Ocean acidification

[Old Rocks]

Pacific Science Association - Ocean Acidification Task Force

PSA Task Force on Ocean Acidification

The Pacific Science Association is facilitating international scientific collaboration on ocean acidification, an emerging issue of critical regional and global significance. PSA has formed a Task Force on Ocean Acidification led by acting co-chairs Dr. Yoshihisa Shirayama and Dr. Peter Brewer. The Task Force convened sessions at the 21st Pacific Science Congress in Okinawa, Japan in June 2007, as well as the 11th Pacific Science Inter-Congress in Tahiti in March 2009, which combined expertise in biogeochemistry, ocean ecology, and socio-economics.

Scientific data collected over many years are conclusive that oceanic absorption of atmospheric CO2 is causing chemical changes in seawater, making them more acidic (i.e. lowering pH). Increasing levels of anthropogenic CO2 are causing this process to accelerate. The average pH of the world’s oceans has dropped by about 0.1 pH units since the beginning of the industrial age. Without deep and early reductions in global carbon emissions, oceanic uptake of anthropogenic carbon will cause a further drop of 0.3 to 0.7 pH units by the year 2100. The degree and rapidity of these changes in ocean chemistry have not occurred in millions of years.

 

[Old Rocks]

Ocean Acidification - Climate Lab

Today, the overwhelming cause of ocean acidification is the absorption of human produced carbon dioxide, although in some coastal regions, nitrogen and sulfur also contribute to this process.1 The uptake of CO2 by the oceans has lowered the average pH of the oceans by about 0.1 units since the beginning of the industrial revolution. This change represents about a 30 percent increase in the concentration of hydrogen ions, which is a considerable acidification of the oceans. Estimates of future atmospheric and oceanic carbon dioxide concentrations, based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) CO2 emission scenarios and coupled ocean-atmosphere models, suggest that by the middle of this century atmospheric carbon dioxide levels could reach more than 500 ppm, and near the end of the century they could be over 800 ppm. This would result in an additional surface water pH decrease of approximately 0.3 pH units by 2100.2

Anthropogenic release of carbon dioxide is largely due to combustion of fossil fuels, cement production, agriculture, and deforestation. The concentration of the gas in the atmosphere has been increasing from its recent pre-industrial level of about 280 ppm to about 380 ppm today. The rate of this increase is unprecedented since the peak of the last ice age – for at least 20,000 years. A 2005 report estimates that, over the past 200 years, the oceans have absorbed roughly half of the CO2 emissions produced from fossil fuel use and cement manufacture. Some projects should that is CO2 from human activities is allowed to continue on present trends, this will lead to a decrease in pH of up to 0.5 unites by 2100 in the surface oceans. This is a three fold increase in concentration of hydrogen ions [H+] from pre-industrial times and results in an increase in pH outside the range of natural variation and probably to a level not experience for a least hundreds of thousands of years.3

 

[gslack]

Give me a break oldsocks do you really want to be embarrassed by more of your half-assed assertions based on incomplete and inaccurate accounts of what scientists actually say again.... Come on tool you're not fooling anyone anymore.

Every single time you post this nonsense, I or one of any number of posters here go and take a look at your links and we find you either misrepresent what they say, the headline does not match the claims, OR you just assume what they mean or say.....

Frankly its old and tired. We know you don't have memberships to the Journals you cite and link to. We also know you grab these links from a pro-AGW source and blindly post them. Your source gives you a list of them or sends you to those links where you grab a brief or synapse of only one paragraph, and then you or they make some wild or unfounded ridiculous claim based on that or the headline.

Too many times we have gone through this with you now. And every time you are made a fool of for it. Do you even have any thoughts on this of your own? Seriously its as if you post from a script or something. We have never actually seen your thoughts on any of this, just whatever the script tells you. Dude if your script says post this you do so, even if its been proven false and no matter how easily beaten down it is; you post it and then defend it like its gospel.

One minute you tell us Al Gore is not a scientist so you don't follow him, and then the next you are defending him to the death. You say we are cultists then you act like a cultist. You say its about science yet you deny real science at every turn....

Come on, you are not fooling me... You know its bullshit by now... You know it in your heart, we see it in your manner these past few weeks. You do not have the conviction you had, and it shows in your posts. Before you had fire in it and showed you had a vested personal interest beyond a paycheck. Lately you just follow the script or list like an automaton...

They lied to you man... And you should be pissed... I know I was, and still am...

 

[Old Rocks]

Suckeeee....... All that blather and not a single referance to back it up.

 

[skookerasbil]

OK, dingleberries, peer reviewed journals.

Anthropogenic ocean acidification over the twenty-first century and its impact on calcifying organisms : Abstract : Nature

Today's surface ocean is saturated with respect to calcium carbonate, but increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations are reducing ocean pH and carbonate ion concentrations, and thus the level of calcium carbonate saturation. Experimental evidence suggests that if these trends continue, key marine organisms—such as corals and some plankton—will have difficulty maintaining their external calcium carbonate skeletons. Here we use 13 models of the ocean–carbon cycle to assess calcium carbonate saturation under the IS92a 'business-as-usual' scenario for future emissions of anthropogenic carbon dioxide. In our projections, Southern Ocean surface waters will begin to become undersaturated with respect to aragonite, a metastable form of calcium carbonate, by the year 2050. By 2100, this undersaturation could extend throughout the entire Southern Ocean and into the subarctic Pacific Ocean. When live pteropods were exposed to our predicted level of undersaturation during a two-day shipboard experiment, their aragonite shells showed notable dissolution. Our findings indicate that conditions detrimental to high-latitude ecosystems could develop within decades, not centuries as suggested previously.

This thread is exactly akin to a bunch of people sitting in a circle contemplating on their navels. Really..........anybody THAT concerned about "ocean acidification" has some serious fcukking issues, OK!!!! Its like somoebody waking up one morning and deciding that "You know what...........Im going to sit on this beach and count every grain of sand!!!!!!"

The point being.................."WHO FCUKKING CARES???".

Perhaps 100 years from now it might..............MIGHT be a relevant discussion. In 2010 its noting more than comical. We are decades from developing any technoology that might have a significant impact on any of this sh!t. Wind power?? Solar power?? Bio-fuels?? There is NOTHING feasible out there as an alternative..............this is something the k00ks never consider. NEVER consider. We are a world that runs on fossil fuels............you can rant and rave about it until the cows come home but its not going to change anytime soon. Modern civilization depends on it and if you think somoebody is going to fcukk with that over the next..........minimum.............100 years, well then you're a fcukking bonafide k0o0k!!!! Our entire economy depends on it. The country is already broke and these dumbasses want to talk about "ocean acidification", as if were a finger snap away from doing something about it ( assumming its impact is at all provable). Its fcukking hysterical!!!


So...........you see...........this might as well be an exercise in navel contemplation!!!

 

[saveliberty]

Problem is these morons will petition the government for grant monies. The government seeing an opportunity to control the oceans more will gladly hand over the money. Mean while, people will be poisoned by dioxins in LA and the EPA will do nothing.

 

[gslack]

Suckeeee....... All that blather and not a single referance to back it up.

I need a reference to tell the truth that we all know???

Is there a reference to your ignorance?

READING..... Its something you should do once in a while tool...

 

[Old Rocks]

Suckee...... You wouldn't know the truth if it bit you in the ass.

Really humorous that you think you are so much smarter than all the scientists that are members of all the Scientific Societies, National Academies of Sciences, and major Universities that are now stating that AGW is a confirmed fact.

 

[ScienceRocks]

To be a theory it has to be able to be proven false. At least what I've learned in my science classes. Fact=law. So you think Global warming should be respected like Kepler's laws or Newtons gravity?



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton's_law_of_universal_gravitation

 

[gslack]

Suckee...... You wouldn't know the truth if it bit you in the ass.

Really humorous that you think you are so much smarter than all the scientists that are members of all the Scientific Societies, National Academies of Sciences, and major Universities that are now stating that AGW is a confirmed fact.

I don't know who I am smarter than, nor do I pretend to be... You on the other hand? Well I don't think you're an idiot, I think you are a soulless POS deliberately peddling bullshit to people because you lack the moral, ethical core and courage to stop it....

 

[Old Rocks]

To be a theory it has to be able to be proven false. At least what I've learned in my science classes. Fact=law. So you think Global warming should be respected like Kepler's laws or Newtons gravity?



Newton's law of universal gravitation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There is far more evidence for AGW than there is for gravity. For one thing, Newton's laws are mathematical observations with no causitive agent. Unlike evolution, no one has yet to posit a valed hypothesis for what causes gravity.

With AGW, we know the absorbtion spectra of the GHGs, we have have evidence going back a couple of a billion years for the reaction of our planet to the variations in GHGs. The following is a video at the Fall, 2009 AGU conferance.

A23A

 

[saveliberty]

To be a theory it has to be able to be proven false. At least what I've learned in my science classes. Fact=law. So you think Global warming should be respected like Kepler's laws or Newtons gravity?



Newton's law of universal gravitation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There is far more evidence for AGW than there is for gravity. For one thing, Newton's laws are mathematical observations with no causitive agent. Unlike evolution, no one has yet to posit a valed hypothesis for what causes gravity.

With AGW, we know the absorbtion spectra of the GHGs, we have have evidence going back a couple of a billion years for the reaction of our planet to the variations in GHGs. The following is a video at the Fall, 2009 AGU conferance.

A23A

...and they are perfectly willing to switch data sources to get the model results to conform. Also they can ignore that man wasn't even aroundmost of the times this happened before, yet, this event of the last 12 years is clearly without any doubt our fault. Even Tipper can't handle the lies any more, and she was getting great dividends off of the scam.

 

[skookerasbil]

Here comes lots and lots of sun spot activity s0ns...........gonna wreak havoc and of course, you know the k00ks will still be blaimg sh!t like "ocean acidification" yada.........yada..............


From NASA today.............As the Sun Awakens, NASA Keeps a Wary Eye on Space Weather - NASA Science

 

[gslack]

To be a theory it has to be able to be proven false. At least what I've learned in my science classes. Fact=law. So you think Global warming should be respected like Kepler's laws or Newtons gravity?



Newton's law of universal gravitation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There is far more evidence for AGW than there is for gravity. For one thing, Newton's laws are mathematical observations with no causitive agent. Unlike evolution, no one has yet to posit a valed hypothesis for what causes gravity.

With AGW, we know the absorbtion spectra of the GHGs, we have have evidence going back a couple of a billion years for the reaction of our planet to the variations in GHGs. The following is a video at the Fall, 2009 AGU conferance.

A23A

Thats your logic?

There is more evidence for AGW than gravity? LOL...

So what holds you to the planet surface and keeps the atmosphere close? I really want your take on it...

Nice bit of science, oldsocks LOL

 

[RollingThunder]

Here's some more info on the continuing research into the ocean acidification problem. The particular consequence of mankind's fossil fuel carbon emissions threatens to alter or destroy the marine food chain and perhaps ultimately destroy the fish that provide a protein source for much of the world's human population.

Ocean Acidification in the Arctic: What Are the Consequences of Carbon Dioxide Increase on Marine Ecosystems?

ScienceDaily (June 4, 2010) — Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions not only lead to global warming, but also cause another, less well-known but equally disconcerting environmental change: ocean acidification. A group of 35 researchers of the EU-funded EPOCA project have just started the first major CO2 perturbation experiment in the Arctic Ocean. Their goal is to determine the response of Arctic marine life to the rapid change in ocean chemistry.

Ocean acidity has increased by 30% since preindustrial times due to the uptake of anthropogenic CO2. It is projected to rise by another 100% before 2100 if CO2 emissions continue at current rates. Polar seas are considered particularly vulnerable to ocean acidification because the high solubility of CO2 in cold waters results in naturally low carbonate saturation states. CO2 induced acidification will easily render these waters sub-saturated, where seawater becomes corrosive for calcareous organisms. By the time atmospheric CO2 exceeds 490 parts per million (2040 to 2050, depending on the scenario considered), more than half of the Arctic Ocean is projected to be corrosive to aragonite. Arctic waters are home to a wide range of calcifying organisms, both in benthic and pelagic habitats, including shell fish, seas urchins, coralline algae, and calcareous plankton. Many of these are key species providing crucial links in the Arctic food web, such as the planktonic pteropods, which serve as food for fishes, seabirds and whales.

To study the impacts of ocean acidification on plankton communities, the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences (IFM-GEOMAR) has deployed nine mesocosms in the Kongsfjord off the north-western coast of Spitsbergen (Svalbard) supported by the Greenpeace vessel Esperanza. Each of the giant, 17 m long 'test tubes' holds about 50 cubic metres of seawater. The enclosed plankton community is exposed to a range of different CO2 levels as expected to develop between now and the middle of the next century and is closely monitored over a 6-week period. The EPOCA scientists, who are stationed at the Ny Ålesund research station, are sampling the mesocosms daily from zodiacs with plankton nets, water samplers and pumps, and conduct measurements with profiling sensors and in situ probes. The multidisciplinary experiment, which will last until mid July, involves molecular and cell biologists, marine ecologists and biogeochemists, ocean and atmospheric chemists. The scientists expect new results about the sensitivities of Arctic plankton communities to ocean acidification and their impacts on the Arctic food web and biodiversity, the cycling of carbon, nutrients and other elements, the production of climate relevant gases and their exchange with the atmosphere.


Story Source:

The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences (IFM-GEOMAR).

Copyright © 1995-2010 ScienceDaily LLC — All rights reserved

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

 

[gslack]

Old socks, you post crap like this and you know I am going to call you on it....

First its nonsense.... And here is the real science on it....

Real science bit #1: 550 million years ago in the Cambrian era there was 20 times as much CO2 in the atmosphere as there is today. And the Cambrian era is the time in which calcite corals and similar lifeforms first achieved algal symbiosis.

Real science bit #2: 175 million years ago in the Jurassic era there was also 20 times the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and at this time the Aragonite corals came into being. So we have two points in history which had greater CO2 in the atmosphere and at both points we find coral life forms developing rather than dying off...... So either the oceans didn't turn acidic and kill them with 20 times the amount of CO2 in the air, or CO2 has no real measurable impact on PH to the extent if effecting the oceans like they claim. Either way its insane....

Real science bit #3: The oceans already have 70 times the amount of CO2 that is in the atmosphere. Even if by some freak occurrence all of the CO2 we emit unnaturally were to go straight into the ocean (an impossibility) it would only raise the CO2 concentrations by 1%. Not exactly the scary horror stories you are telling now is it...

Real science bit #4: CO2 is the 7th largest particle in the oceans by volume that could in theory effect the PH balance. Meaning there are 6 other elements before CO2 which could in theory do the same to the PH. In practice this means the likelihood of CO2 actually causing oceans acidification is minuscule at best even IF the theory is correct. If you want to be real technical on it CO2 would not alter the PH at all but rather buffer other elements which could possibly make some impact on the PH balance. Those impacts are minuscule given the depth and scope of the entire thing.

Real science bit #5: The ocean rides over vast amounts of alkali. We are talking vast amounts of alkali stone, rock and soil which the oceans stir up and roll over 24/7... Alkali is the acid stopper in case you weren't aware.

All of this garbage is theoretical crap all designed to scare you... Its about as much to do with real science as the Pope has to do with Las Vegas nightlife...

oh please ask me for my evidence again..... LOL, I love it when you try and play climatologist to save your azz....

Re-post to keep from having to go over already beaten pseudo-science...

 

[gslack]

So either the oceans didn't turn acidic and kill them with 20 times the amount of CO2 in the air, or CO2 has no real measurable impact on PH to the extent if effecting the oceans like they claim. Either way its insane....
------------------------------------

This is an example of "false choice" and a reason why taking examples from millions of years ago, isn't always the logical thing to do. The corals of the past evolved during a time of high CO2 and therefore would be able to tolerate lower pH levels. Modern corals evolved during a time of lower CO2 and don't seem to tolerate an acidic environment as well. You can't use the past as a template for the future, if underlying conditions have changed.

LOL and this is an example of dancing even after the music has stopped.....

Well if I can't use the past as a a template than neither can your side if we use your own logic....

Perhaps our modern planet has evolved and adapted to absorb more CO2? Perhaps the entire theory of GHG's and their effects are overstated? Perhaps the CO2 millions of years ago was actually a bunch of magic beans which grew into killer spores that killed all the dinosaurs?

Freaking asinine argument man... Seriously, the very word calcite should have been a clue... Clacite and aragonite are both forms of calcium carbonite. Ca CO3 ...

Here is some info on them...





LOL I love that last part especially..... lets repeat that oh so embarrassing bit of science shall we? LOL

Calcite, like most carbonates, will dissolve with most forms of acid. Calcite can be either dissolved by groundwater or precipitated by groundwater, depending on several factors including the water temperature, pH, and dissolved ion concentrations. Although calcite is fairly insoluble in cold water, acidity can cause dissolution of calcite and release of carbon dioxide gas.

Dam that was a severe smackdown now wasn't it.......

SOOOOO, calcite is especially susceptible to acidity and PH factors? LOL so the whole claim you just made about them evolving in such conditions and resistant to CO2 induced acidification is one more example of BS posing as science..... Wow what an embarrassment...

As soon as I posted this response above in here all 4 of the warmers came in like a platoon and did everything they could to confound, divert, and derail this topic.... Coincidence? Nah they knew dam good and well what it all meant. And they knew it was factual and true, and indefensible...

The above shows categorically and undeniably that despite 20x the amount of CO2 coral life forms formed and flourished. Which blows the entire claim that CO2 will cause the oceans to turn acidic.

Fact: the above evidence verifiable in the supplied links tells us that the two prime elements in coral are extremely unstable in acidic conditions.

Fact: If they are unstable in acidic conditions, then they could not have survived in the PH factors and acidification levels they claim that CO2 would have caused back then. But despite that the corals did thrive and even develop. Showing that either the theory of CO2 causing ocean acidification is incorrect, the levels of effect of CO2 on the oceans is incorrect, or corals somehow despite the very structure making it an impossibility developed magic powers and lived through an acid bath for hundreds of years....

SO which is it now warmers? Come on we know you have a ridiculous hypothesis to excuse this you always do.... Once more your BS is shown for the nonsense it is...

Just to keep things in proper perspective, and to show simply making the same claims over and again does not make it true..... Trollingblunder's claim have already been shown in error in this thread. he and the sock army are now trying to change the outcome with spamming already beaten material....

 

[westwall]

To be a theory it has to be able to be proven false. At least what I've learned in my science classes. Fact=law. So you think Global warming should be respected like Kepler's laws or Newtons gravity?



Newton's law of universal gravitation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There is far more evidence for AGW than there is for gravity. For one thing, Newton's laws are mathematical observations with no causitive agent. Unlike evolution, no one has yet to posit a valed hypothesis for what causes gravity.

With AGW, we know the absorbtion spectra of the GHGs, we have have evidence going back a couple of a billion years for the reaction of our planet to the variations in GHGs. The following is a video at the Fall, 2009 AGU conferance.

A23A

Actually there isn't. The effects of gravity are well known and calculable to a degree of accuracy the AGW folks would kill for. What is not known is what exactly gravity is or how it is created. It's an instant PhD to the person who accurately describes gravity.

AGW theory on the other hand is rife with errors, mistatement of facts, manufactured data,
destruction of data that didn't conform to desired results and outright fraud. Don't take it personally Old Rocks, but there is very little of the AGW theory that is calculable.

That's the problem.

 

[westwall]

Here's some more info on the continuing research into the ocean acidification problem. The particular consequence of mankind's fossil fuel carbon emissions threatens to alter or destroy the marine food chain and perhaps ultimately destroy the fish that provide a protein source for much of the world's human population.

Ocean Acidification in the Arctic: What Are the Consequences of Carbon Dioxide Increase on Marine Ecosystems?

ScienceDaily (June 4, 2010) — Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions not only lead to global warming, but also cause another, less well-known but equally disconcerting environmental change: ocean acidification. A group of 35 researchers of the EU-funded EPOCA project have just started the first major CO2 perturbation experiment in the Arctic Ocean. Their goal is to determine the response of Arctic marine life to the rapid change in ocean chemistry.

Ocean acidity has increased by 30% since preindustrial times due to the uptake of anthropogenic CO2. It is projected to rise by another 100% before 2100 if CO2 emissions continue at current rates. Polar seas are considered particularly vulnerable to ocean acidification because the high solubility of CO2 in cold waters results in naturally low carbonate saturation states. CO2 induced acidification will easily render these waters sub-saturated, where seawater becomes corrosive for calcareous organisms. By the time atmospheric CO2 exceeds 490 parts per million (2040 to 2050, depending on the scenario considered), more than half of the Arctic Ocean is projected to be corrosive to aragonite. Arctic waters are home to a wide range of calcifying organisms, both in benthic and pelagic habitats, including shell fish, seas urchins, coralline algae, and calcareous plankton. Many of these are key species providing crucial links in the Arctic food web, such as the planktonic pteropods, which serve as food for fishes, seabirds and whales.

To study the impacts of ocean acidification on plankton communities, the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences (IFM-GEOMAR) has deployed nine mesocosms in the Kongsfjord off the north-western coast of Spitsbergen (Svalbard) supported by the Greenpeace vessel Esperanza. Each of the giant, 17 m long 'test tubes' holds about 50 cubic metres of seawater. The enclosed plankton community is exposed to a range of different CO2 levels as expected to develop between now and the middle of the next century and is closely monitored over a 6-week period. The EPOCA scientists, who are stationed at the Ny Ålesund research station, are sampling the mesocosms daily from zodiacs with plankton nets, water samplers and pumps, and conduct measurements with profiling sensors and in situ probes. The multidisciplinary experiment, which will last until mid July, involves molecular and cell biologists, marine ecologists and biogeochemists, ocean and atmospheric chemists. The scientists expect new results about the sensitivities of Arctic plankton communities to ocean acidification and their impacts on the Arctic food web and biodiversity, the cycling of carbon, nutrients and other elements, the production of climate relevant gases and their exchange with the atmosphere.


Story Source:

The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences (IFM-GEOMAR).

Copyright © 1995-2010 ScienceDaily LLC — All rights reserved

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

Blunder,

Until you make a public apology to gslack for your incredibly boorish behavior you're not welcome among the adults.

 

[gslack]

Here's some more info on the continuing research into the ocean acidification problem. The particular consequence of mankind's fossil fuel carbon emissions threatens to alter or destroy the marine food chain and perhaps ultimately destroy the fish that provide a protein source for much of the world's human population.

Ocean Acidification in the Arctic: What Are the Consequences of Carbon Dioxide Increase on Marine Ecosystems?

ScienceDaily (June 4, 2010) — Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions not only lead to global warming, but also cause another, less well-known but equally disconcerting environmental change: ocean acidification. A group of 35 researchers of the EU-funded EPOCA project have just started the first major CO2 perturbation experiment in the Arctic Ocean. Their goal is to determine the response of Arctic marine life to the rapid change in ocean chemistry.

Ocean acidity has increased by 30% since preindustrial times due to the uptake of anthropogenic CO2. It is projected to rise by another 100% before 2100 if CO2 emissions continue at current rates. Polar seas are considered particularly vulnerable to ocean acidification because the high solubility of CO2 in cold waters results in naturally low carbonate saturation states. CO2 induced acidification will easily render these waters sub-saturated, where seawater becomes corrosive for calcareous organisms. By the time atmospheric CO2 exceeds 490 parts per million (2040 to 2050, depending on the scenario considered), more than half of the Arctic Ocean is projected to be corrosive to aragonite. Arctic waters are home to a wide range of calcifying organisms, both in benthic and pelagic habitats, including shell fish, seas urchins, coralline algae, and calcareous plankton. Many of these are key species providing crucial links in the Arctic food web, such as the planktonic pteropods, which serve as food for fishes, seabirds and whales.

To study the impacts of ocean acidification on plankton communities, the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences (IFM-GEOMAR) has deployed nine mesocosms in the Kongsfjord off the north-western coast of Spitsbergen (Svalbard) supported by the Greenpeace vessel Esperanza. Each of the giant, 17 m long 'test tubes' holds about 50 cubic metres of seawater. The enclosed plankton community is exposed to a range of different CO2 levels as expected to develop between now and the middle of the next century and is closely monitored over a 6-week period. The EPOCA scientists, who are stationed at the Ny Ålesund research station, are sampling the mesocosms daily from zodiacs with plankton nets, water samplers and pumps, and conduct measurements with profiling sensors and in situ probes. The multidisciplinary experiment, which will last until mid July, involves molecular and cell biologists, marine ecologists and biogeochemists, ocean and atmospheric chemists. The scientists expect new results about the sensitivities of Arctic plankton communities to ocean acidification and their impacts on the Arctic food web and biodiversity, the cycling of carbon, nutrients and other elements, the production of climate relevant gases and their exchange with the atmosphere.


Story Source:

The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences (IFM-GEOMAR).

Copyright © 1995-2010 ScienceDaily LLC — All rights reserved

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

Blunder,

Until you make a public apology to gslack for your incredibly boorish behavior you're not welcome among the adults.

Thanks west, he's a scumbag and he showed it... I do not expect an apology from him simply because he would need a sense of ethics to do so. He has none; he deliberately posts garbage that has already been beaten weeks before, just to deceive people... Anyone who does that has no moral or ethical center...

I hope he continues to do this like nothing happened and avoid me. Then the quote I have of his will be even more damaging. Soon no one will take him seriously enough to give him any play.. Then he will return under a new proxy and start all over again...