Last night's ABC

Two stories of note on ABC TV last night:

1. The 7.30 Report ran a story about CSIRO research on ocean acidification in the waters around the Great Barrier Reef. Nothing much new here, as all they are doing now is getting extensive water samples so as to be able to take measurements as a baseline for future changes. Still, of some interest.

2. On Foreign Correspondent, a very remarkable and creepy story from Cambodia about a 7 year old boy who loves his gigantic, boy-eating sized python, which the family believes the spirits sent to look after them. If it was Australia, allowing your boy to cuddle up with a life threatening animal might attract the attention of the child protection authorities.

The way the family treats this python has to be seen to be believed. The video is not up on the ABC website yet, but when it is, it will be well worth watching.

Ocean acidification, melting ice, etc

I see John Quiggin has linked to me as one of only two conservative bloggers who argues strongly for fast action against greenhouse gases. (Harry Clarke is the other.)

Well, I guess that means I had better start posting again on the topic. In fact I have been fighting the battle at another blog lately, with some success I think. (Well, one hopes there is at least one open minded reader of skeptical blogs who I might have influenced.) The blog in question: Jennifer Marohasy. The main target there: Dr Steven Short, who argues against ocean acidification being a cause for concern, but on grounds I have repeatedly challenged in light of reported experiments. He's far from convinced me of the error of my ways, and his labelling of me as a postmodern, Nazi loving imbecile makes me suspect he's not exactly a shining light of reasoned debate.

On the ocean acidification front, there have been a couple of reports of interest recently. One is about a study of some East Pacific coral reefs which are already in low carbonate saturated waters, and how these may be a model for future reefs as saturations levels fall in future. As the "alarmists" would have guessed, these reefs appear to not be well cemented together, and if repeated elsewhere we will presumably have reefs which are more rapidly eroded, and (in likelihood) only able to build fresh coral at a slower rate than before.

As to other effects of acidification, a study on the fertilisation success rates for sea urchins indicates that they are going to find it significantly harder to reproduce in future due to lower ocean pH. The worry is, of course, that no one really knows what other species of sea creatures are going to have reproduction rates affected. There's a hell of a lot of species to test. The implications of a possible widespread effect on reproductive rates has scientists rightly worried:

..Havenhand said. ‘I really hope I’m wrong about the broader implications of our work. However, the available evidence points to the conclusion that at present acidification is the biggest threat to the long-term viability of our ocean ecosystems and especially to key invertebrate species that maintain many of the marine ecosystems on which we rely for food, protection, and recreation.’

I didn't see much of the Four Corners story last night on melting Arctic ice, but I could imagine Andrew Bolt's blood pressure rising as he watched it. I did have a look at one of the extended interviews on the Four Corner's website (the one with Ted Scambos), and he looked very calm, cool and reasonable while expressing the reasons for his great concern. (But, I can hear a skeptic cry, he thought the 2008 melt would be worse than it is. It seems to me that the 2008 ice cover is no where near a recovery of such an extent to dismiss the overal trend to melting.)

I find it hard to imagine how climate skeptics can watch such interviews and maintain their conspiratorial view against the whole of greenhouse warming science.

And anyway, as I say, if ocean acidification alone is a big enough worry (and I reckon it is) then you don't have to worry about temperatures and ice melts at all as being justification for action.

Link to previous articles: any new reader via John Quiggin's is welcome to look back over my previous posts on ocean acidification here.

Kevin and Penny don't spread the word

Magnetic Island News - Magnetic Island, North Queensland, Australia

Late last week on the TV news we saw Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong going for a look at a bit of a look at the Great Barrier Reef, and afterwards talking about how global warming will harm it.

I see from that famous newspaper, The Magnetic Times, that Rudd was told about more than global warming. It would appear that ocean acidification got a detailed mention too. From the above link:

Katharina Fabricius, a Principal Research Scientist from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), who, along with fellow Magnetic Islanders, Dr Glenn De'ath and spatial analyst Stuart Kininmonth, is involved in a soon-to-be released web-based atlas of the reef, told Magnetic Times, "Sheriden had three hours to brief the Prime Minister who then gave a twenty minute speech in the Council Chamber that showed he really got the message. It went really well.” ....

Dr Fabricius described the serious effects of climate change on the reef which has prompted the making of the Atlas. “Climate change is already evident on the reef in two forms. One is water temperature which, from records which go back to the 1870s, shows that the ocean's water temperature has increased by 0.7 degrees C in the last hundred years. Corals have a low tolerance to only minor increases in water temperature, and hot water has led to the mass bleachings that have begun to happen in the last twenty years.”

“Of even greater concern is ocean acidification. The world's oceans absorb about half of the atmosphere's CO2. With increased CO2 in the sea water it becomes more acidic. Models predict that the pH (the measure of acidity and alkalinity) has already declined by 0.1 units which means that shellfish, crustaceans, corals and other marine creatures which utilise the carbonate in the water are less able to calcify.”

Well, why on earth in the evening TV news grabs don't we hear the PM, Penny Wong and others talking specifically about ocean acidification as a vital issue if Australia wants to preserve its extensive coral reefs? They clearly know about it, yet for some reason it still gets little media attention.

It also remains the issue that Andrew Bolt never mentions, I suspect because he can't find any credible ocean scientist type who can rebut the dire concerns other than by saying "it's all a conspiracy, everything will be alright, you just wait and see."

Some updates

* Discover magazine answered my email and said that the mistake in the ocean acidification article was noted shortly after publication, and the error will be noted in the September magazine. Oddly, though, they just leave the web version of the article un-amended. Seems a peculiar way to run things.

* Brideshead Revisited has opened to (surprise!) generally good reviews in the States. There are some, though, who call it a travesty, and that's good enough for me. AO Scott gets amusingly personal with this comment on the lead actor:

Charles is a complicated character, who causes a lot of trouble in the Flyte-Marchmain family even as he pretends to be a detached observer of its internal drama. The role calls for a mix of diffidence and magnetism — Charles is a shy, stoical seducer — but Mr. Goode shows all the charisma of a stalk of boiled asparagus molded into the likeness of Jeremy Irons. The film can’t explain why Julia or Sebastian would conceive a risky, tempestuous passion for Charles other than that Waugh seemed to think they might.

* Anthony Lane reviews Mamma Mia! and has a good line or two:

The legal definition of torture has been much aired in recent years, and I take “Mamma Mia!” to be a useful contribution to that debate.

Discover magazine does ocean acidification in depth

There's a detailed article on ocean acidification just up at Discover magazine. (If you have read this article at Online Opinion, you may be surprised at how similar they are, but I have it on very strong authority that the Online Opinion piece was written without knowledge of the coming Discover article). Here's a lengthy section from Discover worth extracting:

Over the history of the planet, there have been many sudden peaks in CO2 related to volcanic eruptions, releases from hydrothermal vents, and other natural events. When the pH of the ocean dips as a result of absorbing this excess gas, bottom sediments rich in calcium carbonate begin to dissolve, countering the increase in acidity. This buffering process occurs over 20,000 years, roughly the time it takes for water to circulate along the bottom from the Atlantic to the Pacific and back up to the surface several times. Currently, however, we are pouring man-made CO2 into the atmosphere at 50 times the natural rate. “That overwhelms the natural buffering system for maintaining balance in ocean chemistry,” the Carnegie Institution’s Caldeira says. “To find any parallel in the earth’s history you would have to look to a sudden violent shock to the system far in the geologic past.”

One such event occurred 55 million years ago at the so-called Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), when 4.5 million tons of greenhouse gases were released into the atmosphere. Just what triggered this enormous emission is not known, but scientists suspect volcanic activity may have begun the process. That may in turn have caused the planet to heat up enough to melt deposits of methane frozen in sediments on the ocean floor (something, incidentally, that could happen again), discharging even more potent greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and further heating the planet in an escalating feedback loop.

Whatever the exact cause of the CO2 release at the PETM, the earth warmed faster than at almost any other time in its history. The average temperature soared 9 degrees Fahrenheit, entire ecosystems shifted to higher latitudes, and massive extinctions occurred on land and, most telling, at sea. The abrupt rise of CO2 acidified the oceans. James Zachos, a paleo-oceanographer from the University of California at Santa Cruz, analyzed sediment cores obtained from deep drilling in the ocean and discovered that bottom-dwelling creatures with shells disappeared from the fossil record for a period of more than 40,000 years corresponding to the PETM. And once the oceans turned more acidic, Zachos says, they did not recover quickly: It took another 60,000 years before sediments again began to show a thick white streak indicative of fossilized shells.

Drastic as the PETM was, the event is tame compared with acidification today. “Back then,” Zachos says, “4.5 million tons of CO2 were released over a period of 1,000 to 10,000 years. Industrial activities will release the same amount in a mere 300 years—so quickly that the ocean’s buffering system doesn’t even come into play.”

I wonder when any global warming sceptic is going to come up with convincing reasons why ocean acidification is not something to worry about. In fact, when are they going to give it any attention at all.

UPDATE: I've noticed that the figure of 4.5 million tons of CO2 being released during PETM must be an error. If you follow the link in the article (about PETM,) it indicates it should be 4.5 Gt. Disappointing to see an error like that turn up at Discover, but I'll email them now!

More disaster talk

Death in the deep: Volcanoes blamed for mass extinction

The suggestion is that it was massive underwater volcanism that led to the anoxic oceans and mass extinctions of 95 million years ago.

If true, I suppose it is half-way encouraging that high levels of atmospheric CO2 alone might not lead to anoxic oceans. But, this is not something I feel particularly inclined to run the risk on.

The Nature article I linked to a couple of posts back argued that the world could reach 1000 ppm pretty easily. Here's the relevant section (if you are really lazy, just read the parts I have put in bold):

The goal of climate mitigation is to avoid dangerous human-caused impacts, which science suggests would mean limiting total warming to 2 °C above preindustrial temperatures. In turn, this would require keeping atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide below 450 parts per million (p.p.m.). According to the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report in 2007, model studies based on our current understanding of climate–carbon-cycle feedbacks suggest that to stabilize carbon dioxide levels at 450 p.p.m. could require that cumulative emissions over the twenty-first century reach only about 490 gigatonnes of carbon (GtC), which equates to less than 5 GtC per year¹.

Similarly, stabilizing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels at 1,000 p.p.m. would require cumulative emissions this century of only about 1,100 GtC. In other words, if annual emissions average 11 GtC this century, we risk the real, terrifying prospect of seeing 1,000 p.p.m. carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and a 'best estimate' warming of a staggering 5.5 °C by the end of the century.

Carbon emissions from the global consumption of fossil fuels are currently above 8 GtC per year and rising faster than the most pessimistic economic model considered by the IPCC². Yet even if the high price of energy from fossil fuels and power plants combines with regional climate initiatives to slow the current rate of growth somewhat, we will probably hit 11 gigatonnes of carbon emissions per year by 2020.

More on acidification

Acidifying oceans add urgency to CO2 cuts

This report notes an article on ocean acidification that is to appear in the July 4 issue of Science (although I can't see mention of it yet on the Science website.)

As I suspected, it's bad news for you oyster and mussel lovers out there who expect to be around in 50 year's time. But the worrying thing is, it is extremely difficult to be certain how it will affect the oceans and the planet overall:

"We know that ocean acidification will damage corals and other organisms, but there's just no experimental data on how most species might be affected," says Caldeira. "Most experiments have been done in the lab with just a few individuals. While the results are alarming, it's nearly impossible to predict how this unprecedented acidification will affect entire ecosystems." Reduced calcification will surely hurt shellfish such as oysters and mussels, with big effects on commercial fisheries. Other organisms may flourish in the new conditions, but this may include undesirable "weedy" species or disease organisms.

Though most of the scientific and public focus has been on the climate impacts of human carbon emissions, ocean acidification is as imminent and potentially severe a crisis, the authors argue.

"We need to consider ocean chemistry effects, and not just the climate effects, of CO2 emissions. That means we need to work much harder to decrease CO2 emissions," says Caldeira. "While a doubling of atmospheric CO2 may seem a realistic target for climate goals, such a level may mean the end of coral reefs and other valuable marine resources."

While on the topic, I note that Jennifer Marohasy recently posted 2 photos from diver Bob Halstead showing an area in New Guinea which has (apparently) volcanic CO2 bubbling up through the sea floor.

As with the recent Nature study of a similar site in Italy, the photo indicates that sea grass really loves those conditions. Halstead also says there is a "healthy reef" metres away. But it's impossible to take that as proof that corals will happily survive acidified oceans unless you have proper measurements of the pH in the area. Indeed, we don't even know for sure that the gas is all CO2.)

I think we can take it as a sign that sea grass will do well enough in future, but just how ecologically healthy is it to have sea grasses booming in areas where they previously have not been? Especially if they replace areas that are have been extensively coral for tens of thousands of years?

I also see that the ocean acidification sceptics in the comments following that post are relying solely on Dr Floor Anthoni as their source. As I have noted before, the good doctor does not claim to have any qualification in science or biology, and appears to be pretty much an enthusiatic amateur when it comes to marine ecology and chemistry. That's not to say that amateurs can't do good science, but if you are promoting theories that are somewhat outside the mainstream, the lack of a qualification even close to the field (the qualification is in computers and electronics in Dr Anthoni's case) is not exactly adding to your credibility.

Dr Anthoni appears to have irritated many scientists in the past with claims relating to fisheries, etc. To his credit, he appears to at least be open about the disputes he has had, and you can read the exchanges on his own website.

Still, it gives me no comfort if he is the primary source of the ocean acidification sceptic's arguments.

Deep sea CO2

There have been a few articles in The Guardian about sending CO2 to the deep ocean. It has certain advantages over pumping it underground, and the fate of such CO2 is more complicated than I realised:

First, in order to ensure that the injected CO2 has adequate time to mix throughout the deep sea, injection should be at depths greater than 3,500 metres - that is, the depth below which "liquid" CO2 becomes more dense than sea water.

Experiments conducted by Peter Brewer, of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, not only confirm that this is the case but also demonstrate that the CO2 injected rapidly reacts with sea water to form a solid clathrate, which is more dense than both liquid CO2 and sea water. Hence, the injected CO2 would end up on the sea floor as a slush. This would gradually dissolve, releasing the CO2 to the surrounding sea water, where it would react with the dissolved carbonate and borate ions to become chemically bound in the form of bicarbonate ion. As the concentration of carbonate and borate ions is small, the neutralisation would take place gradually as the CO2-rich sea water mixed into the surroundings.

But how much can you fit in the Pacific Ocean?:

Broecker says 480bn tonnes of carbon dioxide could be safely dumped directly into the waters of the deep Pacific, equivalent to the carbon pollution from about 16 years of the world's current fossil fuel use.

Not that much, really. And some say that it would increase the acidity of the deep ocean, which as we all know, may not be a great idea.

Just go back to nuclear sounds a much better option.

You should read this

Regular readers know that I keep referring to the worrying theory that the great mass extinctions in earth's pre-history are connected with high atmospheric CO2, and its effect on ocean chemistry. The Scientific American article which first brought this to my attention said that the great extinctions seemed to be associated with CO2 levels of just under 1000 ppm. That's a fair way from where we are now, but still within sight of a century or so of current CO2 increases.

However, there's now a paper here, found via the Ocean Acidification blog, which suggests that maybe the "unifying theory" for mass extinctions is a CO2 level that specifically interferes with the operation of a particular enzyme. The biology is a little complicated, but the big concern with this theory is that severe trouble for the ocean environment may actually start at only 560ppm CO2. That could easily be reached by the middle of this century.

It's not too hard to read the full paper (in .pdf format), and it is well worth the effort. The implications for the future are set out towards the end. I'll put it here in full, and break it up a bit to make it easier to read:

Over the next century, if anthropogenic CO2 emissions proceed at the rates predicted by the IPCC scenarios (IPCC, 2001), then the identified pCO2 threshold concentration of 560 ppmv may be exceeded as early as 2050 (Fig. 3). Whilst the direct climatic impacts of this overshoot remain difficult to quantify with certainty, simple extrapolation of the central tenets of the urease hypothesis suggests that there is little doubt regarding the disruption and mass mortality that it will initiate within organisms that are heavily reliant upon the urease enzyme.

Previous mass extinction events appear to have guided the evolutionary process away from urease-dependence in higher vertebrate animals, but the threat remains for the lower invertebrates and plant communities. Importantly, these at-risk ecosystem elements are fundamental to: (i) the productive food chains, (ii) the essential habitat, and (iii) the stable climate cycles, upon which the higher vertebrate animals (including humans) rely for their survival.

Of particular note is the potential for a collapse in ocean productivity to initiate rapid greenhouse warming (Rampino and Caldeira, 2005). In this case, the cessation of marine biological export of 25 organic carbon from the surface would cause an increase in surface-ocean dissolved inorganic carbon, some of which would leak into the atmosphere to increase atmospheric pCO2. Modelling results suggest that a cessation of productivity today would result in a rapid doubling of pCO2 (Rampino and Caldiera, 2005). It is therefore a plausible scenario that a collapse of ocean productivity occurring at 560 ppm could trigger a rapid “post-apocalyptic” rise in pCO2 levels beyond 1000 ppm – leading to rapid global warming of 3–6C.

Recovery of atmospheric pCO2 from such a perturbation would be governed by the time scale of equilibrium of the ocean chemistry 5 with the carbonate system (c 104 years) (Archer et al., 1997). Post-apocalyptic greenhouse spikes of similar duration have been associated with previous mass extinctions (Retallack, 2005), and may be responsible for triggering additional climate change dependent kill responses (Elewa, 2008).

Clearly, the urease hypothesis forewarns of the global imperative that atmospheric pCO2 levels are stabilised well below 560 ppmv. This will require the development of technologies and solutions that are presently unavailable – thus demanding our immediate attention and resources.

Now, this is clearly presented by the author as a hypothesis, and it is called a "discussion paper". The author is a researcher from the Australian Institute of Marine Science in Townsville, but his exact qualifications are not clear. However, it certainly sounds like an idea worthy of some pretty intense investigation.

It is consistent with my position that arguing about whether the earth is currently warming or cooling is irrelevant to the issue of whether keeping CO2 levels down is a good idea.

What's more, the climate change sceptics are still largely silent on the issue of ocean changes as a result of high CO2. (Pointing out that corals have re-established in nuclear test lagoons is hardly relevant.) I don't think they can find any credible scientist who has compelling arguments as to why such concerns are not worthy of being taken seriously. Correct me if I am wrong, Jennifer Marohasy. (I note that she ran with suggestions earlier this year that the cooling temperature would see the alarmists start to run with ocean acidification instead. This is not an answer to the actual concerns, however.)

Real life ocean acidification

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Natural lab shows sea's acid path

Here's a very interesting recent report on some science being done in ocean areas near Italy that already are more acidic due to volcanic CO2 bubbling through the sea.

As expected, the news does not look good for corals, sea urchins, sea snails, and mussels. (I assume that oysters, although they don't get a mention, would also not fare well .) One thing that does well appear to do well is seagrass. I suppose that might mean that one winner out of ocean acidification might be dugong/manatees. I don't know whether they taste any good, though.

Here's the abstract in Nature, but the article itself is behind a paywall. Grrr.

It's also interesting to note the recent stories about the surprising number of bacteria found to be living in the earth's crust under the oceans. The exact role of these in carbon cycling is unknown, but would seem to be potentially very significant. Kind of hard to study bacteria that live best under great pressure, though.

I assume that bottom living bacteria would be very significant to the feared production of poisonous gas if the ocean becomes warm and acidic enough. All a worry.

UPDATE: I hope the tone of my post didn't sound too dismissive of concerns about this.

The Nature paper attracted attention in The Times and The Telegraph. Here's what one of the scientists said in the latter:

Dr Hall-Spencer said: "What we saw was very dramatic and shocking.

"All the predictions made in lab experiments about acidity causing the disappearance of species is coming true.

"When we looked in the field it was already happening.

I must admit I though a lot of the claims being made about species disappearing amounted to scaremongering but now I have seen it with my own eyes.

"Our field studies provide a window on the future of the oceans in a high CO2 world. We show the dramatic ecological consequences of ocean acidification including the removal of corals, snails and sea urchins and the proliferation of invasive alien algae."

"Our observations verify concerns, based on laboratory experiments and model predictions, that marine food webs will be severely disrupted and major ecological tipping points are likely if human CO2 emissions continue unabated."

Also, I note that, although there was a lengthy Sydney Morning Herald story on ocean acidification on 7 June, it did not mention this paper. In fact, I can't see from Google that it has been reported anywhere in the Australian media. Sort of odd, isn't it, given the implications for the Great Barrier Reef?

Ocean acidification, continued

Climate change effect on oceans under-estimated: CSIRO - ABC News

From this very short report:

CSIRO marine scientists say the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and scientists worldwide are neglecting the earth's oceans in researching the effects of climate change.

In an article published today in the journal Science, the researchers argue that the effects of climate change on oceans is being underestimated.

Meanwhile, the Hobart Mercury reported recently about a conference there:

CSIRO marine scientist Bronte Tilbrook said what was already known about ocean acidification was troubling.

"Indications are that we will see some fairly significant changes in the ecosystem," Dr Tilbrook said.

"Under the CO₂ emissions scenarios -- and it's the high ones we seem to be tracking at present -- in about 2060 we'll cross a chemical threshold in the Southern Ocean where one form of calcium carbonate will become chemically unstable.

"It's very early days to say there will be a decline in (fishery) production or an increase -- some species will do better, we just don't know if they're going to be of much value for the ecosystem."

And earlier in the report:

The gathering of some of the region's leading climate change experts was told oceans would reach a carbon saturation tipping point within 50 years and nobody knew what might happen then.

Now, as the article makes clear, these problems are going to happen regardless of successful cuts in current CO2, because of the time it takes for the ocean to absorb CO2. So, you could argue that there is not much point in worrying now anyway.

But, go back to my original posts about this for my argument as to why we shouldn't let CO2 creep up towards 1000 ppm.

Pay attention, people.

Want to take the gamble?

Ocean Acidification: Another Undesired Side Effect Of Fossil Fuel-burning

In this general article about ocean acidification, it is noted:

The expected biological impact of ocean acidification remains still uncertain. Most calcifying organisms such as corals, mussels, algae and plankton investigated so far, respond negatively to the more acidic ocean waters. Because of the increased acidity, less carbonate ions are available, which means the calcification rates of the organisms are decreasing and thus their shells and skeletons thinning. However, a recent study suggested that a specific form of single-celled algae called coccolithophores actually gets stimulated by elevated pCO₂ levels in the oceans, creating even bigger uncertainties when it comes to the biological response.

"There are thousands of calcifying organisms on earth and we have investigated only six to ten of them, we need to have a much better understanding of the physiological mechanisms" demanded Jean-Pierre Gattuso, a speaker from Laboratoire d'Océanographie Villefranche invited by EuroCLIMATE. In addition, higher marine life forms are likely to be affected by the rapidly acidifying oceans and entire food webs might be changing.

This is consistent with what I have said before. You already have big changes underway in ocean chemistry, due to the lag time in the ocean absorbing CO2. With thousands of creatures possibly directly affected, and thousand more in the food chain, it a huge gamble to do no planning for reduced CO2 emissions while waiting another 20 years or so for scientists to get on top of the biology of ocean acidification.

Maybe what is needed is some specific research on something people directly like, such as the effect on prawns or oysters. If research can show that ocean acidification will lead to the decline of the beloved Sydney rock oyster, maybe that would get people's attention.

Actually, now that I Google that topic I see that someone says that prawns and crabs won't be affected because of the way they make their shells. But I am sure I have read somewhere else that krill may be affected. (Maybe that is indirectly because of the effect on some types of plankton.) Anyway, here's the quote from The Telegraph:

Mussels, clams, scallops and oysters are expected to be the worst-hit as the oceans grow more acidic. However prawns, crabs and lobsters will escape unharmed as they produce their shells in a different way.

If the effect on oysters is so clear, I reckon a few good Youtube videos showing the effect might be enough to get ocean acidification more attention. I think at the moment people read about it and shrug their shoulders: there is no direct image of the problem for them to worry about. (Whereas if you concentrate on earth warming, you can do a Gore and use pictures of hurricanes and such like, and whether or not they are truly related to global warming, they have an emotional impact to some people.)

By the way, there are a few new posts up at the Ocean Acidification blog listed in my blogroll.

Ocean issues again

Growing ocean dead zones leave fish gasping - earth - 01 May 2008 - New Scientist Environment

It's all inconclusive as to what will happen in future, but it's consistent with my position that the effect of CO2 and possible warming on the oceans is the clearest reason to do something about greenhouse gases.

Contradictory evidence

Study Sees an Advantage for Algae Species in Changing Oceans - New York Times

Bah! Just after I spend time catching up on ocean acidification, and trying to encourage readers to worry about the effect on carbonate-incorporating algae, a new study indicates that they have actually done better under increased CO2 levels, contrary to previous studies and expectations. (Who would have guessed that it makes a difference if you bubble gas into the water, rather than simply add acid to it?)

Neither the article above, or the other one it links to, talk about whether this means this is an automatic way the earth is increasing the oceans as a CO2 sink. But my guess is that it can't be hurting in that regard.

However, the article also says that this research doesn't mean the coral reefs are safe from acidification.

And: I also wonder whether someone will come up with a concern about too much algae being produced in some regions with too much acidification. As I mentioned in my earlier post, I didn't think you really wanted a lot of certain types of algae in shallow waters.

More information required.

And no gloating please, Andrew Bolt.

UPDATE: It gets worse (for my previous post.) According to the Ocean Acidification blog, there's an article in Science that is claiming we simply don't know enough to be able to dismiss coral reef's ability to adapt to increased acidification. I think the suggestion is that other types of coral will simply replace the ones that are more sensitive to it.

But then: the worriers have made a response already. And they make the point that, when corals have disappeared in the past due to high ocean acidification, they have taken millions of years to recover.

It's a big gamble, isn't it? My gut reaction is still that increasing the acidity of the entire ocean by a factor of 2 or 3 over a relatively short period of time (a century or so?) is a dangerous experiment to be playing. We can't even stop the first part of it, due to the lag time in CO2 absorption, but we can try and stop the worst of it.

Taking ocean acidification seriously

Oh. There's another link to this blog today (and praise) from Andrew Bolt, and now I'm going to deal with an issue that I expect may earn his scorn. Don't leave me, new readers! I try to be very reasonable about this, you know!

It's been quite a while since I explained why I decided it's a good idea to reduce CO2 production, and to do it with urgency. My position is that it doesn't matter whether or not the Earth is looking cooler for a year or two at the moment: the effect of ocean acidification is something that started being viewed with serious alarm by marine scientists over the last 5 years especially, and that concern is not going away.

For some easy to read primers on the problem, try these three Australian sites here, here and here. (Australia has special reason to be concerned, as will become apparent soon.) The lengthy Royal Society report of 2005 on this, which is actually pretty easy to read, is here.

I'll list a few key points so you don't even have to follow the links:

a. increased atmospheric CO2 levels have already increased the acidity level of the ocean by 30% over the last couple of hundred years;

b. the steep climb expected in further CO2 emissions on a "business as usual" scenario could lead to about a 300% increase in acidity, although even then it will be slightly alkaline. (If you want to, you can insist that the change be called a reduction in ocean alkalinity instead of an increase in acidity; it makes no difference to the life that lives there.)

c. even if all CO2 production stopped today, the ocean will continue getting more acid by at least the same amount as it already has, and it will take thousands of years for ocean chemistry to get it back to pre-industrial levels. (The chemistry of the earth means that even when the ocean has been much more acidic, it eventually comes back to something close to what we've currently had for a long time - see the next point.)

d. ocean pH is believed not to have been as low as its current level for a very long time (one article mentions 430,000 years; another mentions 40 million years, but I am not sure which pH level it is referring to.) One article indicates that if "business as usual" continued beyond 2100, the oceans will eventually get to a pH that hasn't been seen for 300 million years! In any case, it's the rate of current change that is a big part of the problem:

During the Ordovician, atmospheric carbon levels were much higher, but had risen gradually, allowing the oceans to remain saturated with calcium carbonate, and life had flourished.

But, 250 million years ago, the formation of the Siberian Traps through a massive volcanic eruption caused a sudden and massive shift in oceanic pH, and nearly 90 percent of oceanic species went extinct. He noted that the extinctions followed lines that were predictable; species we'd expect to be sensitive to carbonate concentrations died, while those that have finer control over their physiology largely made it through the extinctions.

e. Australians have good reason to worry: cold water takes in CO2 faster, and the large Southern Ocean waters should therefore become most acidic first, and the acidity levels are expected to spread north. Warm water coral reefs might already be being affected by sensitivity to even the current levels of increased acidity, although there are still uncertainties about this.

On the Science Show this week, some scientists express their deep concern.

Look, no one says that the oceans will go completely and utterly barren everywhere, but the concern is that the change from what they are like now could be very dramatic indeed, over a very short space of time. Most significantly here in Australia, is the possible absolute collapse of coral reefs as we know them. In that Science Show transcript, one American scientist notes:

Unfortunately the picture for acidification is much fuzzier but also much uglier, and that's because corals seem to have little in the way that they can escape from the effects of acidification. It's actually the case that corals can survive, at least in the laboratory, in highly acid waters, but they turn into little sea anemones, they stop building skeletons altogether. As a consequence what you will have is a world of coral reefs but coral reefs without skeletons, which really aren't reefs at all. So that these structures that we can see from space and which so many organisms depend upon in terms of the three-dimensional complexity will simply cease to exist.

Even if you view large scale changes to the reefs of the world as only an aesthetic loss, the other major concern noted in the various articles is that acidification affects many types of plankton, upon which much bigger things feed, which in turn are eaten by things on which humans like to feast. And these plankton also have a role in sinking CO2 to the bottom of the ocean, so if their population goes down, more CO2 is left to go into the ocean to make it more acid, etc.

Of course, the scientists are still working on it all, and the ecological effects of such large scale change are not entirely clear. But I think from a common sense point of view, massive changes in ocean ecology sound dangerous. And remember that it will take thousands of years for pH to drop. (Adding stuff to the oceans to make them less acidic would have to be on such a large and expensive scale it doesn't really seem feasible, although there are people coming up with ideas.)

In an earlier post about this, I mentioned that I would like to see any skeptical arguments about ocean acidification. (Andrew Bolt correctly points out that some predictions of the Great Barrier Reef's demise due to ocean warming have, at the very least, been very premature. But Andrew's hope today that a reef's ability to recover from a nuclear blast is a good sign doesn't exactly address the big picture of acidification. Acidification is a much more long term process, that is already well underway.)

Googling for "ocean acidification skeptics" doesn't bring up much. Some have taken recently to (rather conspiratorially) claiming that scientists are starting to "talk up" ocean acidification because they realise that recent cooler temperatures mean people will stop believing in global warming. (Of course, as even the articles listed here indicate, many marine scientists have been talking about it with alarm for the last few years in particular, ever since the Royal Society report of 2005 really gave the issue a lot of attention.)

The only site I have found (admittedly in a quick search) with a detailed attempt to rebut ocean acidification science is here, by one Dr Floor Anthoni of a New Zealand group called "Seafriends". Dr Anthoni appears to have no academic background in biology; his qualifications seem to be only in computer science and electronics.

He claims that some of his own discoveries mean that ocean acidification is not property understood, and it will not be as big disaster as predicated. (He claims the ocean will become "more productive", but also says "...there could be some unexpected and unforeseen surprises. The world has been changing and adapting to major changes since it came out of the last ice age, and the changes caused by fossil fuel will be relatively small.")

Well, I would be inclined to take Dr Anthoni more seriously if he actually had qualifications in a relevant field, and didn't come across as a generic contrarian on most things to do with the greenhouse gas issue.

It seems that, more so than with climate change due to greenhouse, it is extremely hard to find a scientist in the field who doubts the serious ecological consequences of large amounts of CO2 in the oceans.

Here's my concluding thought: at least with global warming, it is possible to argue there will some "upside". Fewer people in colder countries will die during winter, plants may grow faster to supply food, the residents of Greenland are already happier; that kind of thing. And to look at the really big picture, surely the world is better off being quite a few degrees hotter than having much of North American and Europe under hundreds of meters of ice. (That's the scenario of global warming preventing an overdue ice age.)

Ocean acidification on the other hand seems to have no upside at all. (I am discounting the credibility of Floor Anthoni on this.)

The only thing that may seem a vague "positive" is that some research noted in the Ocean Acidification blog seems to indicate that some algae may do better. But (from memory, without having time to Google this right now) algal blooms don't have a good reputation, especially in shallow coastal waters, where their decay sucks the oxygen out of the sea and makes it sterile of larger life. Algal blooms in the deep ocean might have some carbon sink effects, but the reason iron fertilization of the ocean is viewed with much scientific skepticism is due to the uncertainty as to whether the carbon taken in really does make it to the bottom of the sea for any length of time.

Overall, the change of all coral reefs into something with much, much less diverse life, and fewer carbon sinking plankton in the deep ocean, will surely be a bad thing, with food chain and other consequences that indeed sound worrying.

I also haven't even repeated here the point in my original post that past CO2 levels of just under 1,000 ppm (we're well over a third of the way there) were around when some scientists think that anoxic oceans made large amounts of hydrogen sulphide which killed land animals in mass extinctions.

It seems fully deserving of all the attention it can get, and as I said at the start, is of itself a compelling reason to take the need for urgent CO2 reduction very seriously.

Tell me where I am wrong...

UPDATES: I've been fiddling with this post all day, adding stuff mostly.

I actually have found a post by an academic who briefly mentions some reasons for thinking that coral reefs (and some plankton/algae) may be more adaptable to pH change than some fear. But he notes that the lab experiments are (so far) contradictory on the issue. It's not enough to relieve my concerns.

Jennifer Marohasy's blog contains lots of skeptical posts about coral reef danger, although a lot of them are on the issue of warming waters, not acidification.

Professor Ove Hoegh-Gulberg, who Andrew Bolt strongly criticised for exaggerating coral reef danger, has his own blog too. He admits his early predictions were too dire about the speed with which reefs could die, but I think he defends himself pretty well overall. Have a look at this thread in which he debates Peter Ridd.

A clarification: at one point I mention some types of plankton as having a role as carbon sinks, but later I mention the skepticism about whether algae is an efficient carbon sink. I think they are not contradictory statements because plankton and algae come in different varieties, only some of which use carbonate and are likely to be the best at being permanent carbon sinks. If that type doesn't grow so well in acidified oceans, the plankton/algae mix may swing towards the type which is not likely to be good at taking up carbon permanently, even if you do have more of them due to "fertilization" by CO2.

Correct me anyone if you think I have misread that from the articles.

Yes, but...

Climate is too complex for accurate predictions - earth - 25 October 2007 - New Scientist Environment

This report notes:

Climate change models, no matter how powerful, can never give a precise prediction of how greenhouse gases will warm the Earth, according to a new study....

The analysis focuses on the temperature increase that would occur if levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere doubled from pre-Industrial Revolution levels. The current best guess for this number – which is a useful way to gauge how sensitive the climate is to rising carbon levels – is that it lies between 2.0 C and 4.5 C. And there is a small chance that the temperature rise could be up to 8C or higher.

To the frustration of policy makers, it is an estimate that has not become much more precise over the last 20 years. During that period, scientists have established that the world is warming and human activity is very likely to blame, but are no closer to putting a figure on exactly much temperatures are likely to rise.

Which is why I argue that the case for keeping CO2 levels down based on ocean acidification is more sound.

Why CO2 is a worry, revisited

Acid oceans warning

It's nearly a year since the post in which I explained that I could no longer sit on the fence over the issue of rapidly rising CO2 in the atmosphere not just because of whatever level of global warming may result, but (perhaps even more importantly) because of the effects of ocean acidification. These effects, it seemed to me, would be much more easily tested and verified.

This position seems further vindicated by these comments by an Australian scientist (see link at top):

“Analysis of coral cores shows a steady drop in calcification over the last 20 years,” says Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg of CoECRS and the University of Queensland. “There’s not much debate about how it happens: put more CO₂ into the air above and it dissolves into the oceans.

“When CO₂ levels in the atmosphere reach about 500 parts per million, you put calcification out of business in the oceans.” (Atmospheric CO₂ levels are presently 385 ppm, up from 305 in 1960.)

“It isn’t just the coral reefs which are affected – a large part of the plankton in the Southern Ocean, the coccolithophorids, are also affected. These drive ocean productivity and are the base of the food web which supports krill, whales, tuna and our fisheries. They also play a vital role in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which could break down.”

Just to remind you, the "do nothing" graph showing how quickly the earth would reach 500 ppm looks like this:



(This appeared with a few other useful charts at my previous post here.)

I would like to hear the sceptical argument against taking ocean acidification seriously, if there is one. I do, however, remain deeply sceptical about a lot of the response to greenhouse gases, especially Kyoto. Alex Robson in the Daily Telegraph recently pointed out again its glaring defects.

Yet, like windpower, many voters will warm to Labor's promises to sign up to it, as it gives that nice warm feeling of doing something. But such fiddling at the edges is probably more of a problem itself if it delays serious thinking about how real results can be achieved.

People may pooh-pooh Bush's recent emphasis on new technology being the primary way forward, but it seems to me he's probably right.

Now I'm a believer

I’m officially ceasing my sitting on the fence about greenhouse gases, but want to make a few things clear.

It is right to worry about greenhouse gases, and to worry quite a lot. For me, the most convincing reason for this is actually not directly the issue of global warming, which still carries uncertainty about its likely extent and its full consequences, but rather ocean acidification.

The recent Scientific American article I posted about here gives good reason to worry about the global situation if CO2 levels ever reach 1000 ppm. (Short explanation: if oceans or seas become sufficiently lacking in oxygen and warm enough, hydrogen sulphide producing bacteria might make enough gas to cause enormous deadly gas bubbles that could wipe out life on nearby land.) The problem is, as noted in my recent post here, the world could get up to 700 ppm by the end of this century, and despite what the Scientific American article says, it would seem it need not take another century beyond that to crack 1,000ppm.

Going back and looking at other articles on ocean acidification, it seems to me that the environmental effects of that are relatively easy to test and accurately predict. (It doesn’t take much to set up a large tank and change the Ph and see what it does to plankton or coral shells.)
As plankton plays a significant role as a CO2 sink in the deep oceans, surface acidification to an extent that would cause a decrease in plankton would also seem to be a major worry for accelerating the rate of increase of atmospheric CO2.

The other issue that gives me concern is that letting CO2 levels get close to 1000 ppm may make it extremely easy for some uncontrollable event to lead to a sudden disastrous global increase. (For example, a supervolcano system suddenly springing to life, or an asteroid hit or two. If I understand it correctly, anything that kicks up a lot of dust would initially cool the earth, but the greater greenhouse gases would eventually kick in.)

That’s my reasoning for deciding that there is not much point in nitpicking over the arguments about how much hotter increased CO2 levels may make the world. Seriously bad effects on the oceans seem certain with sufficiently high CO2 levels anyway.

Of course, Phillip Adams and his ilk are in full gloating “told you so” mode about the fact that politicians on the the Right are starting to sound more serious about the issue. (It seems to me that Adams is wanting to take far more credit for early recognition of the issue than his published columns indicate he deserves.) My impression is that ocean acidification issue has really only started attracting a lot of attention in the last couple of years anyway.

Also, to be clear about my position, there are several things related to global warming of which I remain either dismissive or at least very sceptical:

1. the Kyoto Treaty;

2. wind power;

3. Carbon offset schemes which involve growing trees, especially if they are in areas where bushfires are a distinct possibility. (It is my suspicion that many companies promoting carbon offset schemes are selling snake oil when it comes to their long term effect.)

4. Environmentalists and politicians who claim Pacific Islands are already disappearing from increasing sea levels caused by global warming. (In another 30 years or so, maybe. But hey, just how viable is any 2 metre high island nation built in the middle of the ocean anyway.)

5. Politicians who resist nuclear power on principle.

6. Dismissal of the sun’s role as being possibly significant for temperatures over the next century.

7. Believing that the current Australian drought is necessarily related to global warming.

8. Arguing that current short bouts of surprising cooler weather are a sign that global warming is not true, and that greenhouse gases are not worth worrying about. (Sorry Tim Blair, they are funny, but I think no serious climate scientist is concerned about them disproving the theory.)

9. “The Day after Tomorrow” scenarios to do with the sudden “switching off” of the Atlantic ocean conveyor current. (Real Climate recently chided The Guardian for getting reporting of recent research on this completely wrong.)

10. The more excitable predictions about the number of birds, frogs, spiders, polar bears etc likely to be lost as a result of global warming.

The fact that Rupert Murdoch and me have suddenly reached the same conclusion is, of course, simply a sign that great minds think alike. He's a sharp old codger, isn't he?

Charts and stuff on CO2 levels

Hearing figures and statistics on CO2 levels and the Kyoto protocol can make it hard to process the information. I therefore had a look around the web for some charts and graphs that would make it easier for me to understand. Here's a few that I think help:

First, here's the "per capita" chart for greenhouse gases that pro-Kyoto people like to refer to:


Yes, yes, Australia looks bad on a per capita basis. However, the next chart shows some total figures:

Where does Australia fit in? It's kind of confusing because of the different ways different charts are counting carbon, but the Australian National Greenhouse Gas Inventory says:

Australia’s net greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors totalled 564.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (Mt CO₂-e) in 2004 under the accounting provisions applying to Australia’s 108% emissions target.

That figure sounds about right, according to the next chart too. Anyway, the USA and Europe are pretty much on top. However, here's the really worrying thing (assuming you think CO2 is a worry):

Just look at that growth curb for China. It hits US levels in a little over 10 years time, and then keeps climbing. I am not sure if this is on a "do nothing" basis or not. However, even on current "do something" ideas, I doubt it's going to have much effect within 10 years.

China is, of course, amongst the many countries which Kyoto doesn't currently cover, as shown clearly shown here:




Finally, projections for CO2 increase over the next 100 years or so (on a "business as usual" basis):


Kind of a steep curve, hey.

The lesson I take from this is: the really, really serious issue is preventing China's huge climb, as well as reducing the US. As the US is already economically advanced, I guess there is greater grounds for optimism that it can develop and afford the technological fixes which may help. But there will be a huge need to get those technologies into China fast. How the international community can help China in this process is not a topic I can say I have heard a lot about.