mackie's chemistry is incorrect and that OA will make more CO2 available for shell making (and that of the many other researchers who have published papers on OA)

    or

    (ii) you admit that you were incorrect and that the additional CO2 won't be useful for shell making.

    There is nothing wrong with making incorrect statements, but there is everything wrong with not being able to admit it.

  29. OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    (1) so whats going to happen to those creatures in Palau being that theyre creating a more acidic environment? Surely the extra co2 pressure is imparted on their piece of ocean too? They must run out of carbonates soon?

    (2)you can grow algae in abundance in a bucket of clean water and sunlight, and get it to flourish with co2 injected without knowing what else it needs.

    (3)It wasnt intended to do anything except highlight the way 'may' can be used to demonstrate doubt and could be substituted with 'may not'.and still demonstrate doubt.

    Saying Palau is deeply unrepresentative is a surprise, testing creatures in a lab is unrepresentative sometimes. I dont know for sure but I guess that the species in there are the same as other species locally that dont live in that particular reef, being that the creatures themselves are making the water more acid means its happening very fast?  apart from the fact that its a great place to study the effects of OA even if they are created by the creatures within. 

  30. Dikran Marsupial at 22:50 PM on 4 February 2014
    OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    vonnegut@48

    so we are back to where we started with unsupported assertions.

    (1) Had you read part 1 of the summary on OA is not OK, you would know that although there is additional carbon in the oceans, it is not in the form that can be used for shell making (so I do have reason to think that OA is not OK, your opinion that most things in the ocean will be just fine on the other hand is unsupported opinion):

    "Another effect of ocean acidification is to reduce the amount of carbonate that is available to marine organisms, such as shellfish, for making their calcium carbonate shells."

    (2) Try living for a year on as much refined sugar and water as you can eat and drink (which will supply all of the carbon, oxygen and hydrogen you can use) and see how you feel afterwards.  If you don't have suitable supplies of nitrogen and phosphorus you will not grow or flourish.  The algae will only make use of the "free meal if one passes" if carbon is the rate limiting factor.

    "Youre fixated on algae", this is a well known rehtorical technique of trying to wind your opponent up and irritate him.    Sorry won't work on me, been discussing climate online long enough that this sort of nonense doesn't bother me.  It does however demonstrate that your main interest is rehtorical rather than scientific.  It was you that brought up the subject of algae, I am just asking you to justify your assertions on that subject.

    (3) I did read it, and as I demonstrated it didn't support uour contention.  Blustering about it doesn't change that.  Again your tone seems intended to irritate, again it failed.  If you have evidence, give a specific quote from the paper (and to show that you are not quote mining, mention any quotes from the paper that would not support your contention). 

    @47 no, I am saying that it doesn't support your assertion because it is a discussion of one reef that is deeply unrepresentative of the worlds reefs in general.

    "I think youre confusing extra co2 with pollution we have plenty of pollution problems more damaging to reefs than co2."

    This is a transparent attempt to divert the discussion away from OA.  No, I am not talking about pollution, I am talking about OA.

  31. OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    (1) I think most things in the ocean will be just fine, some even better for the extra co2 for shell making and food production, you dont .

    (2) Youre fixated on algae im sure they wont pass up a free meal if one passes.

    (3) you didnt read 3 did you? theres a clue in it ;)

    @47 you are saying OA will destroy reefs Palau is a prime example of how it wont.

    I think youre confusing extra co2 with pollution we have plenty of pollution problems more damaging to reefs than co2.

  32. Corrections to Curry's Erroneous Comments on Ocean Heating

    grindupBaker @14.
    Your -15ºC figure sounds about right for fresh water, so is probably okay for salt water as well. Ice changes its structure at about 200 bar so fresh water freezing would be coldest at about 2,000m, something below -20ºC.

    Such values for freezing remain entirely academic outside an 'ice cube' earth which would be when the ocean waters become a part of geology.

    chriskoz @13.
    I hope you agree that it is quite simple to establish that the deep ocean is cold because of the cold polar winter atmospheres. Once people know this reason for cold oceans they should be less inclined to say:-
    "Ha, ha. Idiot! If AGW causes deep ocean warming, so what? It's too cold down there. It can't come back and warm anything once its mixed in. Don't you know anything? Haven't you ever heard of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics?"
    This becomes silly because, evidently, the warmer deep ocean water is not too cold to provide warming in a polar winter, an environment that doesn't just cool water down, it freezes it solid.
    And that warmer deep ocean water doesn't even have to get back up to the Arctic/Antarctic to do so. If deep waters are warmer, they will be less dense than before. To cool the oceans, the cold polar waters drop into the depths because they are more dense. An increase in that relative density can only strengthen that ocan cooling process. By thus creating cooler oceans, the atmsphere will experience a warming. Or haven't you head of the 1st Law of Thermodynamics, ha ha.

    Of course this is ridiculously simplisitic. But it is being aimed at simpletons.

  33. Dikran Marsupial at 22:17 PM on 4 February 2014
    OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    voneggut wrote "It isnt 'resistant' to OA it creates its own and its still connected to the ocean so whatever the mean ph is , its going to be on the receiving end."

    this is pathetic quibbling, if the Palau reef creates its own OA it must also be resistant to OA as otherwise it would be poisoning itself.  You are just trying to evade the fact that the reference you provided (again) did not actually support your argument.  If you had more sense you would have just let it drop, rather than draw attention to that fact once more.

  34. Dikran Marsupial at 22:15 PM on 4 February 2014
    OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    vonnegut

    (1) You claimedthat the diurnal range of pH from 8.6 to 7.6 at Lady Elliot Island reef flat (Great Barrier Reef, Australia) answered by challenge " If you want to argue that this is not a problem, it is incumbent on you to provide the evidence that changes in pH will not result in ecologial change.".  That coral reef us unquestionably adapted to that range of DIURNAL pH, just as UK fauna and flora is well adapted to a 15 degree change in DIURNAL temperature.  So the 15 degrees is not a big change in diurnal temperatures, for the U.K it isn't at all unusual.  It would however be a big change in MEAN temperatures.  You STILL have not established that OA that would result in large long-term changes in MEAN ocean pH would be tolerable for ocean flora and fauna that are adapted to the mean pH in their current environment, so the Lady Elliot island reef figures do not answer the challenge.

    (2) You still have not addressed the point that CO2 may not be the rate limiting factor for growth of algae in coral reefs.  If you want to find out what causes algal blooms, you could try looking it up on the WWW using google (e.g. Wikipedia - hint nitrogen is also needed to make proteins as well as carbon, hydrogen and oxygen and notrogen and phosphorus to make DNA).

    (3) It is your responsibility to be able to provide support for your position, not mine.

  35. OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    .In other words, the reef at Palau is resistant to OA because of its geology and if you took the corals to some other location where the acidity was due to other factors they may not survive.

     

    It isnt 'resistant' to OA it creates its own and its still connected to the ocean so whatever the mean ph is , its going to be on the receiving end.

  36. OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    (1) You misunderstood my reference, I know they describe the ph drop as becoming more acidic. It was reference the huge disparity between 15c mean temp change being the same as water going from alkaline past neutral to acid.

    Its not about a particular reef and Im not suggesting all creatures can cope with changes such as those living around the barrier reef can, The ocean is an immense place with much variability in so many aspects. A whiting fish for instance would experience a change in ph from 8 to 6 and saltwater to esturine youre telling me that a change in mean ph of 0.1 will matter to him?

    (2)we are discussing the effects of more co2 not a lack of nutrients for algae  , Im guessing algal blooms happen because there is an excess of something. Im guessing its co2, it could be something else.

    (3)You may know where to find the Annual mean ph you may not, does this mean you will find them or you wont?

  37. Dikran Marsupial at 21:47 PM on 4 February 2014
    OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    To give another example of vonnegut's quote mining, (s)he uses the web page here to support the claim "extremes of ph will have more effect on life than a change in mean".  However the sub-title of the article is "Corals living in more acidic waters are healthy, but is the situation one-of-a-kind?" and later in the article it says:

    Palau is the exception to other places scientists have studied.

    Through analysis of the water chemistry in Palau, the scientists found that the acidification is primarily caused by the shell-building done by organisms living in the water, called calcification, which removes carbonate ions from seawater.

    A second reason is the organisms' respiration, which adds carbon dioxide to the water when they breathe.

    "These things are all happening at every reef," said Cohen. "What's critical is the residence time of the seawater."

    "In Palau's Rock Islands, the water sits in the bays for a long time before being flushed out," said Shamberger. "This is a big area that's a maze with lots of channels and inlets for the water to wind around.

    .In other words, the reef at Palau is resistant to OA because of its geology and if you took the corals to some other location where the acidity was due to other factors they may not survive.

    "It doesn't mean that coral reefs around the globe are going to be fine under ocean acidification conditions. It does mean that there are some coral communities out there--and we've found one--that appear to have figured it out. But that doesn't mean that all coral reef ecosystems are going to figure it out."

    Thus the article provides no real support for the contention made, whatsoever.  Voneggut should be ashamed of him/herself for stooping to that sort of behaviour.

  38. Dikran Marsupial at 21:34 PM on 4 February 2014
    OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    vonnegut

    (1) again you have missed the point that saying that a coral reef can withstand a particular range of pH over the course of a day does not mean that they can withstand the more permanent change of that size that would result from OA.  You still have not addressed this point.

    BTW "Acidification" means to become more acidic, if you go from a pH of 12 to a pH of 11, that is more acidic, and less alkaline, even though both pHs are alkaline.  Please no quibbling on this point, it has been addressed repeatedly.

    (2) You wrote "(2) well apart from sunlight and water what else do algae need?" they need nutrients other than carbon, oxygen and hydrogen, just like any other organism consisting of proteins.  Thus the factor limiting growth of algae is not necessarily carbon dioxide.  My objection is relevant as it is the answer to your question.

    (3) you STILL have not specified the annual mean pH gvining the working range for coral and your answer is yet more evasion.

    @41 "no it isn't does it need to be".  Yes, that is the way scientific discussion works, if a direct question is posed, you give a direct answer, and admit when you are in the wrong rather than engaging in evasion.  If you want to have a rhetorical argument instead, then evasion is sufficient, but you will find that it won't go down well here.

    Scientists don't use "may" to be deliberately vague, they use "may" when the evidence is anything but completely unequivocal.  The article you post states that OA is projected to cause coral dissociation, and contains no statement that casts doubt on that projection.  This means that trying to use it to suggest otherwise is quote mining.

     

  39. OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    @ 39 No it isnt, does it need to be? "may" sounds about as vague as it gets. No evidence it will or it wont.

  40. OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    (1) Sorry I missed the "mean" but a 15 degree change in mean temp is not the same as a change in ph changes we are discussing. thats equivalent of the sea becoming acidic which its not.

    (2) Ive ignored the point because its not relevant, whatever else they need is there already obviously or we wouldnt get algal blooms would we?

    (3) extremes of ph will have more effect on life than a change in mean

    nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?org=NSF&cntn_id=130129&preview=false

    iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/7/2/024026/article

    Some fauna seems to do well with more food available

  41. Dikran Marsupial at 20:54 PM on 4 February 2014
    OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    vonnegut @ 37 Sorry that is plain evasion, I asked a straightforward question, to which the answer is "no, the opening sentence of the abstract is not refuted by anything in the paper", but you were not able to acknowledge that.  This gives the strong impression that you are just trolling.  Life is too short to waste discussing science with people who can't admit to shortcomings in their arguments.  I suggest we all ignore vonnegut.

  42. Dikran Marsupial at 20:51 PM on 4 February 2014
    OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    vonnegut

    (1) I said much of UK flora and fauna would be unable to withstand a 15 degree change in MEAN temperature, of course they can and do withstand that sort of variability over the course of a day.  I suspect the last time mean U.K. temperatures were 15 degrees lower than today, much of the country was under an ice sheet.  Do you think that U.K. flora and fauna could withstand that?


    (2) you have just completely ignored the point on this one.  I said that algaes need more than carbon, oxygen and hydrogen to survive, you have not addressed that point in any way.

    (3) Ph may vary around the globe, but then again so does the flora and fauna, which are adapted to local conditions, so you still haven't established that OA will not take sea creatures out of their "working range".  Lets make it easy and stick with the barrier reef, what is the working range for the barrier reef in terms of annual mean pH?

  43. OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    @35

    It uses the scientific get out clause "may"

    I wonder how they can tell the difference between natural and anthropogenic co2?

  44. OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    (1) yes its one location among the barrier reef one of the most diverse sources of tropical aquatic life on the planet , If Uk flora and fauna are not tolerant to 15c change they wouldnt be in the UK so I would call them tolerant.

    (2) No the planet would explode but thats not relevant. co2 is food for algae if its not used by them directly, its used in building the reefs

    (3) Its the sea, its alkaline,  across the globe it varies between those figures.

    www.ukmarinesac.org.uk/activities/water-quality/wq9_6.htm from around the UK look at the differences

  45. Dikran Marsupial at 20:29 PM on 4 February 2014
    OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    BTW, the first line of the abstract of the paper voneggut mentions reads as follows: "Ocean acidification is projected to shift coral reefs from a state of net accretion to one of net dissolution this century", is this projection explicitly refuted anywhere in the paper?  Not as far as I can see.

  46. Dikran Marsupial at 20:20 PM on 4 February 2014
    OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    vonnegut

     

    (1) that is one location only, it is also variation over one day, that sort of variability does not mean that a change of that size in mean pH is tolearble.  In the U.K. temparatues often vary by 15 degrees C or more during the course of 24 hours.  That does not mean that all of our fauna and flora are tolerant to a change in average temperatures of 15 degrees C.


    (2) if you increase the amount of oxygen in the air to 100% do we use all of it?  No.  Algae do have requirements for other nutrients, they are not wholly composed of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen.


    (3) again that applies for one location only, and as I pointed out the variability is diurnal, so it is not a reasonable guide to the "working range".

     

    You have not yet provided evidence that actually justifies your position.

  47. OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

     

    (1) Lady Elliot Island reef flat (Great Barrier Reef, Australia)
    can range from preindustrial values pH 8.6 to future ocean acidification scenarios pH 7.6) over the course of a day.
    www.biogeosciences.net/10/6747/2013/bg-10-6747-2013.pdf
    (2) well apart from sunlight and water what else do algae need?
    (3) For the working range for the ocean we could use the figures above i.e alkaline
  48. Dikran Marsupial at 19:48 PM on 4 February 2014
    OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    vonnegut, in your post at 31 you make several unsupported assertions, please provide references to support the contention that:

     

    (1) creatures are well adaptend to variability in pH.  I don't doubt that some creatures are well adapted, but that does not mean that all are well adapted.  If you want to argue that this is not a problem, it is incumbent on you to provide the evidence that changes in pH will not result in ecologial change.

     

    (2) More Co2 means more food for algae which coral need to survive.  You need to show that CO2 is the rate limiting factor for this to be relevant.

     

    (3) drop in pH is going inside the working range not outside it.  This is a very specific claim, please provide references detailing the "working range".

  49. OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    The reason Im questioning is because ph and temp are very variable in the oceans, creatures are well adapted to that variability, for instance ph can and does change with the tides sometimes over 0.8 ph, there is also the fact more co2 is more food for algae which coral need to survive. The drop in ph is going inside the working range not outside it.

  50. OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    Vonnegut - "@27 yeah easier said than done when you have a bank account."

    ......Or know how to use Google apparently. A free copy is available here: Extensive dissolution of live pteropods in the Southern Ocean - Bednarsek (2012).

    As for CO2 in the Southern Ocean during the last ice age - that's somewhat of a mystery. How was it stored? What caused it to be released back into the atmosphere? We don't yet have suitable answers for that.

    If, as suggested, this CO2 was stored in the Southern Ocean (in whatever form) and then vented into the atmosphere as the Earth warmed it would have become well-mixed in the air and thus raised the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere. Consequently more CO2 would dissolve into the oceans - lowering pH in the surface ocean. 

    It only seems counterintuitive to you because you are (I suspect) thinking the CO2 (supposedly) stored in the Southern Ocean during the last ice age is well-mixed throughout the surface ocean. That's not correct, and is not the idea put forward.

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