Carnegie Researchers Say Geotech Can't Cure Ocean Acidification 248
CarnegieScience writes "Plans to stop global warming by 'geoengineering' the planet by putting aerosols in the atmosphere to block sunlight are controversial, to say the least. Scientists are now pointing out that even if it keeps the planet cool, it will do almost nothing to stop another major problem — ocean acidification. The ocean will keep on absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (making carbonic acid) and the water's pH will get too low for corals and other marine life to secrete skeletons. So this is another strike against a quick fix of our climate problems."
What Climate Problem? (Score:4, Funny)
I'm still using my will to suppress your evidence that global warming is a problem.
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I only have one thing to say----------
Giant ROLAIDS!
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They dump lime into whatever body of water they want to cure of acid rain problems.
The ocean is just a tad bigger though.
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No problem. The central US is all limestone, which was deposited the last time the oceans covered it. Let that dissolve, and you'll have saltier water with a decent pH. Where all the humans live in the meantime is the big issue. Where's Kevin Costner when we really need him?
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So you're telling us that yet another problem would be solved by nuking Florida?
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According to my layman's understanding of climate change theory, the energy comes from the sun. What your car is doing is emitting CO2 which builds up in the atmosphere. Because of the extra buildup of CO2 and other so-called "greenhouse gases" the energy that would normally leave the earth into space does so at a much slower pace, thus the average temperature of the earth is slowly increasing.
For more information: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=global+warming [lmgtfy.com]
Re:What Climate Problem? (Score:4, Informative)
Why can't my car use it?
Not a dumb question at all! :) You brought up one of the biggest misunderstandings of physics that is the basis for innumerable perpetual motion/free energy scams: the concept of heat as energy.
Yes, heat *is* energy. But you can't harvest it directly; you can only harvest heat from differences in temperature. Why? Entropy. A hot material is more "disordered" than a cold material. Hence, you harvest energy from heat alone, sure, you wouldn't be violating enthalpy, but you would be violating entropy. Entropy must always increase. Now, if you have a hot reservoir and a cold reservoir, you can harvest some energy from heat, so long as you increase the entropy of the cold reservoir more than the hot reservoir lost.
If this law of the universe didn't exist, perpetual motion would be possible. Picture a closed system where you have a "heat harvester" that produces electricity without a cold reservoir, surrounded by a working fluid. It then runs some electrical appliance. The waste heat from the electrical appliance goes back into the working fluid, where it's harnessed again to make more electricity by the "heat harvester". Ad infinitum. Perpetual motion. And entropy forbids it.
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A) Methane is fairly reactive, and doesn't last long in the atmosphere. CO2 is compartively stable.
B) The Greenhouse Effect isn't bad in itself. Without it, the Earth would be too cold, like Mars. Having too much of it, like Venus, is the bad thing.
Re:What Climate Problem? (Score:5, Informative)
As I understand it, methane is a bigger problem them CO2
You understand wrong. It is a large problem, but CO2 is larger by over threefold.
They tell us to not fart anymore.
Who, your roomate? Certainly not the scientific community. Most animal-based methane emissions come from ruminants. And not from "farting", but "belching" (the initial breakdown occurs in the rumen, and the bolus moves back and forth between the mouth and the rumen). "Farting" isn't even the second leading cause of ruminant methane emissions -- that goes to manure decomposition.
Livestock-sourced methane is only one significant anthropogenic component. Others include rice agriculture, peatland/wetlands development, the oil and gas industry, landfills, and biomass burning. Other significant human-sourced methane emissions, including ruminant raising, are nearly double those of natural emissions. Ruminants may be the largest single anthropogenic component, but they're less than a sixth of total human-sourced methane emissions.
And yet, when those monster Apatosaurus, including the popular, but obsolete synonym Brontosaurus roamed the earth. I dare say one herd/tribe/pod produced a much methane as all the cattle that currently populate the earth.
Little is known that could lead one to draw any conclusions about the large sauropods in terms of methane emissions. They weren't ruminants, although they did eat large quantities of plant matter. We don't know their herd size, and haven't even conclusively shown that herding behavior was significant for them. And more importantly, we don't know their total worldwide population. However, as large herbivores, one thing can be certain: they didn't have a particularly high global population density. It just wouldn't support them.
There are approximately 1 trillion cattle worldwide. This is just cattle -- not counting other ruminants. These average about 1.5 tons at adulthood. An adult apatosaurus is estimated to weigh about 30 tons. If we assume a weight equivalence, that's the equivalent of 50 billion apatosaurus. It is extremely unlikely that there were that many apatosaurus -- or even total sauropods. We support this much cattle mass cattle via modern intensive agriculture and research.
Furthermore, your notion is based on a premise -- that either the atmosphere is static or it's always changing harmlessly. But that's not the reality. The atmosphere has changed dramatically over history. Generally these changes are very slow; that's not a problem. It's when changes are rapid that there are problems. The last atmospheric change similar to what we're forcing nowadays was the PETM (Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum). The causes are still unknown, but one thing is known: over the course of hundreds or thousands of years (the blink of an eye by geologic standards), there was a CO2 and heat spike. This triggered a methane spike, which amplified the heat spike. The total warming input was approximately what we'll have locked in to if we continue the "business as usual" scenario through 2100. The results were dramatic and catastrophic. Entire ocean currents shifted. The climates of regions across the planet dramatically altered. Forests became plains became deserts became forests. The ocean became acidic, and most of the world's corals and carbonate-shelled plankton died, causing a massive upheaval in the oceanic food chains. The planet was left such a changed place that we give it a different name -- the Eocene.
Now, my question to you is this: do you really want to create the Anthropocene?
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Ack, sorry -- it's 2 billion cattle, not trillion. Either way, though -- cattle aren't the only ruminants, there weren't an equivalent number of sauropods, and the only reason we can support as many as we do is modern high-density agriculture.
I do My Part (Score:2)
By consuming copious amounts of beef, much to the consternation of my Dr.
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I corrected my post on the billion / trillion issue, but not soon enough, I see. But either way, the point still remains. There's no way the Earth supported 50 million saurupods, much less 50 million Apatosaurus.
If you eat plant matter, you produce methane, I have seen nothing to ever dispute this.
I eat plant matter. I produce a tiny fraction as much methane as a ruminant of the same mass. Ruminants produce so much methane because they have an anerobic digestion process.
150 million years ago there were
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Ack, again, I should proofread better: "because they have an anerobic fermentation process". :P
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Growing food for herbivores takes carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, at least. Well, unless you put more into it in the way of fossil fuels and fertilizer manufacturing than the plants take up anyway. Score one more for grazing cattle over corn-fed.
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Good job, sir! Very insightful.
There is a plummeting of amphibian populations from toxins. There is MTBE in breast milk (a rocket fuel additive). There are plenty of species about to go extinct from habitat destruction. There is plenty to worry about.
And this is the one of the main reasons I am opposed to the ClimateChange hoax. It diverts attention from these issues, and other serious ones like proper disposal of waste products from electronics, and agricultural run-off that is poisoning our bays and oceans. These are things that have effective solutions available. Instead the hucksters and the ignorant masses they have following them along are intent on using vast resources in a vain attempt to change the global clim
Re:What Climate Problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow. Your source is Bob Carter, one of about two dozen (out of the world's several thousand professional climatologists) who is a public skeptic. And actually, he's not really a climatologist; he's a paleonolotist -- but don't let that stop you.
FYI: 1998 was one of the strongest El Nino events in modern history. El Nino raises the atmosphere's temperature by slowing the upwelling of deep, cold water in the eastern pacific. La Nina cools it by just the opposite. It doesn't change the long-term picture, of course; the rate at which water cycles in the ocean has no bearing on how much total heat input there is into the system; ocean waters aren't magically decoupled from the rest of our atmosphere. It's just a source of white noise on top of the blatantly obvious signal [metoffice.gov.uk].
But don't let that stop you deniers from picking it as your starting point.
And, also FYI: only one of the three major global climate databases lists 1998 as the hottest. The other two list 2005 (they were close). But again, don't let that stop you.
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Bob Carter claims to be all sorts of things, I belive his basic education was in geology. He is from the "Institute of Public Affairs" who are basically anti-science lobbyists for the coal and other industries here in Oz.
Listening to his opinion on AGW is akin to listening to Ivan the Terrible's opinion on human rights.
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To be fair to the mas-media they just reprint the lobbyists press-releases because conflict makes a good story and the psuedo-skeptics keep inventing new names for their think tanks but most of them can be tracked back to the Heartland Institute. If you remeber the "tabacco scientists" from the 80's you will recognise some of the names (eg: Fred Singer). They are nothing more than proffesional lobbyists in lab coats. That is not to say there are no arguments about the
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In the southern hemisphere, a great many. Why do you ask?
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Not to troll here, but is that actually true? It is a fact that the poles have shifted many times over the Earth's history. Are we close to it happening again? The changing of the pole would screw up a lot of things. Is it an instant switch or does it take a few 100 or thousand years?
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Volcanoes (Score:4, Funny)
Good thing you thought of that - you should probably send them an email right away! You discovered the missing forcing that will keep our planet cool and our oceans pH balanced! Turns out that in all this freaking out about climate change, nobody who was even somewhat competent got involved at all.
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Thank you for so hilariously summing up the deniers in one simple post. ;)
Re:Volcanoes (Score:5, Informative)
Do these climate models take into account the fact that Volcanoes erupt from time to time, spewings tons of ash into the atmosphere, which reflects sunlight, and thereby cools the earth?
Yes. And it's not the ash that primarily reflects the sunlight; it's the SOx. And the cooling is only temporary. And volcanoes also emit CO2. But a small fraction as much as humans release.
And yes, volcanic ash is acidic.
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The amount of material eject by volcanoes is minuscule compared to what we put in the air, year after year.
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The average quantity of material ejected by volcanoes is small compared to human production, particularly when talking about greenhouse gases, which are long-term agents. Ash is a short-term agent, and volcanoes are well-known to produce their materials in short bursts. They can certainly cause dramatic short-term problems. In terms of greenhouse gas production, though, they are not a large force.
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It's volcanoes fault is a classic rationalize. There have been far worse volcanic episodes in the last flew million years without causing the spike we have seen in CO2. The increase in CO2 mirrors the onset of industrialization. Deal with it. In the short term acidification is probably a far worse problem than actual warming and ironically in the long run it's the most frightening. Also simply blocking sunlight seems like an extreme solution when we depend on the sun for food. The extreme end of that scale
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It's volcanoes fault is a classic rationalize. There have been far worse volcanic episodes in the last flew million years without causing the spike we have seen in CO2. The increase in CO2 mirrors the onset of industrialization. Deal with it. In the short term acidification is probably a far worse problem than actual warming and ironically in the long run it's the most frightening. Also simply blocking sunlight seems like an extreme solution when we depend on the sun for food. The extreme end of that scale is called night. Which is easier in the end, behaving responsibly or spending trillions of dollars on unproven techniques for undoing the damage we are doing? If we'd simply spend the money spent on avoiding the issues on actual solutions we could fix the problem. I recently heard that it will likely cost an additional trillion dollars for carbon sequestering so we can keep burning coal, a trillion dollars! And that's just an estimate since it's also unproven technology. Is it smarter to keep spending trillions of dollars on the status quo or to fix the problem once and for all?
That's a good argument, until you consider the fact that stopping the use of fossil fuels (and insisting that everybody live like serfs in the dark ages - except for the Lords like Al Gore, of course, who need jets) has no guarantee of actually fixing anything. All you're saying is that we should stop putting out CO2 (should we stop breathing, too?), because this might mitigate some possible effects of global climate change in the long run.
Frankly, rather than reducing the output of CO2 (which makes plant
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YES [google.com.au]. Look carefully and you will find that models usually assume one large eruption per decade. The predicted cooling from the models assumptions was remarkably acurate in the case of observations from Mt Pinatubo, furthermore those predictions came from a model created 20yrs ago!
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Humans! The leader in every field of industry!
Idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Why don't they use something to up the alkalinity of the ocean, like, crushed coral? Oh, wait...
Re:Idea (Score:5, Funny)
Wait... I have a better idea, lets engineer some sort of biological creature that will live off collecting the
carbon from our atmosphere and sequesting it into some sort of solid state. We should engineer it to be solar powered and
should be deployable over the entire surface of the earth.
Don't worry, I'm sure technology will save us by developing this totaly new and radical solution.
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It's only a matter of time before my submarine patent on trees makes me a rich man.
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And that is another reason why geotech sucks. Your nifty green solar powered device stops working after a while when the sunlight is blocked, or at least, isn't that efficient anymore.
straw man argument (Score:4, Interesting)
Geo-engineering may make people think that we can carry on as now with no sacrifices. This article tries to re-inject a sense of fear. Its like saying "OK so the vacuum cleaner is good at cleaning the floor. But does it paint the garage? No? Well back to cleaning the floor with a mop then"
Surely we deserve a more rational debate? Sacrifices are needed but sophistry will not persuade anyone.
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Geo-engineering may make people think that we can carry on as now with no sacrifices.
"A technical solution will always trump a political one." -Me
The reasoning behind this is that political solutions never really address the root core of the problem and usually does not change the fact that some people say they will go along with the compromise and then not do it after all.
With a technical solution, the involved parties are made moot because their participation is no longer needed for a solution.
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Geo-engineering may make people think that we can carry on as now with no sacrifices. This article tries to re-inject a sense of fear. Its like saying "OK so the vacuum cleaner is good at cleaning the floor. But does it paint the garage? No? Well back to cleaning the floor with a mop then"
Surely we deserve a more rational debate? Sacrifices are needed but sophistry will not persuade anyone.
Poor analogy. Unless I'm reading things incorrectly, tour analogy is trying to join 2 separate things (clean floors, painted garages) while their issue is trying to join 2 symptoms of the same problem.
If I'm reading it correctly: they're trying to use Geo-Engineering to solve one of the main concerns of greenhouse emissions: global warming. However the increased greenhouse emissions are also causing the acidity issue in the ocean due to the carbon in the atmosphere getting absorbed.
A better analogy might
Re:straw man argument (Score:5, Interesting)
Big financial and political interests have now come into play, rational public debate is out.
Stop global warming? (Score:2)
And miss out on the Brazilian ice wine [wattsupwiththat.com]?
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Germany - the origin of ice wine - produces plenty of that stuff.
It's a pity... (Score:3, Funny)
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You got off with a funny, just imagine somebody would have taken you serious.
I have the answer. (Score:5, Funny)
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Wait? Tums now have 33% more new flavor?!? Where do I sign up?
Global experiments with us as guinea pigs (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok, the whole solution of Geo-engineering is a WTF moment.
We did not understand the global bio-sphere to begin with so we are in the Global-Environment change state. Now we propose attacking the symptoms without a full understanding of the dynamics.
It is like we have are playing russian roulette here and we don't know how many chambers are loaded.
Look at most attempts to "fix" environmental problems by introducing others. The bio-sphere is just way more interconnected than we can account for.
The best solution is to reduce our foot-print as rapidly as we can. And make sure it stays that way.
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We did not understand the global bio-sphere to begin with so we are in the Global-Environment change state. Now we propose attacking the symptoms without a full understanding of the dynamics.
To be fair, once we start tinkering, we'll have a better understanding of what does what.
Its like those old 1960's films of the doctors who crack open patients skulls and put the electric prod onto spots of the brain saying "What does this do? How about now?"
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It's not that reducing our footprint is impossible, it's just how do you get a society to change their ways when the trappings of modern life built around comfort are so hard to escape? The difficulty will really be convincing peopl
You're just a dick (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't be a fool. There are obvious things that everyone can do to reduce pollution at a personal level.
40% of all car trips go less than 2 miles. Get a bike and use it when it makes sense.
Turn up your AC a few degrees. You'll use less energy.
Get a reusable shopping bag and stop using plastic ones.
It's not perfect, but it's much better than doing nothing. If I can do it, so can nearly everyone. If everyone did, we'd be in less trouble than we are now.
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Also, wait until you're older to have that one child.
A big part of the problem is also that when you live 80 years and have kids at 20, you have your kids, yourself, your parents at 40, your grandparents at 60, and your great-grandparents at 80 all alive at once.
If you're living to 80 and having kids at 15 each generation, that's your kids, you, your parents at 30, grandparents at 45, great-grandparents at 60, and great-great-grandparents at 75. Maybe even some great-great grandparents.
If, OTOH, you dial th
Here's An Idea (Score:3, Funny)
We could dump a bunch of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) into the ocean. It'll neutralize the acid and release... carbon dioxide. Crap! We're doomed.
Noone is enthustiastic about geoengineering (Score:3, Interesting)
Aerosols at best delay the rising temperatures. Perhaps we can come up with a temporary fix for the oceans, to tide us over until we can come up with a solution.
If this report [climatecongress.ku.dk] is correct, we'll need some quick hacks, because sustainable energy production has no chance to solve the problem on time.
Pffft! Who are you going to believe? (Score:5, Funny)
Micheal Crichton, whose best-selling techno-thriller disproved global warming hysteria with copious footnotes . . . or so called "scientists" working for a "university" producing "peer reviewed research?"
I tell you, these "facts" and "evidence" are trouble.
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how about the NASA PhD's who say the earth is already cooling again and CO2 concentrations lag 6 months behind temperature change, indicating the temperature change is causing the rise in CO2, not the other way around?
or the veritable explosion of dissenting climate scientists?
Go ahead, believe a self promoting politician ;) Of course the cooling is an even bigger problem than the warming because we won't be able to grow enough food within 20 years.
from http://www.drroyspencer.com/ [drroyspencer.com]
"The Central Question of C
Fish tripping their balls off? (Score:2)
Wow, I'm glad I misunderstood that title. I thought that all those fish in the ocean would get spaced out, and then start eating each other at an alarming rate. Then when they had depleted their own reserves, they would evolve and climb out onto land, looking for alternative food sources, like us!
I was also concerned that I'd better not enjoy a FishMac on my way back from work on my bicycle in Basel, Switzerland. The ride might have turned out to look like something out of "Yellow Submarine," being that
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jiggleitalittleit'llwiggle (Score:2)
Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry (Score:5, Insightful)
the ocean is a sort of buffer solution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffer_solution [wikipedia.org]
what is major component of this buffer? us. living critters and how they react to an increase in CO2
http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/SeaWiFS/TEACHERS/CHEMISTRY/ [nasa.gov]
which means the oceans will maintain their pH over a wide range of abuse and this notion of ocean acidification is hysteria
You're probably right. I'm sure what you remember from high school is a good reason to dismiss the Carnegie Melon research team's results.
you must be new here (Score:3, Insightful)
random trolls on slashdot always trump learned academics ;-)
your observation: (Score:2)
1. i am a troll
logical conclusions:
2. i am trolling when i say trolls trump academics on slashdot
3. therefore, the actual truth must be that academics trump trolls on slashdot
4. therefore, i must be offering the opinion of a learned academic when i say trolls trump academics
5. therefore, i must be a learned academic, and you must be a troll
6. therefore... i really should get back to work now
Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure what you remember from high school is a good reason to dismiss the Carnegie Melon research team's results.
I think the important thing to ask is, "Who paid for the study?"
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No, that's an Ad Hominem. The important thing to ask is, "Is the research scientifically sound?"
You're right, my reply was kind of ad hominem-ish.
But I think the notion of ad hominem is overly simplistic. I agree that the correctness of an argument is generally independent of who advances it. But most of us have limited time to consider a given issue, and we need to use our best judgment to decide whose arguments to consider, simply due to time constraints.
When given two arguments, one presented by a research team from a respected univeristy, and another from a guy who admits that he might be mis-re
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I was actually replying to the following idea:
I think the important thing to ask is, "Who paid for the study?"
This sort of reasoning is typically used to throw away useful results without properly analyzing the research. If the source of funding is affecting the results, then a peer-review of that research should turn up discrepancies.
On the other hand, believing an argument based on the authority of the person giving the argument isn't valid logic per se, but for everyday life, and general cases, its usually an effective short-cut. There are not enough hours in the d
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And yet someone has to fund the research. Climate change studies are expensive, since they usually require copious data-collection and analyzing a myriad factors. Those that fund the research always have a vested interest. Otherwise, why would they fund it? You simply can't use the source of funding as a yardstick for the validity of the research. It is best to analyze the science based on its merits. If it is poisoned, as you say, it will be easy to discredit.
It has been shown, scientifically, that C0
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It has been shown, scientifically, that C02 contributes to the greenhouse affect, that C02 levels have been rising due to industrialization, and that global temperature is positively correlated with that C02 level. That you consider me brainwashed for looking at the science says more about you than me.
Only because you look at the scientist more than the science. I found myself in association with some of climate change's most vigorous proponents (on a science level, not political) and no -- they have not shown that CO2 affects temperatures outside of correlation. Methane? Yes. CO2, no. When I read up on the disputations of the "you got it backward" argument that I suggest, there is a lot of fiddlefaddle that says "Ice coverage of the earth was more reflective, so when I make a new calculation, it fi
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If that is the case, then you are arguing against the research on scientific terms, which does not conflict with my original statement that the science is what matters, not the source of funding.
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Nonsense. Kids in grade 5 are performing experiments which confirm this effect. Here, you can try this one at home:
1. Obtain 2 glass jars, 2 thermometers, and a lamp.
2. Place thermometers inside jars, and place jars under the lamp (either with lid on, or upside-down).
3. After 20 minutes, check the temperature. Both readings should be identical.
4. Fill one jar with C02. After 20 m
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"Buffering will only slow down acidification, (Score:2)
not stop it"
which i already knew and doesn't refute anything i said
durrrr
Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry (Score:5, Insightful)
what is major component of this buffer? us. living critters and how they react to an increase in CO2
Wow! Amazing that all of those egghead boffins living in their ivory towers with their hoity-toity "science" missed that one! Thank you so much for pointing it out!
Except for the fact that most ocean life is not primarily constrained by CO2, but nutrients, especially iron. Whoops.
I never ceased to be amazed at people who insist that something must be wrong with the science on a subject when they haven't done even the most rudimentary amount to educate themselves on what the science of the subject actually is. You could at least start by reading the relevant sections of the IPCC technical reports [ucar.edu] to see what actually has been studied and how. I guarantee you, it's way, way more than you ever expected.
There's a reason why people go to college for years to get a degree in these fields. This isn't high school baking-soda-and-vinegar-volcanoes here. It's an incredibly complex science that you need a solid background in. At least spend a week reading peer-reviewed papers on the subject before you put fingers to keyboard. You're coming across like if someone who had never used a computer started talking about how programmers should make every piece of software be run by voice commands in spoken English sentences like "Could you open up the letter to my grandmother and edit out the part where I told her about my chihuahua?", and have the software figure out what you want it to do. You're broadcasting ignorance on the topic like a beacon.
academic research is cliquish (Score:4, Insightful)
it often follows dire preconceptions and focuses on hysterical predictions in spite of obvious mitigating factors, most notably time scale, that dull real implications. if you sound the alarm bell, you get press and you get funding. if you say something like "more CO2 will increase the pH of the ocean, but at such a tiny amount over such a giant span of time, it doesn't make any sense to worry about it right now" then you won't make the slashdot front page. its "the emperor's new clothes" writ large. good science and good education is being done by climate researchers all over the globe... and also a pretty heavy dose of indoctrination and mythology making
i believe global warming is a real force and we need to do something about it. but i'm hard pressed to worry about corals disappearing in an acid ocean on any time scale that is supposed to mean something
if we are going to mitigate mankind's effects, we need to lose the hysteria
Re:academic research is cliquish (Score:4, Informative)
if you sound the alarm bell, you get press and you get funding.
Just the opposite. Any scientist willing to deny global warming has an automatic lucrative job lined up for them in the oil, gas, and coal industries. Period. And extensive press coverage to boot. There are about two dozen (out of the world's several thousand professional climatologists) who deny global warming. They get almost as much coverage as the rest of them combined.
You don't make a name for yourself in the scientific community by simply repeating what others have said; you make a name for yourself by saying the opposite. And frankly, I'm sick and tired of every scientist in the world being accused of caring more about grants than funding, and the notion that the world's peer-review processes are a giant conspiracy.
i believe global warming is a real force and we need to do something about it. but i'm hard pressed to worry about corals disappearing in an acid ocean on any time scale that is supposed to mean something
Read about the PETM [wikipedia.org]. It's happened before. We're doing it again.
And again, it doesn't matter what you *believe*; it matters what peer-reviewed science says. It's not a matter of belief. It's a matter of empirical data. We have models, field data, lab data, and historical data all saying the exact same thing about ocean acidification. You can deny it until you're blue in the face, but that won't change the facts.
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To be more accurate, it doesn't matter what you *believe,* it's what's actually happening, and only the empirical data can tell you that.
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It wasn't a cite. It was "don't make me have to explain everything about it" insta-link. I didn't want to have to spend a long time digging up a better backgrounder.
You can tell that I didn't spend a lot of time on it because apparently I linked to a redirect.
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Pardon me sir/madam, your facts are not welcome here. You must take your hysteria-free reasoning and go call a right-wing talk show or something.
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the ocean is a sort of buffer solution
If there's one thing I've learned about buffers, it's that they have limits and will not keep the pH the same if you dump in too much acid.
If you'll excuse me, the stumps where my hands used to be are needing new bandages after all this typing.
Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry (Score:5, Informative)
Remember the lab where you had to determine the concentration of a buffer in solution that had pH-sensitive dyes in it?
And how you could pipette huge amounts of an acid (or base) into the solution without a notable change in pH? But then you add one more drop and *presto* your solution was now purple (or orange, etc)? And with each drop added after that, there was no buffering effect?
Buffer systems in the ocean are like that, though more complex.
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(1) it doesn't invalidate your point, and
(2) it doesn't need to be said
Your claim was that biological buffers are sufficient to dismiss concerns of acidification. This claim must be qualified by examination of the limits of the buffering systems, and the inputs created that could overwhelm those limits.
Your gross oversimplification of "it's buffered, we don't need to worry about it for some value of abuse $x" is insufficient, since we do not know what the limi
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Oh, the ocean is very well buffered. There's no shortage of carbonate.
But the timescale of the buffering is way, way, way slower than the timescale with which the extra CO2 is going into the ocean.
So, over a couple million years, no big deal.
But over 100-500 years? Kind of a big deal.
absolutely (Score:3, Informative)
eutrophication seems to be a much more worrisome human-created force than rising CO2 levels, at least when it comes to the health of ocean ecosystems
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eutrophication [wikipedia.org]
but since its been known about for awhile, you can't generate headlines and hysteria and funding with dire predictions. the effects are real and sobering with eutrophication, and deserve far more study and mitigation than the notion of rising CO2 levels in the oceans on the timescales involved, that's for sure
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I'm in oceanography research, and I've seen a number of talks now talking about changing pH in the oceans.
Maybe you can answer a question for me then.
According to wikipedia, the Great Barrier Reef of Australia dates back maybe 600,000 years.
During the last 600,000 years there has been some significant climate change, way more radical than what we have been experiencing with the whole 'global warming' thing. There was an ice age, what? 20,000 years ago?
So my question is, do we have any evidence of historical ocean acidification and if so what impact did it have on the reefs at the time? Because OBVIOUSLY they ha
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I don't see anyone, even the ones hollering about global warming, ceasing transportation activities that involve burning stuff and releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere
Well, the ones that DO get dismissed as dirty hippies, and then you stop looking at them.
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It's going to take a mass shift to telecommuting by any company that has people sitting in chairs most of the time
Most people don't do their jobs sitting in a chair. It would be pretty hard for a construction worker, barber, sales clerk, chef, mechanic, etc to telecommute.
What we need isn't to stop traveling, we need to develop technologies that allow travel without ruining the environment.
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Don't worry, if the projections are right then nature will take care of us pesky humans if we don't get around to it first.
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"North America"
Hey, they said the oceans were gonna rise, right? So all that limestone sediment in the Mississippi drainage basin goes back into the sea, and the corals are fine. The humans get kinda screwed, though.
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Lots of minerals are already being deposited into the oceans from the very natural and rather unstoppable run off from the land.
These minerals are not carried away by evaporation and thus stay locked in the ocean, which means that slowly and inexorably the salinity of the ocean is increasing, with or without human intervention.
Or are we not suppose to mention completely natural changes in the environment that will change an ecosystem?
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Dumping fertilizer into the sea would also work to absorb CO2 by promoting the growth of sea plant life.
But any of these more biological solutions aren't really as easy as they first appear. Some forests produce large amounts of methane due to rotting plant material. In otherwords, some forests might actually just be greenhouse gas neutral (which makes sense, ecosystems work because they don't mess stuff up).
So yea. Capping emissions is a good idea.
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Dumping fertilizer into the sea would also work to absorb CO2 by promoting the growth of sea plant life.
Which leads to algal blooms, which prevent sunlight from reaching submerged aquatic vegetation, which leads to plant die-off which leads to lack of oxygen production, which leads to fish kills. Look up submerged aquatic vegetation (SAVs) in the chesapeake bay for examples of this happening (and excessive oyster dredging).
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All these experiments are desperate attempts to keep our own species going for a few more millenia.
To paraphrase the late George Carlin: The Earth doesn't give a shit!
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We constantly change the climate around us 24/7 what with air conditioners and space heaters all over the world. This seems to be doing the same at a very large scale.
Every species, no matter how tiny has a profound effect on the atmosphere around it, this will i
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What could possibly go wrong dumping sodium and potassium into the ocean? Who cares! What could go awesome? Everything about it!
We need to start on this plan now.
What removes carbon from the ocean? (Score:2)
It occurs to me that throughout earth's entire life, there's been a process of the ocean absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. Some living thing in the ocean must extract that carbon and fixate it somehow? Is there any reason that whatever is responsible for that process won't continue to do so?
From my high school and college freshman biology classes, I seem to recall a principle of equilibrium - that whenever something, like a particular nutrient or food source becomes more abundant, it will cause whatever