CO2 and the acidification of oceans
Finally, an article (from Associated Press) about a study that speaks to something I've worried over and written about for years: the acidification of oceans from CO2 releases. For quite a long time I've told people, who view me as a "warming skeptic," that the science of climate change is not just about whether or not the climate is warming, by how much, and whether or not humans are the cause. That's the dumbed down "media" version of the issue, and opinions are all over the place on that among scientists.
I was told years ago and have subsequently confirmed that a very serious consequence of our CO2 releases, one that is simply not debatable, is that much of those billions of tonnes of CO2 we are pumping into the air are ultimately absorbed by the ocean and this changes the pH. I'll let the article below speak for itself, and I've provided the link to the scientific study at the end. But I'll mention just one consequence of even a slightly acidified ocean: the entire food chain of the seas is based on phytoplankton, the microscopic sea creatures that float about in the warm upper layer of the ocean. They make their tiny skeletons from carbon in the water. Over millions of years the carbon from the dying creatures floats to the ocean floor where it accumulates as calcium carbonate (limestone) some of which eventually is pushed up into continents and mountain ranges as the sea floor is relentlessly reformed by continental drift and plate tectonics. This is why marine fossils may be found at the tops of mountains such as the Rockies, and why limestone deposits are ubiquitous in North America, where they're mined for cement manufacture (among other things). (Before plate tectonics was understood, creationists used to point to the presence of sea creature fossils on mountaintops as evidence of the Bible's Great Flood. Even Charles Darwin was puzzled about how they got there.)
It's all about the "carbon cycle" which is very subtle. The earth's climate and cloud formation is regulated, for instance, in part from the carbon that is gradually worn away by rain from limestone on mountains, that finds its way into rivers and oceans. We're only beginning to understand this cycle, at the very time we're altering it by dredging up fossilized carbon that's accumulated over hundreds of millions of years and pumping it into the atmosphere within only a couple of centuries.
There's a school of thought that altering the carbon cycle is dangerous not simply because an already-warm interglatial period may become hotter, but because the slight acidicification of oceans will interfere with the phytoplanktons' (and small creatures like krill) ability to build skeletons and shells, and the entire oceanic food chain and ecosystem will collapse. If this happens, it's not alarmist to predict that the environmental and social pressures this will triger will lead to the collapse of civilization as we know it. (By the way, if you want the best possible explanation of the carbon cycle in layperson's terms, I again direct you to the wonderful new book The Revenge of Gaia by James Lovelock, which completely changed by outlook and life.)
Now here's the article:
Fossil fuels said to damage ocean life
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science WriterWed Jul 5, 2:08 PM ET
Corals and other marine creatures are threatened by chemical changes in the ocean caused by the carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, a panel of scientists warned Wednesday.
Already blamed for a greenhouse effect warming of the climate, much of this added carbon dioxide is dissolving in the oceans, making them more acid.
Such a change can damage coral and other shells and sealife, according to the panel of researchers convened by the National Science Foundation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and U.S. Geological Survey.
"A most fundamental property of ocean chemistry, pH, is changing and will continue to change as long as CO2 emissions are increasing. That is not debatable," Joan Kleypas, the report's lead author and a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., said in a briefing.
The pH scale measures how acid or alkaline a substance is, rating from 0 to 14 with 7 being neutral. The lower the number the more acid something is.
"In the oceans pH is a relatively constant property and it has not changed over time scales of hundreds of thousands and probably even millions of years," Kleypas said.
"The pH changes that are occurring in the ocean today are truly extraordinary," she added. The oceans are normally slightly alkaline. Their average surface pH was 8.2 in 1800 and is headed for a predicted 7.9 by the middle of this century, she said.
"But we are only beginning to understand the complex interactions between large-scale chemistry changes and marine ecology. It is vital to develop research strategies to better understand the long-term vulnerabilities of sensitive marine organisms to these changes," Kleypas said.
The researchers estimated that between 1800 and 1994 the world's oceans absorbed 118 billion metric tons of carbon, reducing the natural alkalinity of seawater. A metric ton is 2,205 pounds.
Richard Feely, an oceanographer at NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, said "this is leading to the most dramatic changes in marine chemistry in at least the past 650,000 years."
Chris Langdon at the University of Miami said studies show that coral calcification consistently decreases as the oceans become more acidic. That means these organisms will grow more slowly, or their skeletons will become less dense, a process similar to osteoporosis in humans. That threatens reefs because corals may be unable to build reefs as fast as erosion wears away the reefs.
Ocean acidification report:
Comments
This is a piece James Lovelock ran in the UK's Independent just before publsihing "The Revenge of Gaia"
James Lovelock: The Earth is about to catch a morbid fever that may last as long as 100,000 years
Each nation must find the best use of its resources to sustain civilisation for as long as they can
Published: 16 January 2006
Imagine a young policewoman delighted in the fulfilment of her vocation; then imagine her having to tell a family whose child had strayed that he had been found dead, murdered in a nearby wood. Or think of a young physician newly appointed who has to tell you that the biopsy revealed invasion by an aggressive metastasising tumour. Doctors and the police know that many accept the simple awful truth with dignity but others try in vain to deny it.
Whatever the response, the bringers of such bad news rarely become hardened to their task and some dread it. We have relieved judges of the awesome responsibility of passing the death sentence, but at least they had some comfort from its frequent moral justification. Physicians and the police have no escape from their duty.
This article is the most difficult I have written and for the same reasons. My Gaia theory sees the Earth behaving as if it were alive, and clearly anything alive can enjoy good health, or suffer disease. Gaia has made me a planetary physician and I take my profession seriously, and now I, too, have to bring bad news.
The climate centres around the world, which are the equivalent of the pathology lab of a hospital, have reported the Earth's physical condition, and the climate specialists see it as seriously ill, and soon to pass into a morbid fever that may last as long as 100,000 years. I have to tell you, as members of the Earth's family and an intimate part of it, that you and especially civilisation are in grave danger.
Our planet has kept itself healthy and fit for life, just like an animal does, for most of the more than three billion years of its existence. It was ill luck that we started polluting at a time when the sun is too hot for comfort. We have given Gaia a fever and soon her condition will worsen to a state like a coma. She has been there before and recovered, but it took more than 100,000 years. We are responsible and will suffer the consequences: as the century progresses, the temperature will rise 8 degrees centigrade in temperate regions and 5 degrees in the tropics.
Much of the tropical land mass will become scrub and desert, and will no longer serve for regulation; this adds to the 40 per cent of the Earth's surface we have depleted to feed ourselves.
Curiously, aerosol pollution of the northern hemisphere reduces global warming by reflecting sunlight back to space. This "global dimming" is transient and could disappear in a few days like the smoke that it is, leaving us fully exposed to the heat of the global greenhouse. We are in a fool's climate, accidentally kept cool by smoke, and before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.
By failing to see that the Earth regulates its climate and composition, we have blundered into trying to do it ourselves, acting as if we were in charge. By doing this, we condemn ourselves to the worst form of slavery. If we chose to be the stewards of the Earth, then we are responsible for keeping the atmosphere, the ocean and the land surface right for life. A task we would soon find impossible - and something before we treated Gaia so badly, she had freely done for us.
To understand how impossible it is, think about how you would regulate your own temperature or the composition of your blood. Those with failing kidneys know the never-ending daily difficulty of adjusting water, salt and protein intake. The technological fix of dialysis helps, but is no replacement for living healthy kidneys.
My new book The Revenge of Gaia expands these thoughts, but you still may ask why science took so long to recognise the true nature of the Earth. I think it is because Darwin's vision was so good and clear that it has taken until now to digest it. In his time, little was known about the chemistry of the atmosphere and oceans, and there would have been little reason for him to wonder if organisms changed their environment as well as adapting to it.
Had it been known then that life and the environment are closely coupled, Darwin would have seen that evolution involved not just the organisms, but the whole planetary surface. We might then have looked upon the Earth as if it were alive, and known that we cannot pollute the air or use the Earth's skin - its forest and ocean ecosystems - as a mere source of products to feed ourselves and furnish our homes. We would have felt instinctively that those ecosystems must be left untouched because they were part of the living Earth.
So what should we do? First, we have to keep in mind the awesome pace of change and realise how little time is left to act; and then each community and nation must find the best use of the resources they have to sustain civilisation for as long as they can. Civilisation is energy-intensive and we cannot turn it off without crashing, so we need the security of a powered descent. On these British Isles, we are used to thinking of all humanity and not just ourselves; environmental change is global, but we have to deal with the consequences here in the UK.
Unfortunately our nation is now so urbanised as to be like a large city and we have only a small acreage of agriculture and forestry. We are dependent on the trading world for sustenance; climate change will deny us regular supplies of food and fuel from overseas.
We could grow enough to feed ourselves on the diet of the Second World War, but the notion that there is land to spare to grow biofuels, or be the site of wind farms, is ludicrous. We will do our best to survive, but sadly I cannot see the United States or the emerging economies of China and India cutting back in time, and they are the main source of emissions. The worst will happen and survivors will have to adapt to a hell of a climate.
Perhaps the saddest thing is that Gaia will lose as much or more than we do. Not only will wildlife and whole ecosystems go extinct, but in human civilisation the planet has a precious resource. We are not merely a disease; we are, through our intelligence and communication, the nervous system of the planet. Through us, Gaia has seen herself from space, and begins to know her place in the universe.
We should be the heart and mind of the Earth, not its malady. So let us be brave and cease thinking of human needs and rights alone, and see that we have harmed the living Earth and need to make our peace with Gaia. We must do it while we are still strong enough to negotiate, and not a broken rabble led by brutal war lords. Most of all, we should remember that we are a part of it, and it is indeed our home.
The writer is an independent environmental scientist and Fellow of the Royal Society. 'The Revenge of Gaia' is published by Penguin on 2 February
Imagine a young policewoman delighted in the fulfilment of her vocation; then imagine her having to tell a family whose child had strayed that he had been found dead, murdered in a nearby wood. Or think of a young physician newly appointed who has to tell you that the biopsy revealed invasion by an aggressive metastasising tumour. Doctors and the police know that many accept the simple awful truth with dignity but others try in vain to deny it.
Whatever the response, the bringers of such bad news rarely become hardened to their task and some dread it. We have relieved judges of the awesome responsibility of passing the death sentence, but at least they had some comfort from its frequent moral justification. Physicians and the police have no escape from their duty.
This article is the most difficult I have written and for the same reasons. My Gaia theory sees the Earth behaving as if it were alive, and clearly anything alive can enjoy good health, or suffer disease. Gaia has made me a planetary physician and I take my profession seriously, and now I, too, have to bring bad news.
The climate centres around the world, which are the equivalent of the pathology lab of a hospital, have reported the Earth's physical condition, and the climate specialists see it as seriously ill, and soon to pass into a morbid fever that may last as long as 100,000 years. I have to tell you, as members of the Earth's family and an intimate part of it, that you and especially civilisation are in grave danger.
Our planet has kept itself healthy and fit for life, just like an animal does, for most of the more than three billion years of its existence. It was ill luck that we started polluting at a time when the sun is too hot for comfort. We have given Gaia a fever and soon her condition will worsen to a state like a coma. She has been there before and recovered, but it took more than 100,000 years. We are responsible and will suffer the consequences: as the century progresses, the temperature will rise 8 degrees centigrade in temperate regions and 5 degrees in the tropics.
Much of the tropical land mass will become scrub and desert, and will no longer serve for regulation; this adds to the 40 per cent of the Earth's surface we have depleted to feed ourselves.
Curiously, aerosol pollution of the northern hemisphere reduces global warming by reflecting sunlight back to space. This "global dimming" is transient and could disappear in a few days like the smoke that it is, leaving us fully exposed to the heat of the global greenhouse. We are in a fool's climate, accidentally kept cool by smoke, and before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.
By failing to see that the Earth regulates its climate and composition, we have blundered into trying to do it ourselves, acting as if we were in charge. By doing this, we condemn ourselves to the worst form of slavery. If we chose to be the stewards of the Earth, then we are responsible for keeping the atmosphere, the ocean and the land surface right for life. A task we would soon find impossible - and something before we treated Gaia so badly, she had freely done for us.
To understand how impossible it is, think about how you would regulate your own temperature or the composition of your blood. Those with failing kidneys know the never-ending daily difficulty of adjusting water, salt and protein intake. The technological fix of dialysis helps, but is no replacement for living healthy kidneys.
My new book The Revenge of Gaia expands these thoughts, but you still may ask why science took so long to recognise the true nature of the Earth. I think it is because Darwin's vision was so good and clear that it has taken until now to digest it. In his time, little was known about the chemistry of the atmosphere and oceans, and there would have been little reason for him to wonder if organisms changed their environment as well as adapting to it.
Had it been known then that life and the environment are closely coupled, Darwin would have seen that evolution involved not just the organisms, but the whole planetary surface. We might then have looked upon the Earth as if it were alive, and known that we cannot pollute the air or use the Earth's skin - its forest and ocean ecosystems - as a mere source of products to feed ourselves and furnish our homes. We would have felt instinctively that those ecosystems must be left untouched because they were part of the living Earth.
So what should we do? First, we have to keep in mind the awesome pace of change and realise how little time is left to act; and then each community and nation must find the best use of the resources they have to sustain civilisation for as long as they can. Civilisation is energy-intensive and we cannot turn it off without crashing, so we need the security of a powered descent. On these British Isles, we are used to thinking of all humanity and not just ourselves; environmental change is global, but we have to deal with the consequences here in the UK.
Unfortunately our nation is now so urbanised as to be like a large city and we have only a small acreage of agriculture and forestry. We are dependent on the trading world for sustenance; climate change will deny us regular supplies of food and fuel from overseas.
We could grow enough to feed ourselves on the diet of the Second World War, but the notion that there is land to spare to grow biofuels, or be the site of wind farms, is ludicrous. We will do our best to survive, but sadly I cannot see the United States or the emerging economies of China and India cutting back in time, and they are the main source of emissions. The worst will happen and survivors will have to adapt to a hell of a climate.
Perhaps the saddest thing is that Gaia will lose as much or more than we do. Not only will wildlife and whole ecosystems go extinct, but in human civilisation the planet has a precious resource. We are not merely a disease; we are, through our intelligence and communication, the nervous system of the planet. Through us, Gaia has seen herself from space, and begins to know her place in the universe.
We should be the heart and mind of the Earth, not its malady. So let us be brave and cease thinking of human needs and rights alone, and see that we have harmed the living Earth and need to make our peace with Gaia. We must do it while we are still strong enough to negotiate, and not a broken rabble led by brutal war lords. Most of all, we should remember that we are a part of it, and it is indeed our home.
The writer is an independent environmental scientist and Fellow of the Royal Society. 'The Revenge of Gaia' is published by Penguin on 2 February
Posted by: Usman A. Valiante | July 6, 2006 10:54 AM
Impending Evolution catalyzed by climate change
I don't know what I am in awe of more: the perfectly sophistocated mechanisms of life adapted so much to the phase changes of water or the awesome technology of man. Of course mother nature is the best chemist of all, but man has accomplished much using the brute strength approach. I don't believe it is possible for man to completely destroy mother nature, but I do believe that we have become successful and pernicious enough to usher in the next great evolutionary event if only through force of sheer persistence.
Everyone is aware of the possibility of widespread collapse of food stocks leading to starvation and war. That is very foreseeable. What I haven't heard from the pundits is any faith in evolution, faith that life will adapt and go on. I think the reason no one talks in this way is because they understand evolution will likely proceed to dispense with much of the world as we know it. 6 Billion people require a hell of a lot of food...any serious extinction/evolution event likely would not support more than 1/100 this number. Maybe even that is a bit optimistic.
Bacteria won't die, weeds will be ever present. Small mammals with fast birth rates and low dietary intakes might fair well. Regional speciation will crash and shift, as rain forests turn into plains and plains into deserts. Many animals and plants will be wiped from the earth altogether. I doubt in any event that we would recognize the descendent of man 100 million years from now as being of ourselves.
Even the world has to die sometime though, and that time will most likely take place shortly after the sun burns out and God lets his great experiment come to an end. Only the bacteria living off of sulfur at the bottom of the ocean will witness the end of this incredible era. But for now there is still hope...
Posted by: Jack McCormack | August 5, 2006 12:09 AM