Oysters dying from ocean acidification

[Rockfish]

http://apps.seattletimes.com/reports/sea-change/2013/sep/11/oysters-hit-hard/?cmpid=2628

 

[Lipripper]

I know guys that are doing quite well.............

Makes ya wonder?

 

[GLG]

I know guys that are doing quite well.............

Makes ya wonder?

I stopped wondering many years ago.....
If you are referring to these guys here is the info you need to look at.

[h=3]Lessons from a scallop farm[/h]For some, that future has already arrived.
Aquaculture is big business in B.C., supplying a steadily increasing percentage of the food supply.
At Island Scallops near Qualicum Beach, scallops are raised from microscopic larvae. Two years ago, something all but wiped out a billion of them — nearly the entire year's crop.
"In 2010, we couldn't grow anything, everything died," said Island Scallops owner Rob Saunders.
"Every batch we put through the hatchery either died at day 10 or by the end of its larval life, which is about day 20, they were all dead. "
Similar problems were popping up all along the Pacific Coast. Some blamed a mysterious disease, and those in the industry scrambled to test water temperature and salinity, but nobody considered pH.
"I was trained at UBC, and we were trained that the ocean never changes," Saunders said. "It's the mother Earth, it's always stable and it hardly fluctuates, nobody was looking at pH."

With creditors calling and his multimillion-dollar business on the line, Saunders came across a study detailing the effects of pH levels on fish. He altered the pH of the water and put some larvae under the microscope.
"After we removed the CO2, I came in early in the morning, and I'm looking at the microscope ... and sure enough they were swimming around like mad, and then we knew we had it, and we haven't looked back since then."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...cid-levels-jeopardizing-marine-life-1.1278903

GLG

 

[Whole in the Water]

Unfortunately, me thinks this is a serious omen of worse things to come. Ocean acidification is increasing all over the globe.

 

[Gunsmith]

How many years has man been using the ocean as a dump?

 

[Englishman]

How many years has man been using the ocean as a dump?

Yes the ocean has been used as a dump....but that is not the point here. The issue is the absorption by the ocean of the massive amounts of CO2 we are pumping into the atmosphere. As the oyster article says "It will only get worse". Humanity will not get off its fossil fuel addiction and and so the "pushers" - Harper, the Chinese, Big Oil, and every one of us who has a stake, directly or indirectly, in fossil fuel consumption will see to that.
Those oyster farmers have moved to Hawaii, but they have only put off the day of reckoning for their business for a few decades at most......

 

[cuttlefish]

Many species will be affected. Some positively (starfish), some negatively. This change will ripple through the ecosystem. http://www.scor-int.org/High_CO2_II/Presentations/McKinnell.pdf

Any have a good recipe for starfish?

 

[Gunsmith]

But as mentioned the issue was circumvented by adjusting the PH level of the water. How are we going to adjust the radiation level in the fish?

 

[agentaqua]

Lessons from a scallop farm: "I was trained at UBC, and we were trained that the ocean never changes" said Island Scallops owner Rob Saunders.

I'm hoping he was misquoted. I really can't see somebody who was actually "trained" in oceanography at a University making a comment like this.

The ocean changes all the time; daily, seasonally, tidally, vertically, horizontally, decade-ally, geographically (i.e. currents), and over vast geologic time scales with respect to many properties (i.e. temps, pH, redox, salinities, densities, isotopically, velocity, pressure and a whole list of major and minor nutrients, dissolved organics, solids and trace metals and minerals).

That same variability has been used by big oil lobbyists to question the climate modelling proposed by climate change scientists.

The questions are:
1/ what range(s) of variability are "normal" for each specific parameter?,
2/ What time frames do changes and shifts in variability occur in "normal" daily to geologic time frames?, and
3/ What are the consequences of these shifts?

When you review the science, esp. the paleogeologic work - it is apparent that these shifts associated with CO2 rise are:
1/ Complex, "noisy" and affects many other variables, such as pH as well as temperature,
2/ That our range of "normal" will be surpassed for our geologic timeframe (i.e. within the next 60 years or sooner), and
3/ These effects from our fossil fuel consumption will be felt for the next 500-5000+ years - depending upon how far we allow global CO2 emissions to rise before we act.

Here's the "good" news - we will run out of economic fossil fuel supplies within the next 60 years or so (or less - dependent upon our actions within the next few years -dependent upon world population numbers, and the "modernization" of "3rd world" countries like China).

there will be winners and loosers (biologically), and it's likely that jellyfish and squid will be winners, while humans (which excludes bankers, economists, and oil lobbyists) and many fish species will be the loosers. "Dead zones" (i.e. anoxic bottom layers) are increasing in number, size, intensity, and duration. That's predicted to increase. O2 and pH will drop in many marine areas. World-wide, as the oceans absorb more CO2 over time, and warm - there will be many shifts wrt geographic limits to species.

We are already seeing these results, especially in (Ant)Arctic and near-(Ant)Arctic areas. Louisiana will see more frequent and more devastating hurricanes. Bangladesh will see more flooding. We in BC will see shifts in species assemblages and home ranges for species, more wildfires, and changes to the intensities and timing of river floods and hydrography - dependent upon where you live in regards to weather systems and their drop of precip.

The only ones still in denial are big-oil, big-oil supporters and the religious right in the USA - which are curiously intertwined with the big-oil bunch - thanks to the Bushes and Chenies.

 

[Gunsmith]

And when the earth gets to where they are pushing it their money is not going to be worth a fiddler's fuddle duddle.