Pink salmon threatened by greenhouse gases and acidification in rivers
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OldBlackDog
Well-Known Member
- Either the oceans are getting warmer and the CO2 concentration in seawater is decreasing, which means that ocean acidification from man-made CO2 from the atmosphere is nonsense.
- Or the oceans are getting cooler and the man-made CO2 from the atmosphere is dissolving in those cooler oceans and causing – insignificant – ocean acidification, which means that warming oceans and the associated sea level rises are nonsense.
Clint r
Well-Known Member
Copied from Castanet news service:
The Canadian Press - Apr 28 2:30 pm
Federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna says the key to dealing with climate change in the Arctic is to have "real conversations" with the Inuit peoples who live there.
But Sally Jewell, the U.S. secretary of the interior, has a much blunter assessment, arguing climate impacts are already underway, can't be turned around and that moving some Arctic communities may be the only solution.
"We will have climate refugees," Jewell said Thursday after meeting McKenna at the Museum of History across the Ottawa River from Parliament Hill.
National parks, migratory species, climate change and Arctic adaptation - and an urban hike in the spring sunshine - were on their agenda.
They also met Natan Obed, the president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, who has become a go-to sounding board for the new Liberal government on the matter of climate adaptation and mitigation in the Far North.
McKenna, not quite six months into her job leading the environment ministry in the climate-focused Trudeau government, was her usual cautious self in describing the daunting challenges of climate change in the fast-warming Arctic. She stressed the importance of co-operation and dialogue when asked to name the single most important measure government can take to address climate change in the region.
Jewell, who has only months left in her post before the Obama administration is replaced, was far less circumspect.
"We need to provide support for adaptation and build communities that are resilient in the face of what's happening in the Arctic," the secretary said flatly. "You're not going to be able to turn this around."
"We can stem the increase in temperature, we can stem some of the effects, perhaps, if we act on climate as we are committed to do through the Paris accords. But the changes are underway and they are very rapid. We will have climate refugees."
On average, Canada has warmed more than 1.3 degrees Celsius since 1948, according to Environment Canada. Parts of the Arctic have warmed at more than twice that rate.
The impact has been little short of disastrous. Melting permafrost is affecting the integrity of buildings and roads. Storms are clawing away shorelines in the absence of stabilizing sea ice. Natural habitat is changing animal behaviour and affecting the ability to hunt "country food." Travel on frozen lakes and sea - the highways of the North - has become perilous.
Jewell said she's visited villages in Alaska whose existence is threatened by erosion.
There has been talk for years that Tuktoyaktuk on the Arctic Ocean in the Northwest Territories may have to relocate eventually.
"We have to figure out how to deal with potentially relocating villages, or supporting communities in their adaptation and in building resilience within those communities to a changed reality," she said.
Even the suggestion of moving indigenous communities has recently sparked acrimonious debate in Canada.
But that wasn't the only controversy Jewell was prepared to tackle Thursday.
Asked about ongoing court challenges in the United States over allegations of climate-science suppression and denial by Exxon Mobil Corp., McKenna said it's time to move forward.
"Look, we all know that climate change is real. ... It's not just industry that have had challenges understanding that."
Jewell, however, waded in with her fists up.
"There is nothing like a company's reputation," she said.
"It takes years to build and can be stripped down in a hurry and if a company is irresponsible in sharing misinformation, they need to be held to account."
The Canadian Press - Apr 28 2:30 pm
Federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna says the key to dealing with climate change in the Arctic is to have "real conversations" with the Inuit peoples who live there.
But Sally Jewell, the U.S. secretary of the interior, has a much blunter assessment, arguing climate impacts are already underway, can't be turned around and that moving some Arctic communities may be the only solution.
"We will have climate refugees," Jewell said Thursday after meeting McKenna at the Museum of History across the Ottawa River from Parliament Hill.
National parks, migratory species, climate change and Arctic adaptation - and an urban hike in the spring sunshine - were on their agenda.
They also met Natan Obed, the president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, who has become a go-to sounding board for the new Liberal government on the matter of climate adaptation and mitigation in the Far North.
McKenna, not quite six months into her job leading the environment ministry in the climate-focused Trudeau government, was her usual cautious self in describing the daunting challenges of climate change in the fast-warming Arctic. She stressed the importance of co-operation and dialogue when asked to name the single most important measure government can take to address climate change in the region.
Jewell, who has only months left in her post before the Obama administration is replaced, was far less circumspect.
"We need to provide support for adaptation and build communities that are resilient in the face of what's happening in the Arctic," the secretary said flatly. "You're not going to be able to turn this around."
"We can stem the increase in temperature, we can stem some of the effects, perhaps, if we act on climate as we are committed to do through the Paris accords. But the changes are underway and they are very rapid. We will have climate refugees."
On average, Canada has warmed more than 1.3 degrees Celsius since 1948, according to Environment Canada. Parts of the Arctic have warmed at more than twice that rate.
The impact has been little short of disastrous. Melting permafrost is affecting the integrity of buildings and roads. Storms are clawing away shorelines in the absence of stabilizing sea ice. Natural habitat is changing animal behaviour and affecting the ability to hunt "country food." Travel on frozen lakes and sea - the highways of the North - has become perilous.
Jewell said she's visited villages in Alaska whose existence is threatened by erosion.
There has been talk for years that Tuktoyaktuk on the Arctic Ocean in the Northwest Territories may have to relocate eventually.
"We have to figure out how to deal with potentially relocating villages, or supporting communities in their adaptation and in building resilience within those communities to a changed reality," she said.
Even the suggestion of moving indigenous communities has recently sparked acrimonious debate in Canada.
But that wasn't the only controversy Jewell was prepared to tackle Thursday.
Asked about ongoing court challenges in the United States over allegations of climate-science suppression and denial by Exxon Mobil Corp., McKenna said it's time to move forward.
"Look, we all know that climate change is real. ... It's not just industry that have had challenges understanding that."
Jewell, however, waded in with her fists up.
"There is nothing like a company's reputation," she said.
"It takes years to build and can be stripped down in a hurry and if a company is irresponsible in sharing misinformation, they need to be held to account."
OBD....do you really not understand how water works and TDG pressure and solubility?? These are very basic scientific concepts most people learn in High School. The warmer the water is - the less gas it can hold as a total dissolved gas pressure. See:
http://www.chem.fsu.edu/chemlab/chm1046course/solubility.htmlhttp://www.carboeurope.org/education/CS_Materials/CO2solubility.pdf
OldBlackDog
Well-Known Member
A paper published Friday in Climate of the Past reconstructs water pH and temperature from a lake in central Japan over the past 280,000 years and clearly shows that pH increases [becomes more basic or alkaline] due to warmer temperatures, and vice-versa, becomes more acidic [or “acidified” if you prefer] due to cooling temperatures. This finding is the opposite of the false assumptions behind the “ocean acidification” scare, but is compatible with the basic chemistry of Henry’s Law and outgassing of CO2 from the oceans with warming.
Thus, if global warming resumes after the “pause,” ocean temperatures will rise along with CO2 outgassing, which will make the oceans more basic, not acidic. You simply cannot have it both ways:
“Either the oceans are getting warmer and the CO2 concentration in seawater is decreasing, which means that ocean acidification from man-made CO2 from the atmosphere is nonsense.
Or the oceans are getting cooler and the man-made CO2 from the atmosphere is dissolving in those cooler oceans and causing – insignificant – ocean acidification, which means that warming oceans and the associated sea level rises are nonsense.
Take your pick – REAL SCIENCE says you can’t have both.”
Thus, if global warming resumes after the “pause,” ocean temperatures will rise along with CO2 outgassing, which will make the oceans more basic, not acidic. You simply cannot have it both ways:
“Either the oceans are getting warmer and the CO2 concentration in seawater is decreasing, which means that ocean acidification from man-made CO2 from the atmosphere is nonsense.
Or the oceans are getting cooler and the man-made CO2 from the atmosphere is dissolving in those cooler oceans and causing – insignificant – ocean acidification, which means that warming oceans and the associated sea level rises are nonsense.
Take your pick – REAL SCIENCE says you can’t have both.”
GLG
Well-Known Member
Ah yes the "scientist don't know nuttin" argument and that plunky blogger at WattsUpWithThat.con who has all the answers. Did you place an order for the secret data that proves it yet? It's only $9.95 and I'm sure it's well worth it.
Problem is this OA will most likely have a profound effect on our salmon and as we sit back and accept our fate with business as usual we sell out the future for the fossil fuel industry of today.
What happens when the zooplankton are gone? The salmon smolts go to the ocean and there is no food to grow into adults.
Problem is this OA will most likely have a profound effect on our salmon and as we sit back and accept our fate with business as usual we sell out the future for the fossil fuel industry of today.
What happens when the zooplankton are gone? The salmon smolts go to the ocean and there is no food to grow into adults.
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YIKES! OBD - yet again - it is my assertion that you misinterpret/misunderstand what you post. The "offgassing" of CO2 you describe means that the water has a gas saturation of 100% or more. The CO2 portion of that TDG pressure would be at max - which means that the carbonate buffering system would LOWER the pH. See:
https://www.niwa.co.nz/coasts-and-oceans/faq/what-is-ocean-acidification
http://www.scopenvironment.org/downloadpubs/scope13/chapter09.html
https://www.niwa.co.nz/coasts-and-oceans/faq/what-is-ocean-acidification
http://www.scopenvironment.org/downloadpubs/scope13/chapter09.html
OldBlackDog
Well-Known Member
The world’s marine ecosystems risk being severely damaged by ocean acidification unless there are dramatic cuts in CO2 emissions, warn scientists.
This sounds very alarming, so being diligent researchers we should of course check the facts. The ocean currently has a pH of 8.1, which is alkaline not acid. In order to become acid, it would have to drop below 7.0. According to Wikipedia “Between 1751 and 1994 surface ocean pH is estimated to have decreased from approximately 8.179 to 8.104.” At that rate, it will take another 3,500 years for the ocean to become even slightly acid. One also has to wonder how they measured the pH of the ocean to 4 decimal places in 1751, since the idea of pH wasn’t introduced until 1909.
The BBC article then asserts:
The researchers warn that ocean acidification, which they refer to as “the other CO2 problem”, could make most regions of the ocean inhospitable to coral reefs by 2050, if atmospheric CO2 levels continue to increase.
This does indeed sound alarming, until you consider that corals became common in the oceans during the Ordovician Era – nearly 500 million years ago – when atmospheric CO2 levels were about 10X greater than they are today. (One might also note in the graph below that there was an ice age during the late Ordovician and early Silurian with CO2 levels 10X higher than current levels, and the correlation between CO2 and temperature is essentially nil throughout the Phanerozoic.)
This sounds very alarming, so being diligent researchers we should of course check the facts. The ocean currently has a pH of 8.1, which is alkaline not acid. In order to become acid, it would have to drop below 7.0. According to Wikipedia “Between 1751 and 1994 surface ocean pH is estimated to have decreased from approximately 8.179 to 8.104.” At that rate, it will take another 3,500 years for the ocean to become even slightly acid. One also has to wonder how they measured the pH of the ocean to 4 decimal places in 1751, since the idea of pH wasn’t introduced until 1909.
The BBC article then asserts:
The researchers warn that ocean acidification, which they refer to as “the other CO2 problem”, could make most regions of the ocean inhospitable to coral reefs by 2050, if atmospheric CO2 levels continue to increase.
This does indeed sound alarming, until you consider that corals became common in the oceans during the Ordovician Era – nearly 500 million years ago – when atmospheric CO2 levels were about 10X greater than they are today. (One might also note in the graph below that there was an ice age during the late Ordovician and early Silurian with CO2 levels 10X higher than current levels, and the correlation between CO2 and temperature is essentially nil throughout the Phanerozoic.)
I was going to ask you for the link to the peer-review study, OBD - but then I remembered that it was very unlikely that you even read the article. Instead I cut and pasted your cut and paste - and lo and behold - up popped a denier blob written by an poster who goes by the handle "Posted by MS" from 2014 - surprise, surprise:
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.ca/2014/10/new-paper-debunks-acidification-scare.html
In there they talk about pollen sampling - which you core at THE BOTTOM of lakes - which have their own microchemistry going on there as organics dissolve - which AFFECTS THE pH! (I think DUH! is an appropriate comment here).
Lakes are also NOT THE OCEAN (second duh!) - with very different processes happening at different scales. Extrapolating water quality parameters from a lake study to the ocean is so bizarrely unsupported that it boggles my mind that someone would do that, and then hope that nobody noticed.
In addition - one of the commenters to this blog left this logic to consider:
"There is also the vegetation to think of: a pine forest produces acidic soils, so more pine forests give more acidity (think the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, where the acidity of the runoff created the bog iron deposits that built America until the Lake Superior banded iron deposits and blast furnaces changed the iron industry). Less pine forests, less acidity, i.e. increased pH value...." (How many DUHs are we up to now?)
For those who actually wish to look at what the researchers (Ajioka et al., Clim. Past, 10, 1843–1855, 2014) actually said - the study is at: http://www.clim-past.net/10/1843/2014/cp-10-1843-2014.pdf
They concur with the comment above (p.1847): "On the other hand, the measured pH of surface soils in the drainage basin ranged from 3.3 to 8.0 with an average of 5.0 (Ajioka et al., 2014), which is lower than that in lake water."
In addition the authors state (p.1848): "In contrast, Ca2+ supplied from limestone increases lake water pH (Wetzel, 2001). In the Lake Biwa drainage basin, limestone is exposed only in the Mt. Ibuki area, and its contribution toward controlling lake water pH should be minor. However, if chemical weathering is enhanced, this may increase the flux of Ca2+ from the silicate rocks in the drainage basin".
AND (p.1848): "In Lake Biwa, photosynthesis is controlled mainly by the phosphorus concentration in the water (Ishida et al., 1982; Tezuka, 1985). The anthropogenic eutrophication of Lake Biwa induced high primary production, resulting in an increase in the pH of the lake water by more than 1 from the 1960s to the 1970s (Nakayama, 1981)."
I could go on - but you get the idea of how invalid, unsupported and misleading the denier blog actually is....
Talk about purposely misleading comments carried unwittingly by uniformed believers....
This demonstrates to me how critical thinking skills are - and should be developed for people seeking truth. Blind faith in a denier blog is not demonstration of comprehension of basic science literacy.
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