Oceans Cool the Climate More Than We Thought, Study Finds (uea.ac.uk) 26
"Polar oceans constitute emission hotspots during the summer," according to a new paper published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Science Advances. "And including those sea-to-air fluxes in an atmospheric chemistry-climate model "results in a net radiative effect that has far-reaching implications."
The research was led by a team of scientists from Spain's Institute of Marine Sciences and the Blas Cabrera Institute of Physical Chemistry, according to an announcement from the UK's University of East Anglia: Researchers have quantified for the first time the global emissions of a sulfur gas produced by marine life, revealing it cools the climate more than previously thought, especially over the Southern Ocean. The study, published in the journal Science Advances, shows that the oceans not only capture and redistribute the sun's heat, but produce gases that make particles with immediate climatic effects, for example through the brightening of clouds that reflect this heat.
It broadens the climatic impact of marine sulfur because it adds a new compound, methanethiol, that had previously gone unnoticed. Researchers only detected the gas recently, because it used to be notoriously hard to measure and earlier work focussed on warmer oceans, whereas the polar oceans are the emission hotspots...
Their findings represent a major advance on one of the most groundbreaking theories proposed 40 years ago about the role of the ocean in regulating the Earth's climate. This suggested that microscopic plankton living on the surface of the seas produce sulfur in the form of a gas, dimethyl sulphide, that once in the atmosphere, oxidizes and forms small particles called aerosols. Aerosols reflect part of the solar radiation back into space and therefore reduce the heat retained by the Earth. Their cooling effect is magnified when they become involved in making clouds, with an effect opposite to, but of the same magnitude as, that of the well-known warming greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide or methane. The researchers argue that this new work improves our understanding of how the climate of the planet is regulated by adding a previously overlooked component and illustrates the crucial importance of sulfur aerosols. They also highlight the magnitude of the impact of human activity on the climate and that the planet will continue to warm if no action is taken.
The article includes this quote from one of the study's lead authors (Dr. Charel Wohl from the university's Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences). "Climate models have greatly overestimated the solar radiation actually reaching the Southern Ocean, largely because they are not capable of correctly simulating clouds. The work done here partially closes the longstanding knowledge gap between models and observations."
And the university's announcement argues that "With this discovery, scientists can now represent the climate more accurately in models that are used to make predictions of +1.5 degrees C or +2 degrees C warming, a huge contribution to policy making."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the news.
The research was led by a team of scientists from Spain's Institute of Marine Sciences and the Blas Cabrera Institute of Physical Chemistry, according to an announcement from the UK's University of East Anglia: Researchers have quantified for the first time the global emissions of a sulfur gas produced by marine life, revealing it cools the climate more than previously thought, especially over the Southern Ocean. The study, published in the journal Science Advances, shows that the oceans not only capture and redistribute the sun's heat, but produce gases that make particles with immediate climatic effects, for example through the brightening of clouds that reflect this heat.
It broadens the climatic impact of marine sulfur because it adds a new compound, methanethiol, that had previously gone unnoticed. Researchers only detected the gas recently, because it used to be notoriously hard to measure and earlier work focussed on warmer oceans, whereas the polar oceans are the emission hotspots...
Their findings represent a major advance on one of the most groundbreaking theories proposed 40 years ago about the role of the ocean in regulating the Earth's climate. This suggested that microscopic plankton living on the surface of the seas produce sulfur in the form of a gas, dimethyl sulphide, that once in the atmosphere, oxidizes and forms small particles called aerosols. Aerosols reflect part of the solar radiation back into space and therefore reduce the heat retained by the Earth. Their cooling effect is magnified when they become involved in making clouds, with an effect opposite to, but of the same magnitude as, that of the well-known warming greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide or methane. The researchers argue that this new work improves our understanding of how the climate of the planet is regulated by adding a previously overlooked component and illustrates the crucial importance of sulfur aerosols. They also highlight the magnitude of the impact of human activity on the climate and that the planet will continue to warm if no action is taken.
The article includes this quote from one of the study's lead authors (Dr. Charel Wohl from the university's Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences). "Climate models have greatly overestimated the solar radiation actually reaching the Southern Ocean, largely because they are not capable of correctly simulating clouds. The work done here partially closes the longstanding knowledge gap between models and observations."
And the university's announcement argues that "With this discovery, scientists can now represent the climate more accurately in models that are used to make predictions of +1.5 degrees C or +2 degrees C warming, a huge contribution to policy making."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the news.
Plankton live off Co2 (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
So more Co2 means more global cooling
Looks like this guy [youtu.be] is already on it. He modified a Tesla to help the oceans cool the planet.
Re: Plankton live off Co2 (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There's also the other slightly important, teeny little detail - ocean acidification, which is directly, promptly and very simply controlled by the CO2 level in the atmosphere because it's nothing more than a chemical equilibrium reaction. More co2 equals lower ocean pH, until the diatoms can't grow their little calcium shells (because th
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, like incentivizing employers to allow working from home, so people drive around less.
And fly less too, where applicable.
Why not both? (Score:2)
Improving climate models and improving energy sources to produce less carbon dioxide are not mutually exclusive activities. We can do both.
Re: (Score:2)
That would be nice. Sadly, the biggest emitters just do more hand-ringing, finger pointing and bomb making instead.
Re: (Score:2)
The real question is why we spend all this money on determining for policy makers how much worse its going to get instead of doing something to prevent it.
Asking this question shows you are both ignorant, and also don't know how to write what you mean.
You are ignorant because you've ignored the tremendous effort we've spent on doing something to prevent it. Such as, better insulation, better car efficiency, solar panels, etc. A lot has been done.
You don't know how to write what you mean, because what you really meant was, "Why hasn't the problem been solved yet?" The problem hasn't been solved yet because it's a hard problem.
Re: (Score:2)
Such as, better insulation, better car efficiency, solar panels, etc.
We have been working on "better insulation" for 50 years. I ran neighborhood energy workshops for the city of Minneapolis in the early 1980's.These were block by block programs of home energy audits combined with basic weatherizing training and materials for residents.
We have also been working on "better car efficiency" for just as long. The first federal car efficiency standards went into effect in 1978.
A lot has been done.
And a lot hasn't been, so new annual emissions have continued to increase. At the pace we're going the
Re: (Score:2)
we need real action to reduce emissions.
Like transferring funds to developing countries to compensate them for the damage that carbon emitters cause. Oh, wait. The biggest carbon emitters are also claiming status as developing countries. So, what does that mean? They are going to move money from one of their pockets to another and carry on burning coal as usual?
It's just a giant wealth transfer scheme.
Re: (Score:2)
Why do scientists keep "refining" their climate models that already work so well they are beyond questioning?
The quoted error bars on the (global) climate sensitivity to carbon dioxide emissions are currently ±50%. If you want to know why scientists are "refining" their climate models, the reason is that this is to reduce this uncertainty.
This particular work, if you read the article [science.org] carefully, is making a better model of the radiative balance of the southern ocean, between 40S and 70S, during the summer (the effect drops to nearly zero in other seasons).
The adjustment makes almost no change in the global pic
Re:Climate models are inaccurate? What a shock (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do scientists keep "refining" their climate models that already work so well they are beyond questioning?
The climate models are good enough to tell us where we are going... but not yet good enough to say when we are going to get there.
How far out is a specific change event? 20 years? 50 years? 100 years? It doesn't matter overall -but it will make a difference to those alive at the time.
Other than that... because SCIENCE! It's what scientists do -they refine their work to get better and better and better results.
Re: (Score:2)
Other than that... because SCIENCE! It's what scientists do -they refine their work to get better and better and better results.
I think you have it backwards. "because SCIENCE! It's what scientists do -they refine their work to get better and better and better results. Other than that... "
There is nothing wrong with that. But we need to stop pretending that better science necessarily has any immediate utility toward accomplishing our climate goals in the next 25 years. Or that it is helpful to refine climate goals we are already going to miss by a very wide margin. The problems that need to be solved aren't scientific, they are p
Re: (Score:2)
Why do we keep improving anything?
Plankton (Score:2)
Methanethiol (Score:2)
Who would have thought? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Global warming predictions are failing, so we're going back to the global cooling hypothesis in short order here.
Global warming predictions are not failing. The actual temperatures are very close to the predictions of models.
https://www.science.org/conten... [science.org]
https://science.feedback.org/r... [feedback.org]
https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]