Ocean acidification

[Dr Gregg]

Bullshit all he has done (like you) is come in here and parrot what he finds on green blogs and liberal media. They tell you to go here or there and look at this or that chart to prove it and you go. And big shock, it lacks context, accurate explanation and a transparent presentation of its true meaning in the bigger picture. But you don't think about any of that you just post it here and claim its definitive proof of a climate doomsday...

That is not a scientific approach and if you really think it is, that shows how much of a real scientist either of you are. I have yet to see any of you algorian climate prophecy believers ever show any accurate study of the data you post. It always the same tired rhetoric, "you aren't a scientist" or "I am a scientist" or an endless rambling of how this is how it is and no one should question it... Well moron thats the kind idiocy that allowed the Nazis, Napoleon, the church, and every other form of absolutism you can think off.

Ignorant tools who blindly follow without question are the bane of humanity, no matter what their intentions or what they are led to believe. They always tell us how its for our own good, how we are not smart or educated or good enough to understand it, so we need to just trust them. Yeah okay like the people of Germany trusted them, or the every other time people blindly follow.

You two are not scientists by any measure. A scientist by nature, first and foremost is an investigator. Their core is a desire for truth no matter what. Neither of you display this desire at all. The both of you desire to be right, and thats not scientific, thats ego-centric and decidedly not scientific.

So go and post more garbage tool, but leave the claims of science out of it because its Bullshit...

Umm, scientifically supported studies, and those links cite actual scientists and their peer reviewed publications. You are the one parroting anti science nonsense, with absolutely no actual science to back it up. And your name calling gibberish filled rant is hardly a sound scientifically supported rationale.

Just another USMB troll not caring about the facts, just what they want to believe.

In a class room or in a lecture hall peer review has weight. In the real world and in application, its a start. Got that? Also, truth is not based on peer review but rather an acceptance of such over time and with one sided real world evidence giving it the status of accepted fact.

I explained peer review before, don't make me do it again. Like I said I know several scientists and work with them daily. None of them try this tactic....

In the real world, nobody takes someone like you seriously, you know uneducated in the field and spouting things on an internet forum with no actual data to back it up.

What fantasy world do you live in?

 

[Dr Gregg]

More than 150 leading marine scientists from 26 countries are calling for immediate action by policy-makers to sharply reduce CO2 emissions so as to avoid widespread and severe damage to marine ecosystems from ocean acidification.

Global Scientists Draw Attention To Threat Of Ocean Acidification

I'll take the word of trained, leading marine scientists in the world, over some guy who rants and raves on an internet message board and doesn't back up his simple minded claims

It is well established among researchers that the uptake of increased amounts of carbon dioxide will make ocean water more acidic as the gas dissolves to create carbonic acid. Ocean chemistry is changing 100 times more rapidly than in the 650,000 years that preceded the modern industrial era and since the late 1980s, researchers at Scripps Oceanography and others have recorded an overall drop in the pH of the oceans from 8.16 to 8.05.

Well established. You keep mentioning some lame problem with the cambrian period, but you don't think all the scientists studying this and those reviewing and scrutinizing the scientists work didn't think of that?

now, maybe you should publish your results if you can overturn a theory that is so well established and supported by the marine biologist community.

 

[Dr Gregg]

http://www.epoca-project.eu/index.php/FAQ.

Present conditions differ from the past largely because the rate of change of atmospheric CO2 does not match the rate of mitigating geological processes. If CO2 is added slowly over hundreds of thousands of years, as it was during the Ordovician by volcanic and plate tectonic activity, the CO2 that enters the ocean has time to mix throughout the ocean from top to bottom. As a result, even though the amount of CO2 that is taken up by the ocean is large, it is spread out over a very great volume of water and the resulting decrease in pH is small. At the same time, as the CO2 level in deep oceans increases over millennia, carbonate sediments lying on the seafloor begin to dissolve and release carbonate ions that neutralize some of the acidity, further minimizing the decrease in pH. Past oceans also contained higher calcium and magnesium ion concentrations, which helped stabilize calcium carbonate minerals in marine animals’ skeletons.
Today, the CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing much faster than the ocean mixes. During CO2 releases like this over &#8220;short&#8221; (<10,000 year) timescales, the ability of sediments to regulate ocean chemistry is overwhelmed and both pH and saturation state decline. Even though the amount of CO2 that has entered the ocean in the last 200 years is smaller than that added during the Ordovician, the CO2 has built up to a much higher concentration in the surface ocean. As a result, upper ocean pH has decreased more rapidly and by a greater amount than in the geological past. Both the rate of change of pH and the magnitude of the change present problems for organisms that evolved in an ocean that experienced smaller, slower pH changes in the past. &#8212; Chris Langdon, Associate Professor, University of Miami, USA; Andy Ridgwell, Royal Society University Research Fellow, Bristol University, UK; Richard Zeebe, Associate Professor, University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA; Daniela Schmidt, Senior Research Fellow, University of Bristol, UK

 

[Big Fitz]

Does somebody have a hatchet and a tree stump to stop these chicken littles from squawking? I mean my GOD!

First it was DDT.
Then it was the Population bomb.
Then it was the coming Ice Age.
Then it was peak oil.
Then it was acid rain.
Then it was Nuclear Power.
Then it was the Greenhouse effect.
Then it was CFCs and the Ozone Hole.
Then it was Global Warming.
Then it was Climate Change.

NOW.... NOW... for fuck's sake it's OCEAN ACIDIFICATION!!!!

Oh but they have charts and graphs and dim bulb scientists who wanna be faaaaaamous and come up with half assed pseudo science to make it look like the world's going to end tomorrow. Jeebus H Criminy! Are you guys sitting too close to your cyclotrons?!? Do you need another hobby??? What the hell is WRONG with you idiots?!?

The world's not going to end tomorrow by anything you can predict today. Maybe bam we get popped by a meteor out of the blue or Yellowstone explodes in some sillyassed fear mongering made for ratings "science" show on the History Channel, Volcano. But the chances of that are so astronomical, you may as well believe that we evolved from random chemical combinations somewhere in the far far distant past.

(secretary whispers in hear) uh huh... uh huh... oh really? (looks shocked at you Chicken Littles) No come on... they really?... Wow. And they think intelligent creation is impossible too huh? Wow. No wonder.

Nevermind, it has just been determined you people cannot survive by your wits alone and should be kept away from power tools, the press and positions of responsibility... for the rest of our safety. Go do whatever you want, over there. I'll even give you some nice blasting caps and plastic bags to play with.

Ta ta!

 

[PixieStix]

Maybe it is just me, but when I saw " Ocean acidification" I started laughing really hard

And thought of this song

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRNTQvXSsfA[/ame]

 

[Big Fitz]

Well somebody dropped acid and I don't think it was the ocean, and I'm certainly not tripping.

 

[PixieStix]

Well somebody dropped acid and I don't think it was the ocean, and I'm certainly not tripping.

 

[PixieStix]

Ocean acidification is not complete without a chart, I demand a chart!

 

[gslack]

again

Once more, the findings above rely on the theory of CO2 and ocean acidification to be both sound and accurate. They take that assumption and do the research accordingly. If the premise (CO2 ocean acidification theory)is correct, than all is well. However, if the premise is inaccurate, overstated, or just plain wrong, than the research is moot.

I contend there is a problem with that premise due to the fact in times where CO2 was 20X higher than today, coral type life forms evolved and flourished. Given the claim the oceans are nearing dangerous acidity now with a 387 ppm of CO2, we would expect at a time when CO2 was 20x times that amount there would have been a mass extinction or non-development and evolution of lifeforms susceptible and sensitive to ocean acidity. But the historical research shows this to be not the case at all.

So either the premise of CO2 ocean acidification is inaccurate somehow, the historical research is flawed or wrong, or coral adapts on the fly to the environment in such a manner to defy there very chemical basis. The last one seems highly unlikely, so one of the other two must be a problem.

Again if you can't grasp this simple logical conundrum, you are no scientist...

1.No science to back it up, all while conveniently ignoring the scientifically supported facts from actual studies that show why your CO2 nonsense is flawed.

Scientists cite their sources, and look to support their claims, not just spout their opinion over and over again and think that makes it true.

YOu keep saying the same shit over and over again. . 2.Someone already mentioned, the coral and organisms back during that period evolved in those conditions, and are far different than the ones today, that are not acclimated to high CO2. Again, leave science to people that know science, as its clearly if you are going to make the argument that animals flourished in a high CO2 environment (in which they evolved in, so of course they will be able to survive it) and comparing today's organisms who are acclimated to lower CO2 and particular ocean pH. Also, if you can't realize how gradual changes allow animals to adapt to the rising levels, and how rapid changes, like we are seeing today, don't allow them the time to adapt and evolve. You dont' also appear to know about ecology and how sensitive organisms are to drastic changes to their environment. Gradual ones, yes, drastic ones is what leads to mass extinctions

Ok see the bolded parts? Those are the only parts that mean anything in all that. The rest is all your idiotic ramblings..... So in order...

1. LOL, douchebag no science is needed to back it up its a simple logical problem with the theory. They have one group of scientists claiming that ocean acidification due to CO2 acidification caused a mass extinction of sea life 55 million or so years ago. And then we have another group who tell us that during the times in the past where CO2 concentrations were 20x the levels of today sea life flourished and evolved.. So WTF? which is correct?

If we are to believe the claims of CO2 ocean acidification theory, than we have to ignore the one groups findings altogether. So then fossil records (physical evidence) are to be ignored in favor of theoretical (non-physical evidence) hypothesis..... Any scientists that does that is no scientist.

2. Dude coral is based on elements and compounds that are disintegrated in acidic conditions. Remember the cries over ocean acidity bleaching the coral reefs, making the clams and such have thinner shells, and all the other hysteria? Yeah that was your guys crying that remember?

So a life form based on a compound that cannot exist in acidic conditions Like coral, be it billions, millions, or even a couple years ago would be equally susceptible to acidity. But from the fossil records they were alive and thriving in much higher CO2 concentrations.

Moron we aren't talking about a fish or a complex organism evolving and adapting, we are talking about the simplest of life whose structure is based on compounds that break down in acidic conditions..

Now personally DR. Douchebag, I don't care what you think of my education. I know enough to nail your MO right away. YOU are a basement dwelling momma's boy trying to play big and smart, and failing miserably.

You are busted, I work with PHD's and they don't act like you. Also you respond to every bit of pro-AGW psuedo-science like it's all an already established fact. If your behavior, manner and inability to process and think logically were not enough to give your lie away, than that little flaw should. Its a serious flaw that no scientist could have and get anywhere.

You are a fake, one more internet wannabe.....

 

[gslack]

Umm, scientifically supported studies, and those links cite actual scientists and their peer reviewed publications. You are the one parroting anti science nonsense, with absolutely no actual science to back it up. And your name calling gibberish filled rant is hardly a sound scientifically supported rationale.

Just another USMB troll not caring about the facts, just what they want to believe.

In a class room or in a lecture hall peer review has weight. In the real world and in application, its a start. Got that? Also, truth is not based on peer review but rather an acceptance of such over time and with one sided real world evidence giving it the status of accepted fact.

I explained peer review before, don't make me do it again. Like I said I know several scientists and work with them daily. None of them try this tactic....

In the real world, nobody takes someone like you seriously, you know uneducated in the field and spouting things on an internet forum with no actual data to back it up.

What fantasy world do you live in?

Quiet basement boy, no one cares what a fake has to say....

As far as my education, I didn't say what my education was, I just told you what it wasn't.... Don't go jumping to conclusions or trying to appear better or smarter here dumazz, it would be a bad move for you trust me...

 

[Old Rocks]

Acid In The Oceans: A Growing Threat To Sea Life : NPR

August 12, 2009
When we burn fossil fuels, we are not just putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. A lot of it goes into the sea. There, carbon dioxide turns into carbonic acid. And that turns ocean water corrosive, particularly to shellfish and corals.

Biologists are now coming to realize that rising acid levels in the ocean can affect many other forms of sea life as well.

Visit Moss Landing, Calif., in the spring and at first blush it seems marine life is flourishing. Sea lions, weighing in at 600 pounds or more, jostle for space and spar with one another as they try to cram themselves onto docks that groan under their weight.

Marine biologist Eric Pane looks on approvingly at what seems to be part of a Pacific success story. Up and down the coast, biologists see healthy populations of marine mammals, fish and other wildlife.

 

[gslack]

http://www.epoca-project.eu/index.php/FAQ.

Present conditions differ from the past largely because the rate of change of atmospheric CO2 does not match the rate of mitigating geological processes. If CO2 is added slowly over hundreds of thousands of years, as it was during the Ordovician by volcanic and plate tectonic activity, the CO2 that enters the ocean has time to mix throughout the ocean from top to bottom. As a result, even though the amount of CO2 that is taken up by the ocean is large, it is spread out over a very great volume of water and the resulting decrease in pH is small. At the same time, as the CO2 level in deep oceans increases over millennia, carbonate sediments lying on the seafloor begin to dissolve and release carbonate ions that neutralize some of the acidity, further minimizing the decrease in pH. Past oceans also contained higher calcium and magnesium ion concentrations, which helped stabilize calcium carbonate minerals in marine animals’ skeletons.
Today, the CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing much faster than the ocean mixes. During CO2 releases like this over “short” (<10,000 year) timescales, the ability of sediments to regulate ocean chemistry is overwhelmed and both pH and saturation state decline. Even though the amount of CO2 that has entered the ocean in the last 200 years is smaller than that added during the Ordovician, the CO2 has built up to a much higher concentration in the surface ocean. As a result, upper ocean pH has decreased more rapidly and by a greater amount than in the geological past. Both the rate of change of pH and the magnitude of the change present problems for organisms that evolved in an ocean that experienced smaller, slower pH changes in the past. — Chris Langdon, Associate Professor, University of Miami, USA; Andy Ridgwell, Royal Society University Research Fellow, Bristol University, UK; Richard Zeebe, Associate Professor, University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA; Daniela Schmidt, Senior Research Fellow, University of Bristol, UK

Only a internet basement dweller trying to play scientist would go to an agency whose bread and butter is the study of the very theory in question, and pretend it is evidence....

Look idiot, if I wanted to prove Cheney wasn't profiteering off of Haliburton during the war, I wouldn't use his testimony and say "see I told you so".... I also wouldn't go to Haliburton and ask them either.... but then again I am smart like that, and you aren't...

 

[Old Rocks]

20091210263 | Acid Oceans- warning to Copenhagen negotiators | News | What do we do?

Acid Oceans- warning to Copenhagen negotiators



A scientific summary on ocean acidification, written by a team of researchers from France, Germany, the UK, the USA, and Australia, and coordinated by the European Project on Ocean Acidification (EPOCA), was released today in Copenhagen.



The guide aims to increase understanding of the science of ocean acidification and shows in clear and simple terms how the ocean is being made more acidic by human-produced carbon dioxide emissions. The guide, written for policymakers worldwide, illustrates the double impact of climate change and ocean acidification on our seas, both caused by increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. It sets out the basic facts about the progressive acidification of the ocean and its impact on marine ecosystems.



The 30% increase in ocean acidity since the Industrial Revolution represents a pace of chemical change faster than any in the past 55 million years. &#8220;We now have data from nature that ocean acidification is already having an impact on some marine organisms,&#8221; says guide contributor Dr Will Howard of the Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre (ACE CRC) in Hobart, Tasmania. &#8220;Until recently the impact on marine life had only been predicted from computer models and laboratory experiments; now we have demonstrated the effect in the ocean itself.&#8221;

 

[gslack]

Acid In The Oceans: A Growing Threat To Sea Life : NPR

August 12, 2009
When we burn fossil fuels, we are not just putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. A lot of it goes into the sea. There, carbon dioxide turns into carbonic acid. And that turns ocean water corrosive, particularly to shellfish and corals.

Biologists are now coming to realize that rising acid levels in the ocean can affect many other forms of sea life as well.

Visit Moss Landing, Calif., in the spring and at first blush it seems marine life is flourishing. Sea lions, weighing in at 600 pounds or more, jostle for space and spar with one another as they try to cram themselves onto docks that groan under their weight.

Marine biologist Eric Pane looks on approvingly at what seems to be part of a Pacific success story. Up and down the coast, biologists see healthy populations of marine mammals, fish and other wildlife.

More classic excuse making...Nice!

It was CO2 in the atmosphere making the oceans acidic, and now its not just that but all of this too.....

Sure buddy sure.... Ya know what it really is? Its a snowjob.... THey are caught in this lie and so just like they do every other time the first try and make it vague and all encompassing, and then they will quietly stop making the claims on it.

Kind of like how global warming became Climate change when they found out the planet was actually cooling..... Nice try....

 

[Old Rocks]

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

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

James C. Orr1, Victoria J. Fabry2, Olivier Aumont3, Laurent Bopp1, Scott C. Doney4, Richard A. Feely5, Anand Gnanadesikan6, Nicolas Gruber7, Akio Ishida8, Fortunat Joos9, Robert M. Key10, Keith Lindsay11, Ernst Maier-Reimer12, Richard Matear13, Patrick Monfray1,19, Anne Mouchet14, Raymond G. Najjar15, Gian-Kasper Plattner7,9, Keith B. Rodgers1,16,19, Christopher L. Sabine5, Jorge L. Sarmiento10, Reiner Schlitzer17, Richard D. Slater10, Ian J. Totterdell18,19, Marie-France Weirig17, Yasuhiro Yamanaka8 & Andrew Yool18

Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, UMR CEA-CNRS, CEA Saclay, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
Department of Biological Sciences, California State University San Marcos, San Marcos, California 92096-0001, USA
Laboratoire d'Océanographie et du Climat: Expérimentations et Approches Numériques (LOCEAN), Centre IRD de Bretagne, F-29280 Plouzané, France
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543-1543, USA
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)/Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, Seattle, Washington 98115-6349, USA
NOAA/Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, New Jersey 08542, USA
Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, UCLA, Los Angeles, California 90095-4996, USA
Frontier Research Center for Global Change, Yokohama 236-0001, Japan
Climate and Environmental Physics, Physics Institute, University of Bern, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (AOS) Program, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544-0710, USA
National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado 80307-3000, USA
Max Planck Institut für Meteorologie, D-20146 Hamburg, Germany
CSIRO Marine Research and Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems CRC, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia
Astrophysics and Geophysics Institute, University of Liege, B-4000 Liege, Belgium
Department of Meteorology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802-5013, USA
LOCEAN, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, F-75252 Paris, France
Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, D-27515 Bremerhaven, Germany
National Oceanography Centre Southampton, Southampton SO14 3ZH, UK
&#8224;Present addresses: Laboratoire d'Etudes en Géophysique et Océanographie Spatiales, UMR 5566 CNES-CNRS-IRD-UPS, F-31401 Toulouse, France (P.M.); AOS Program, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544-0710, USA (K.B.R.); The Met Office, Hadley Centre, FitzRoy Road, Exeter EX1 3PB, UK (I.J.T.)
Correspondence to: James C. Orr1 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to J.C.O. (Email: [email protected]).


Top of pageAbstract

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&#8212;such as corals and some plankton&#8212;will have difficulty maintaining their external calcium carbonate skeletons. Here we use 13 models of the ocean&#8211;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.

 

[gslack]

20091210263 | Acid Oceans- warning to Copenhagen negotiators | News | What do we do?

Acid Oceans- warning to Copenhagen negotiators



A scientific summary on ocean acidification, written by a team of researchers from France, Germany, the UK, the USA, and Australia, and coordinated by the European Project on Ocean Acidification (EPOCA), was released today in Copenhagen.



The guide aims to increase understanding of the science of ocean acidification and shows in clear and simple terms how the ocean is being made more acidic by human-produced carbon dioxide emissions. The guide, written for policymakers worldwide, illustrates the double impact of climate change and ocean acidification on our seas, both caused by increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. It sets out the basic facts about the progressive acidification of the ocean and its impact on marine ecosystems.



The 30% increase in ocean acidity since the Industrial Revolution represents a pace of chemical change faster than any in the past 55 million years. “We now have data from nature that ocean acidification is already having an impact on some marine organisms,” says guide contributor Dr Will Howard of the Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre (ACE CRC) in Hobart, Tasmania. “Until recently the impact on marine life had only been predicted from computer models and laboratory experiments; now we have demonstrated the effect in the ocean itself.”

Make that two internet basement dwellers..... oldsocks are you really this stupid?

You had to have seen me point out the problem with accepting the claims of the EPOCA? Their reason for existence relies on the theory in question. A theory which does not hold up to scrutiny.

Dude never ever defend yourself in court...... You would be convicted of being dangerously ignorant and sentenced to death to prevent it from spreading.

 

[Old Rocks]

Rising Ocean Acidity May Deplete Vital Phytoplankton : Discovery News

Rising Ocean Acidity May Deplete Vital Phytoplankton
Iron-poor oceans may cause populations of phytoplankton -- a critical base of the marine food chain -- to decline. By Jessica Marshall | Thu Jan 14, 2010 09:55 AM ET
Changing ocean chemistry caused by increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide may reduce the availability of dissolved iron to marine phytoplankton, as the kind shown here.
NOAA

Rising acid levels in the world's oceans appear to be robbing the tiny animals that form the bedrock of the marine food web of a vital nutrient. This shift in the ocean's chemistry could reduce populations of phytoplankton, which could touch off a cascade of changes to ocean life.

Roughly one-third of the oceans contain phytoplankton that are limited in their growth by the amount of iron available to them. A study published today in Science, suggested that zone could grow.

"The concept of changes to ocean productivity and ecosystems due to acidification is a very important one to consider," said Ken Buesseler of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Mass., who was not a part of the study. "If half of the photosynthesis on the planet is in the ocean and if you reduce that because of acidification, that is a big deal."

Ocean acidification is a trickle-down effect of climate change. Higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere drive more CO2 to dissolve into the ocean, making it more acidic.

 

[Old Rocks]

Ocean Acidification from CO 2 Is Happening Faster Than Thought: Scientific American

From the February 2009 Scientific American Magazine | 17 comments

Ocean Acidification from CO2 Is Happening Faster Than Thought
Carbon dioxide may be acidifying seawater faster than thought
By Charles Q. Choi

A lesser-known consequence of having a lot of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air is the acidification of water. Oceans naturally absorb the greenhouse gas; in fact, they take in roughly one third of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by human activities. When CO2 dissolves in water, it forms carbonic acid, the same substance found in carbonated beverages. New research now suggests that seawater might be growing acidic more quickly than climate change models have predicted.

Marine ecologist J. Timothy Wootton of the University of Chicago and his colleagues spent eight years compiling measurements of acidity, salinity, temperature and other data from Tatoosh Island off the northwestern tip of Washington State. They found that the average acidity rose more than 10 times faster than predicted by climate simulations.

Highly acidic water can wreak havoc on marine life. For instance, it can dissolve the calcium carbonate in seashells and coral reefs [see &#8220;The Dangers of Ocean Acidification,&#8221; by Scott C. Doney; Scientific American, March 2006]. In their study, published in the December 2 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, Wootton and his team discovered that the balance of ecosystems shifted: populations of large-shelled animals such as mussels and stalked barnacles dropped, whereas smaller-shelled species and noncalcareous algae (species that lack calcium-based skeletons) became more abundant. &#8220;I see it as a harbinger of the trends we might expect to occur in the future,&#8221; says oceanographer Scott C. Doney of the Woods Hole Ocean*ographic Institution, who did not participate in this study.

 

[gslack]

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

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

James C. Orr1, Victoria J. Fabry2, Olivier Aumont3, Laurent Bopp1, Scott C. Doney4, Richard A. Feely5, Anand Gnanadesikan6, Nicolas Gruber7, Akio Ishida8, Fortunat Joos9, Robert M. Key10, Keith Lindsay11, Ernst Maier-Reimer12, Richard Matear13, Patrick Monfray1,19, Anne Mouchet14, Raymond G. Najjar15, Gian-Kasper Plattner7,9, Keith B. Rodgers1,16,19, Christopher L. Sabine5, Jorge L. Sarmiento10, Reiner Schlitzer17, Richard D. Slater10, Ian J. Totterdell18,19, Marie-France Weirig17, Yasuhiro Yamanaka8 & Andrew Yool18

Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, UMR CEA-CNRS, CEA Saclay, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
Department of Biological Sciences, California State University San Marcos, San Marcos, California 92096-0001, USA
Laboratoire d'Océanographie et du Climat: Expérimentations et Approches Numériques (LOCEAN), Centre IRD de Bretagne, F-29280 Plouzané, France
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543-1543, USA
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)/Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, Seattle, Washington 98115-6349, USA
NOAA/Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, New Jersey 08542, USA
Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, UCLA, Los Angeles, California 90095-4996, USA
Frontier Research Center for Global Change, Yokohama 236-0001, Japan
Climate and Environmental Physics, Physics Institute, University of Bern, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (AOS) Program, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544-0710, USA
National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado 80307-3000, USA
Max Planck Institut für Meteorologie, D-20146 Hamburg, Germany
CSIRO Marine Research and Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems CRC, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia
Astrophysics and Geophysics Institute, University of Liege, B-4000 Liege, Belgium
Department of Meteorology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802-5013, USA
LOCEAN, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, F-75252 Paris, France
Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, D-27515 Bremerhaven, Germany
National Oceanography Centre Southampton, Southampton SO14 3ZH, UK
†Present addresses: Laboratoire d'Etudes en Géophysique et Océanographie Spatiales, UMR 5566 CNES-CNRS-IRD-UPS, F-31401 Toulouse, France (P.M.); AOS Program, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544-0710, USA (K.B.R.); The Met Office, Hadley Centre, FitzRoy Road, Exeter EX1 3PB, UK (I.J.T.)
Correspondence to: James C. Orr1 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to J.C.O. (Email: [email protected]).


Top of pageAbstract

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.

Okay either you don't read half of what you post, or you don't understand it..... Look at the bolded part and actually read it this time.....

Hmm, so going by the theory of CO2 ocean acidification, the coral and such like would be dead soon because of it... Correct? Good...

So then if the theory is correct coral should have died out or not even have evolved when they did, given the much higher levels of CO2 before....

See the problem? This sinking in yet?

Either the theory is off, or the claims of its effects on sea life are off so which is it?

 

[Old Rocks]

Off-Balance Ocean | Science & Technology | Chemical & Engineering News

Off-Balance Ocean
Acidification from absorbing atmospheric CO2 is changing the ocean's chemistry
Rachel Petkewich

PEOPLE CAN'T walk on water, but scientists say the carbon dioxide emitted by humans into the atmosphere has started to leave noticeable footprints on the ocean.


Justin Ries (both)
View Enlarged Image
Contrast Calcifying organisms, such as these sea urchins grown in seawater acidified with 400 ppm CO2 (left)&#8212;the current level in the ocean&#8212;produce spines that are truncated by dissolution when reared in seawater acidified with 2,850 ppm CO2 (right), an extreme level for lab tests. Numbered scale in centimetersScientists have been concerned for years that lower ocean pH caused by absorption of CO2 emissions could decrease calcification processes underlying the growth of shells and corals' hard exteriors. Besides studying that phenomenon, they are investigating how acidification alters the concentration and behavior of the ocean's trace metals, some of which are nutrients for marine life. They are also looking into some unexpected consequences of ocean acidification, such as disruptions to sound propagation and transmission of chemical cues. Some scientists believe the net effect of these and other yet undiscovered changes may threaten the survival of a wide variety of marine organisms.