Oceans Turning Acidic Faster than Past 300 Million Years

"The oceans are becoming more acidic faster than they have in the past 300 million years, a period that includes four mass extinctions, researchers have found.

Then, as is happening now, increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere warmed the planet and made the oceans more acidic. These changes are associated with major shifts in climate and mass extinctions.

But while past increases in the atmosphere's carbon dioxide levels resulted from volcanoes and other natural causes, today that spike is due to human activities, the scientists note.

"What we're doing today really stands out," lead researcher Bärbel Hönisch, a paleoceanographer at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said in a news release. "We know that life during past ocean acidification events was not wiped out — new species evolved to replace those that died off. But if industrial carbon emissions continue at the current pace, we may lose organisms we care about — coral reefs, oysters, salmon." [Humans Causing 6th Mass Extinction]

As the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases, oceans absorb that carbon dioxide, which turns into a carbon acid. As a result the pH — a measure of acidity — drops, meaning the water has become more acidic. This dissolves the carbonates needed by some organisms, like corals, oysters or the tiny snails salmon eat.

In their review, published Thursday (March 1) in the journal Science, Hönisch and colleagues found the closest modern parallel about 56 millions ago in what is called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, when atmospheric carbon concentrations doubled, pushing up global temperatures. Extinctions in the deep sea accompanied this shift. (The PETM occurred about 9 million years after the dinosaurs went extinct.)

But, now, the ocean is acidifying at least 10 times faster than it did 56 million years ago, according to Hönisch.

Ocean acidification may also have occurred when volcanoes pumped massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the air 252 million years ago, at the end of the Permian period, and 201 million years ago, at the end of the Triassic period, they found. Both are associated with mass extinctions.

"The current rate of (mainly fossil fuel) carbon dioxide release stands out as capable of driving a combination and magnitude of ocean geochemical changes potentially unparalleled in at least the last 300 million years of Earth history, raising the possibility that we are entering an unknown territory of marine ecosystem change," the researchers conclude in their paper."

http://www.livescience.com/18786-ocean-acidification-extinction.html

Hmmmmmmmmm............

 

Good information. Thanks. Ocean acidification is another negative aspect of the burning of fossil fuels that the fossil fuel industry sponsored 'cult of denial' prefers to ignore and/or reject, along with all of the effects of the current abrupt global warming and fast climate changes that are also being driven by the excess carbon dioxide we've burned into the atmosphere. The evidence is clear, the enormous amounts of data the scientists have gathered about both the current ocean acidification and some of the prior natural periods of acidification all indicate that our world is headed for some serious ecological disasters that may once again result in mass extinctions of a wide variety of marine life, as some much slower but somewhat similar natural acidification events have in the past. This acidification is one more thing that will very probably seriously diminish mankind's ability to feed the world population with seafood protein in the coming decades and centuries.

I am not surprised that the denier cultists are staying away from this thread. This is some scary stuff for anyone who can understand what the scientists are saying so it's a lot more comfortable for some folks to just keep their heads in the sand. Also this acidification event is a lot less complex than the whole anthropogenic global warming/climate changes issue and so it is harder for them to even try to realistically counter the scientific evidence ('though they do try, of course, in a sort of scientifically illiterate way, citing denier cult blogs or Rush). The pH in the world's oceans has gone down a bit overall and you can't really argue with those simple measurements. Evidence of the early effects on certain types of marine organisms is already being studied by the marine biologists. These effects will get worse and then the whole thing will start to snowball as critical parts of the marine food chains disappear. No one really knows just how this will work out but the evidence of other past extinctions triggered by rising CO2 levels paints a grim picture of our future as Earth's CO2 levels continue to rapidly climb, driven by our current planetary addiction to the incessant burning every year of millions of years worth of naturally sequestered carbon now in the form of oil, coal and natural gas.

I think our world is in for a very rough ride and I fear for our children and grandchildren and the generations to come (hopefully 'to come', unless we really screw it up, in which case the human race itself may end up being one of the tragically ironic casualties of the looming Great Anthropocene Extinction Event).

 

Obviously, AGW is an impossible sell, so the same people are shifting gears and going to "ocean acidification."

Same villain - anthropogenic carbon dioxide.
Same remedy - drastically greater regulation and taxation of the US.

Since nothing has really changed, the result will be the same: People will reject it and science gets another loss of credibility.

Your keep trying to sell the same hogwash under a different label and think people don't notice. Why on earth would you expect a different result?

 

Good. An acid bath in the ocean wouldn't be to bad once a year. It'll be a huge tourist draw. The dead whales bloating on the beach, their skin eaten away by caustic acids. Can't wait to see it.

Right after the world ends.

 

Yet is shown in past proxy data that increases in CO2 follow temperature rise, which makes sense since warmer water holds less CO2 than cooler water and it will out gas from water as it warms. So during that Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, which came first, temperature or CO2?

 

LOLOLOLOLOL....still completely lost in rightwingnut denier cult fantasyland, I see. The myths you people swallow cut you off from reality and rest of the world.

Here's a good indication of just how "impossible" it actually is to "sell AGW in the real world as opposed to the 'world' inside your deranged denier cult echo chamber. This is an older and only partial list. The consensus in the world scientific community and among national and business leaders is even stronger now.

Specifically, the consensus about anthropogenic climate change centers on the these points:
1. The climate is undergoing a pronounced warming trend beyond the range of natural variability
2. The major cause of most of the observed warming is rising levels of the greenhouse gas CO2
3. The rise in CO2 is the result of burning fossil fuels
4. If CO2 continues to rise over the next century, the warming will continue and the world's climate patterns will change drastically
5. A climate change of the projected magnitude over this time frame represents potential danger to human welfare and the environment

These conclusions have been explicitly endorsed by:
Academia Brasiliera de Ciências (Bazil)
Royal Society of Canada
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Academié des Sciences (France)
Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina (Germany)
Indian National Science Academy
Accademia dei Lincei (Italy)
Science Council of Japan
Russian Academy of Sciences
Royal Society (United Kingdom)
National Academy of Sciences (United States of America)
Australian Academy of Sciences
Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and the Arts
Caribbean Academy of Sciences
Indonesian Academy of Sciences
Royal Irish Academy
Academy of Sciences Malaysia
Academy Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

In addition to these national academies, the following institutions specializing in climate, atmosphere, ocean, and/or earth sciences have endorsed these conclusions:
NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS)
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
National Academy of Sciences (NAS)
State of the Canadian Cryosphere (SOCC)
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Royal Society of the United Kingdom (RS)
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
American Institute of Physics (AIP)
National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)
American Meteorological Society (AMS)
Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS)

These organizations also agree with the consensus:
The Earth Institute at Columbia University
Northwestern University
University of Akureyri
University of Iceland
Iceland GeoSurvey
National Centre for Atmospheric Science UK
Climate Group
Climate Institute
Climate Trust
Wuppertal Institute for Climate Environment and Energy
Royal Meteorological Society
Community Research and Development Centre Nigeria
Geological Society of London
Geological Society of America
UK Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment
Pew Center on Global Climate Change
American Association for the Advancement of Science
National Research Council
Juelich Research Centre
US White House
US Council on Environmental Quality
US Office of Science Technology Policy
US National Climatic Data Center
US Department of Commerce
US National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service
The National Academy of Engineering
The Institute of Medicine
UK Natural Environment Research Council
Office of Science and Technology Policy
Council on Environmental Quality
National Economic Council
Office of Management and Budget
The National Academy of Engineering
The Institute of Medicine
UK Natural Environment Research Council
Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology
Engineers Australia
American Chemical Society
American Association of Blacks in Energy
World Petroleum Council
The Weather Channel
National Geographic

The following companies agree with the consensus:
ABB
Air France
Alcan
Alcoa
Allian
American Electric Power
Aristeia Capital
BASF
Bayer
BP America Inc.
Calvert Group
Canadian Electricity Association
Caterpilliar Inc.
Centrica
Ceres
Chevron
China Renewable
Citigroup
ConocoPhillips
Covanta Holding Corporation
Deutsche Telekom
Doosan Babcock Energy Limited
Duke Energy
DuPont
EcoSecurities
Electricity de France North America
Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand
Endesa
Energettech Austraila Pty Ltd
Energy East Corporation
Energy Holding Romania
Energy Industry Association
Eni
Eskorn
ETG International
Exelon Corporation
ExxonMobil
F&C Asset Management
FPL Group
General Electric
German Electricity Association
Glitnir Bank
Global Energy Network Institute, Iberdrola
ING Group
Institute for Global Environmental Strategies
Interface Inc.
International Gas Union
International Paper
International Power
Marsh & McLennan Companies
Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company
MEDIAS-France
MissionPoint Capital Partners
Munich Re
National Grid
National Power Company of Iceland
NGEN mgt II, LLC
NiSource
NRG Energy
PG&E Corporation
PNM Resources
Reykjavik Energy
Ricoh
Rio Tinto Energy Services
Rockefeller Brothers Fund
Rolls-Royce
Societe Generale de Surveillance (SGS Group)
Stora Enso North America
Stratus Consulting
Sun Management Institute
Swiss Re
UCG Partnership
US Geothermal
Verde Venture Partners
Volvo

In addition, the scientific consensus is also endorsed by the CEO's of the following companies:
A. O. Smith Corporation
Abbott Laboratories
Accenture Ltd.
ACE Limited
ADP
Aetna Inc.
Air Products and Chemicals, Inc.
AK Steel Corporation
Alcatel-Lucent
Allstate Insurance Company
ALLTEL Corporation
Altec Industries, Inc.
American Electric Power Company, Inc.
American Express Company
American International Group, Inc.
Ameriprise Financial
AMR Corporation/American Airlines
Anadarko Petroleum Corporation
Apache Corporation
Applera Corporation
Arch Coal, Inc.
Archer Daniels Midland Company
ArvinMeritor, Inc.
AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP
Avery Dennison Corporation
Avis Budget Group, Inc.
Bechtel Group, Inc.
BNSF Railway
Boeing Company
Brink's Company CA
Carlson Companies, Inc.
Case New Holland Inc.
Ceridian Corporation
Chemtura Corporation
Chubb Corporation
CIGNA Corporation
Coca-Cola Company
Constellation Energy Group, Inc.
Convergys Corporation
Con-way Incorporated
Corning Incorporated
Crane Co.
CSX Corporation
Cummins Inc.
Deere & Company
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu
Delphi Corporation
Dow Chemical Company
Eastman Chemical Company
Eastman Kodak Company
Eaton Corporation
EDS
Eli Lilly and Company
EMC Corporation
Ernst & Young, L.L.P.
Fannie Mae
FedEx Corporation
Fluor Corporation
FMC Corporation
Freddie Mac
General Mills, Inc.
General Motors Corporation
Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.
Goodrich Corporation
Harman International Industries, Inc.
Hartford Financial Services Group
Home Depot, Inc., The
Honeywell International, Inc.
HSBC - North America
Humana Inc.
IBM Corporation
Ingersoll-Rand Company
International Textile Group
ITT Corporation
Johnson Controls, Inc.
JP Morgan Chase & Co.
KPMG LLP
Liberty Mutual Group
MassMutual
MasterCard Incorporated
McGraw-Hill Companies
McKesson Corporation
MeadWestvaco Corporation
Medco Health Solutions, Inc.
Merck & Co., Inc.
Merrill Lynch & Company, Inc.
MetLife, Inc.
Morgan Stanley
Motorola, Inc.
Nasdaq Stock Market, Inc.
National Gypsum Company
Nationwide
Navistar International Corporation
New York Life Insurance Company
Norfolk Southern Corporation
Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company
Nucor Corporation
NYSE Group, Inc.
Office Depot, Inc.
Owens Corning (Reorganized) Inc.
Pactiv Corporation
Peabody Energy Corporation
Pfizer Inc
PPG Industries, Inc.
Praxair, Inc.
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP
Principal Financial Group
Procter & Gamble Company
Prudential Financial
Realogy Corporation
Rockwell Automation, Inc.
Ryder System, Inc.
SAP America, Inc.
Sara Lee Corporation
SAS Institute Inc.
Schering-Plough Corporation
Schneider National, Inc.
ServiceMaster Company
Siemens Corporation
Southern Company
Springs Global US, Inc.
Sprint Nextel
St. Paul Travelers Companies, Inc.
State Farm Insurance Companies
Tenneco
Texas Instruments Incorporated
Textron Incorporated
Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.
TIAA-CREF
Tyco Electronics
Tyco International Ltd.
Union Pacific Corporation
Unisys Corporation
United Technologies Corporation
UnitedHealth Group Incorporated
USG Corporation
Verizon Communications
W.W. Grainger, Inc.
Western & Southern Financial Group
Weyerhaeuser Company
Whirlpool Corporation
Williams Companies, Inc.
Xerox Corporation
YRC Worldwide Inc

 

Well, yeah.

Anybody who has figured an angle to make money off AGW or acidification will agree with it. Simple greed.

But the consumer gets hosed.

 

That's one of the silliest and most insane conspiracy theories I've ever heard. You actually imagine that all of those science organizations and universities are just "agreeing" with the science because they "figured an angle to make money off AGW or acidification"???

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL.......tooooo funny, dude...

 

I can tell you for a fact that most of those companies, including a couple of global companies I have worked for in the list, will jump on all of the PC bandwagons so not to get any attention from someone they don't want, either their competition or government.

 

ummm ... you do realise that it is one of the EFFECTS of increasing CO2 that was predicted?

do try to keep up.

 

your definition of fact is somewhat questionable based on your posts here, so I don't think you will find well informed people putting much credence in this claim.

 

For those who may be interested in getting more information about increasing acidification and increasing atmospheric CO2 levels, this article by the Royal Society is quite informative:

http://www.scar.org/articles/Ocean_Acidification(1).pdf

 

A conspiracy theory needs a conspiracy.

The fact that companies that can make a buck off some crackpot government program is gonna favor that program. Not a conspiracy, just simple straightforward human greed.

GE has made beaucoup money off Obama's crackpot schemes, so they favor those schemes.

Meanwhile the consumer gets hosed.

 

someone who is as paranoid about governments as you are would be better off living in the dark ages under the divine right of kings.

 

As is your defintion of predictions. When AGW predicts every possible option than, bingo, it's verified.

I read the article. It gives no information on how they "scientists" arrived at their conclusions so it's a "trust me" scenario. I'm afraid there has been far too much lying, fraud, and political shenanigans for me to trust. so, it's back to verify. Oh, wait, the alarmist don't release data. Nevermind, we can't really verify, can we.

 

you confuse science with politics.

education can help you overcome this impediment.

 

Kings had too much coercive power.

 

What??????
"Ainsworth E A & Long S P (2005). What have we learned
from 15 years of free-air CO2 enrichment (FACE)? A metaanalytic
review of the responses of photosynthesis,
canopy properties and plant production to rising CO2.

New Phytologist 165, 351–372
Anderson D M & Archer D (2002). Glacial-interglacial
stability of ocean pH inferred from foraminifer dissolution
rates. Nature 416, 70–73

Arp G, Reimer A & Reitner J (2001). Photosynthesisinduced
biofilm calcification and calcium concentrations
in Phanerozoic oceans. Science 292, 1701–1704

Banta G T, Giblin A E, Hobbie J E & Tucker J (1995).
Benthic respiration and nitrogen release in Buzzards Bay,
Massachusetts. Journal Marine Research 53, 107–135
Barker S & Elderfield H (2002). Foraminiferal calcification
response to glacial-interglacial changes in atmospheric
CO2. Science 297, 833–836

Barnes R S K & Hughes R N (198. An introduction to
marine ecology. Blackwell Scientific Publications: Oxford
Beardall J & Raven J A (2004). The potential effects of
global climate change in microalgal photosynthesis,
growth and ecology. Phycologia 43, 31–45

Beer S, Bjork M, Hellblom F & Axelsson L (2002). Inorganic
carbon utilization in marine angiosperms (seagrasses).
Functional Plant Biology 29, 237–240

Bergman N M, Lenton T M & Watson A J (2004). COPSE: a
new model of biogeochemical cycling over Phanerozoic
time. American Journal of Science 304, 397–437

Berner E K & Berner R A (1996). Global Environment.
Water, Air and Geochemical Cycles. Prentice Hall: Upper
Saddle River, New Jersey
Berner R A (1994). Geocarb-II - a revised model of
atmospheric CO2 over Phanerozoic time. American
Journal of Science 294, 56–91

Berry L, Taylor A R, Lucken U, Ryan K P & Brownlee C
(2002). Calcification and inorganic carbon acquisition in
coccolithophores. Functional Plant Biology 29, 289–299

Bijma J, Spero H J & Lea D W (1999). Reassessing
foraminiferal stable isotope geochemistry: Impact of the
oceanic carbonate system (experimental results). In Use of
proxies in paleoceanography: examples from the south
Atlantic (eds Fischer G & Wefer G) 489–512. Springer-
Verlag: Berlin, Heidelberg

Bijma J, Hönisch B & Zeebe R E (2002). Impact of the
ocean carbonate chemistry on living foraminiferal shell
weight: comment on ‘Carbonate ion concentration in
glacial-age deep waters of the Caribbean Sea’ by
Broecker W S & Clark E - art no 1064. Geochemistry
Geophysics Geosystems 3, 1064–1064

Booth C E, McDonald D G & Walsh P J (1984). Acid-base
balance in the sea mussel Mytilus edulis. I. Effects of
hypoxia and air-exposure on haemolymph acid-base
status. Marine Biology Letters 5, 347–358

Bopp L, Aumont O, Belviso S & Monfray P (2003).
Potential impact of climate change on marine dimethyl
sulfide emissions. Tellus 55B, 11–22

Boyd P W, Watson A J, Law C S, Abraham E R, Trull T,
Murdoch R, Bakker D C E, Bowie A R, Buesseler K O,
Chang H, Charette M, Croot P, Downing K, Frew R, Gall
M, Hadfield M, Hall J, Harvey M, Jameson G, LaRoche J,
Liddicoat M, Ling R, Maldonado M T, McKay R M, Nodder
S, Pickmere S, Pridmore R, Rintoul S, Safi K, Sutton P,
Strzepek R, Tanneberger K, Turner S, Waite A, & Zeldis J
(2000). A mesoscale phytoplankton bloom in the polar
Southern Ocean stimulated by iron fertilization. Nature
407, 695–702

Boyd P & Doney S C (2003). The impact of climate change
and feedback process on ocean carbon cycle. Ocean
Biogeochemistry: In Ocean Biogeochemistry: the role of the
ocean carbon cycle in global change (ed Fasham M J R)
157–193. Springer, Germany

Brovkin V, Bendtsen J, Claussen M, Ganopolski A,
Kubatzki C, Petoukhov V & Andreev A (2002). Carbon
cycle, vegetation and climate dynamics in the Holocene:
experiments with the CLIMBER-2 model. Global
Biogeochemical Cycles 16, 86

Brown A (2004). On Asia’s coasts, progress destroys
natural defenses. The Wall Street Journal
December 31, New York, USA

Brown H, Wickins J F & MacClean M H (1991). The effect
of water hardness on growth and carapace mineralisation
of juvenile freshwater prawns, Macrobrachium
rosenbergii de Man. Aquaculture 95, 329–345

Brownlee C & Taylor A (2004). Calcification in
coccolithophores: a cellular perspective. In
Coccolithophores: from molecular processes to global
impacts (eds Thierstein H R & Young Y R), 31–49.
Springer: Berlin

Bryan K (1969). Numerical method for the study of the
world ocean circulation. Journal of Computational
Physics 4, 1687–1969
Ocean"

And six more pages of references! How in any universe does that qualify as a "trust me" scenario?

 

Lots of printed matter from committed Warmers.

Is any of it to be believed?

 

If you make unsubstantiated claims, your point will be ignored.

 

LOLOLOLOL

Sound science as reported in reputable peer-reviewed scientific journals

vs.

Lots of unsupported blather and braindead drivel from ought-to-be-committed denier cultists.

Are any of their ignorant spews of misinformation and deliberate lies to be believed? LOLOLOL. The only folks gullible enough would be the poorly educated, extremely ignorant, politically brainwashed rightwingnuts who've already been duped by the moronic fossil fuel industry propaganda that is pushed by the likes of Rush and Glenn and FauxNews.

 

livefree posted:
"...peer-reviewed..."

Taxcutter says:
To warmers peer review panels are 100% populated by committed Warmers. the scientific equivalent of a kangaroo court.

The Warmers' corruption of peer-review calls almost all of what passes for science today into question.

Einstein's science was so robust it converted the skeptics. The Warmers' alleged science is not as robust.

 

No, it took years for the skeptics to be convinced. And deniers are still questioning relativity.

 

There is no such thing as settled science, but relativity has far fewer skeptics than AGW.

 

Yes there is; they are called the laws in science, ie conservation of mass and energy, e=mc^2, etc, Newton's three laws of motion, Planck's Law, Stefan-Boltzmann Law etc.