By a curious coincidence, many climate sceptics are also ocean acidification sceptics. Some, for whom a rose by any other name would not smell so sweet, try to hide their rejection of reality behind semantics, arguing that ocean acidification should be called ocean neutralisation or ocean dealkalinisation. Others try to disprove ocean acidification with misremembered school chemistry, and yet others use dubious statistics.
There is an outbreak of the latter at WUWT, where Mike Wallace presents an analysis of ocean pH data that the ever gullible Anthony Watts finds “compelling”.
Wallace appears to have taken an objection to this figure by Richard Feely which shows atmospheric CO2 concentrations measured at Mauna Loa and ocean CO2 concentrations and pH measured in the nearby ocean.
Wallace’s complaint is that this figure omits 80 years of data on ocean pH and that this omission represents “pHraud” that “eclipses even the so-called climategate event.”
Wallace proceeds to compile all available ocean pH data from the World Ocean Atlas and calculate annual mean pH over the last century.
Wallace’s naïve analysis
A global-ocean mean pH: what could possibly go wrong?
Consider what would happen if one simply took all available temperature data used this to estimate annual mean temperatures over the last 100 years, rather than calculating anomalies and gridding quality checked data. The result would obviously be nonsense. Changing geographical and seasonal biases in data availability, and incorrect data would corrupt the analysis. Wallace’s analysis suffers from exactly the same problems.
Geographical variability in ocean pH is large. Upwelling area have the lowest pH as the water upwelling from the deep oceans has high CO2 concentrations from decomposition of sinking organic matter. The geographical coverage of ocean pH measurement is extremely unlikely to have remained constant over the instrumental period. Any analysis that fails to take this into consideration is doomed.
Geographic variability in ocean pH. Apologies for the rainbow scale.
Intra-annual variability in pH is also high. Intense photosynthesis during algal blooms can raise pH, and seasonal upwelling can lower it. If the seasonal coverage of ocean pH measurements has not remained constant over time, biases will result.
The data Wallace analysed are easily downloaded from the World Ocean Database, and the metadata examined for geographic or seasonal patterns in data availability. I’ve analysed the data on a per-cast basis. Each cast collects data from several different depths.
Location of casts by decade
Geographic patterns of data availability vary from decade to decade (and even more on an annual basis).
Season of northern extra-tropical casts by decade
The seasonal pattern of data availability in the northern extra-tropics (which represent the bulk of the data) also vary over time.
The changing geographic and seasonal patterns in data availability means that simply calculating the mean pH for each year will give all sorts of spurious trends in the analysis. Even gridding the pH data would be difficult. They are probably best used to validate model output.
Certainly, Wallace’s “compelling” analysis is junk. I hope the rest of his PhD is better than this pHoolishess.
UPDATE: I’ve replaced the figures after finding a glitch in my analyses.
@richardjtelford
Musings on Quantitative Palaeoecology 
Radical Rodent – Do you understand the difference between the following phrases?
Most of the CO2 …..
Most of the *increase* in CO2 ……
Do you realize that the NASA data you linked to covers a range of a few ppm? With a minimum scale value of 387 ppm. The preindustrial value is generally accepted as 280 ppm – where is 280 ppm on the NASA map legend?
I’m afraid you have no ability whatsoever to analyze data or draw proper conclusions from it. Nothing in the CO2 map to which you linked supports your cockamamie, debunked many times over, ideas.
How many scientific papers do you need that show that humans are responsible for the increase in CO2? Or do you just deny the science? Rhetorical question – obviously you deny the science.
Mr O’Neill: I am fully capable of seeing what is in front of me, something that you have displayed you can fail at. Where have I said, or even remotely intimated, that there is no rise in CO2? Yes, CO2 levels have risen since the pre-industrial levels; however, that does not make the pre-industrial levels the bench-mark for where CO2 levels should be – they have been considerably higher in times past; which level would you posit is the optimum? The NASA satellite photograph merely indicates that the CO2 levels are not quite as one could expect them to be distributed; i.e. the higher levels are NOT over the industrial areas.
Have you ever asked yourself the question “why *should* we expect higher levels to be over the industrial areas?”, and then considered the possibility that your understanding is perhaps too limited to give an answer to that question yourself?
Ask an expert in the carbon cycle, and he will answer you “we don’t expect that”. Just try it out, send an e-mail to e.g. David Archer and kindly ask him if he could explain to you, in layman’s terms, how it all works.
So what you are saying is that, while present CO2 levels are higher than pre-industrial times, the increase has nothing to do with industrial progress (else the industrial areas would show higher concentrations of CO2, surely?). Interesting.
Now you are just trolling, aren’t you, RR?
Of course your interpretation of my comment is completely and totally wrong. It also explains why you will not respond to my expanded example further upthread.
Marco, the reason I have not responded to your expanded example is that most analogies tend to fail, as they are generally poor analogies; yours was utter balderdash, not least in its complexity.
As for the question you posited: “why *should* we expect higher levels to be over the industrial areas?” Because we are constantly being assured that rising CO2 is because of humans burning “fossil” fuels; ergo, it is quite reasonable to assume that the higher CO2 levels would be close to the source – i.e. where the burning of “fossil” fuels is the highest – in other words, industrial areas. The NASA photograph shows this not to be so, which might lead one to question the earlier assurances. Even more bizarrely, the highest levels of CO2 are over the previously lauded “lungs of the world”, the rain forests, where, surely, one would have expected the levels to have been the lowest. To me, this raises interesting questions; it does not lead me to make poor excuses in defence of dearly-held beliefs. “Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.” If you consider that to be trolling, then, yes, I am a troll.
It should be fairly obvious why the OCO-2 data from a six week period does not how highest concentrations CO2 over industrial area – I have discussed why these data don’t match naive expectations before.
If you think my example was too complex, I am afraid you will never ever understand why the satellite picture does *not* support, in any way, the notion that anthropogenic emissions of CO2 are not responsible for the rise in atmospheric CO2.
Here’s the information from the experts about those hotspots around the “lungs of the worlds”
http://goo.gl/rjOOHl
“Preliminary analysis shows these signals are largely driven by the seasonal burning of savannas and forests,”
Oh. Oops. Anthropogenic factors. Perhaps you should start contemplating your own ignorance.
How convenient. Do you not think it a little odd that all these fires – and there would have to be a lot, surely; so many that they dwarf the emissions from the established industrial areas – are set in time for the first satellite pass for CO2 photography? Ah, but it would appear that you question nothing, if it comes from those in whom you believe; I, in my ignorance, question anything and everything; but I am not ashamed to admit my ignorance. I also need to understand, and do not blindly believe. It will be interesting to see the results in the next season, when there are no fires (though I do have the suspicion that this might be a 12-month season).
RR – “The NASA satellite photograph merely indicates that the CO2 levels are not quite as one could expect them to be distributed…”
No, they are not as *you* expect them to be. As Marco points out, your naive understanding is not what scientists who actually study the subject would predict. Nor is it the assumption that any learned layman who has read the scientific papers exploring the subject would expect. Ergo …….
Here’s a hint: what is the difference between stocks and flows?
Mr O’Neill: I notice that you quite vehemently declare that I am wrong, yet give no indication as to what the correct interpretation might be, merely obscurely writing about “scientists who actually study the subject”. You obviously prefer belittlement to enlightenment. I do hope you are not a teacher.
On the information that we have, I would have thought that the concentrations of CO2 at present would have been higher closer to its source, despite wind patterns distributing it hither and thither. While there might be seasonal variations in many of its sources, surely the industrial source is the most constant (though perhaps higher during winter)? Also, I think it a fair assumption that oceanic pH values would be higher in those areas where atmospheric CO2 concentrations are higher and/or where the sea temperatures are lower, as both conditions result in more of the gas being dissolved, thus creating carbonic acid. None of the data given seems to correlate in such ways; why?
Mr Telford: yes, it will be interesting to see how the CO2 picture develops. Will we be able to view it on a month-by-month (or similar) basis, or will it be cumulative?
RR, somebody who is aware of his own ignorance would not have immediately just questioned the proposed explanation, but read up on the topic first. That person would then have noted a wealth of scientific papers on seasonal biomass burning around the world, the wide distribution of the particulates (and thus also CO2) of that burning over the hemispheres, in short, the enormous amount of work already done in this area.
I followed Richard Telford’s link to his “discussion” , Chrome restarted, and I now had an advertising extension loaded. Easy to remove, but annoying.
The adverts are via WordPress – I have no control over them and, except for free hosting, do not benefit from them.
Ooops, silly me: when saying, “…oceanic pH values would be higher…” I should really have said “…oceanic pH values would be LOWER…”
@marco
And we might also expect – using the model that increased CO2 causes reduced seawater pH – that the lowest pH should be found where the CO2 concentration is highest. The data shows that It isn’t.
Please explain why not.
From the general tenor of your comments I am sure that you have the answer at your fingertips.Thanks.
“lowest pH should be found where the CO2 concentration is highest”
Please explain why local atmospheric CO2 concentrations are the only determining factor for CO2 solubility and by proxy pH.
This could be where Henry’s Law comes into it; i.e. “At a constant temperature, the amount of a given gas that dissolves in a given type and volume of liquid is directly proportional to the partial pressure of that gas in equilibrium with that liquid.” Of course, the temperatures are not constant, which makes the scenario considerably more complicated.
To expand upon Mr Alder’s point, as solubility of a gas in water decreases with a rise in temperature, surely it would be logical to assume that the lowest oceanic pH should be where the temperatures are lowest. Referring back to the colourful picture Mr Telford has used, this does not appear to be the case; indeed, it is basically quite the reverse of that. Why should that be?
Could be, yes, but there is much, much more. It’s that complexity that you simply do not seem to (want to?) understand.
@marco
‘Could be, yes, but there is much, much more. It’s that complexity that you simply do not seem to (want to?) understand’
Try us.
You can be as complex as you like, so long as you back up you remarks with real world observed data. I will try to remember back to my Masters in Physical Chemistry to help me understand if you get too technical..
But let’s take Henry’s Law as a starting point.
From Henry’s Law and the theory of ‘ocean acidification’ we would expect to see the lower pH at the places with highest CO2 concentration. This does not happen according to the observed data
Please explain this apparent contradiction.
That is it, in a nutshell. The entire system is a whole lot more complex than you seem to want to give it credit for. Despite the evidence to the contrary, you are fully rooted to the idea that, as CO2 levels rise, the oceans pH must rise, too. Mr Telford has presented evidence that that may not be the case, yet even he seems to think that it most definitely is. If the theory is that the increasing CO2 is *all* the fault of humans burning “fossil” fuels, you quite happily accept that the distribution of CO2 concentration is NOT over those areas where humans are most actively burning the “fossil” fuels but where subsistence farmers are trying to eke out an existence by burning a bit of vegetation.
Neither Mr Latimer nor I are saying that you are wrong, per se, more that you might not be as right as you seem so convinced that you are. At risk of offending Mr Latimer by speaking for him, we do not think that there is enough evidence to present a firm enough conclusion. More evidence is needed, but we would also like to know why such a vast amount of evidence is being ignored.
‘ At risk of offending Mr Latimer by speaking for him, we do not think that there is enough evidence to present a firm enough conclusion. More evidence is needed, but we would also like to know why such a vast amount of evidence is being ignored.’
No offence taken whatsoever. A good summary of my position.
I’d only add that the needed evidence has to be real world observations. Not just work in the lab, in the text book or in models. Actual observations of real oceans.
And note that I’m Mr. Alder, not Mr. Latimer. Somewhere along the dark byways of my Welsh family history, the surname got transmuted into a first name…..
I know that. My fingers seem to be slower on the uptake. Sorry.
Latimer Alder, I tried to be a little bit more complex some time ago, and RR’s eyes just glazed over. So far I have not seen you show any ability to grasp complexity either. After all, you could just have done a simple literature search, finding plenty of information on the effect of upwelling regions, river water mixing regions (especially in regions with loads of limestone), regions with large amounts of calcareous organisms, all having an effect on ‘local’ pH. Note that this does not equal “trend in pH”.
For those who do grasp complexity (and/or have a desire to learn – it is not necessarily easy reading), you can start here:
http://c-can.msi.ucsb.edu/materials/oa-reference-materials/OceanPH_Rpt_Assembled_010813.pdf/view
And then go “reference hunting”, reading through relevant literature cited in that report.
@marco
Yet again you are in violent agreement with RR and me…though perhaps you don’t realise that you are.
Of course, there are many influences on oceanic pH. Of course Henry’s Law is not ‘the answer ‘ (though if English English is not your first language I’ll concede you may have missed my sarcasm).
But – given all that admitted complexity – where we differ is that you seem to be able (at least in your mind) to extract the signal from just one of those possible influences (CO2) from 800 observations at just 3 sites.
And not only that you can also confidently extrapolate from those three pretty similar sites to every site all around the world. Sufficient that you can endorse the proposition
‘Always and everywhere, ocean pH falls as CO2 partial pressure rises.’
That’s quite a feat of statistics/regression/component analysis..or whatever other technique you used. Please show us where we can read about how it was done.
Handwaving there, bunny.
‘Among other things there are also differences in the distribution of various anions and cations which determine the alkalinity ‘ =
Translation : Seawater is not uniform. A good point. One RR and I have been making for some time.
‘differences in the …..the buffering capacity of the oceans’
Translation : Sea water differs depending on how near sources of carbonate it is. Agreed. A point RR and I have been making for some time
‘differences in ………………………Ocean currents too’.
Translation : Seawater differs in its history. A point RR and I have been making for some time.
Delighted to see that you agree with us on so much about the variability of ocean water. We have made great progress.
Now, given all that, remind us why taking only 800 measurements in total from 3 sites only, all within a 10 degree band of latitude and temperature and two of which are volcanic islands is – in your mind – sufficient to tell us everything we could ever want to know about oceanic pH changes??
Because there is a difference in global *distribution* of the pH across different regions and the *trend* in the pH in those specific regions. Both Vancouver and Rio de Janeiro have seen an increase in average temperature over the last hundred years, but in terms of absolute temperature they are (still) vastly different.
You are trying to argue that those three different sites are just by chance showing a decrease in pH and that it is unknown whether the increase atmospheric CO2 plays any role (despite the fact that you earlier argued that there should be a connection through Henry’s law…).
@marco
I’d argue that to show an effect in just three sites …especially when those three sites have very similar circumstances….tells you very little about a supposedly global phenomenon. Make it three hundred or three thousand and you might be getting there. And even those three seem to show a difference of a factor of two in the apparent rate of change. Maybe a fourth would show a factor of three or ten or none at all. We don’t know. The work has not been done.
But three is not enough to be conclusive proof of anything that is as complex and prone to other influences as ocean pH.
As an aside, I’ve never before come across a bunch of scientists whose response to the proposition ‘more research is needed’ has been
‘Nope. We’ve done enough. Nothing more to learn. Case closed’
which is a recurrent theme throughout this discussion. How strange…..
Still denying basic chemistry? The mind boggles. Always and everywhere, ocean pH falls as CO2 partial pressure rises. How much it falls will vary depending on the variability in the buffering capacity but this won’t change the overall direction of pH change. It is downward, just like it was during the PETM and every other period of rapid CO2 increase in the geological record.
@BBD
‘Always and everywhere, ocean pH falls as CO2 partial pressure rises.’
Excellent. No doubt you have oodles of oceanic observational data to back up your assertion.
I look forward to seeing it.
I have the laws of chemistry and paleoclimate behaviour. It’s enough. You, as I have already pointed out are denying both while *pretending* to be agnostic with absolutely no supporting evidence whatsoever. It is clownish of you.
Please BBD, I must protest about your language. On this blog, we spell palaeo with an “a”.
Thank you for trying to explain how the oceans work to our friends who refuse to learn.
Ah. So what you are saying, BBD, is that observation counts as nothing compared with your models. Good one.
Please read Mr Alder’s comment with a more open mind, and you might see that he is agreeing with everything that you, Mr O’Neill and Mr Rabbett say, with the minor observations: there are such a lot of variables out there that it would be foolish to leap to any conclusions on the level of data that is being used (800 observations over 3 sites in a vast and highly variable environment – in other words, basically no supporting evidence whatsoever; how clownish).
To tell the truth, BBD, I do hope that you are not employed as a scientist, because, if you are, there is a strong probability that you will be on the public payroll, and I will be unwittingly contributing to your wages. I would hate to think that I am helping support someone who has absolutely no concept of scientific impartiality and integrity.
Mr Telford, one thing that Mr Alder and myself are quite willing to do is to learn. To do that, information is needed, and, given the complexity of the scenario, both of us seem to agree that the information that you are basing your conclusions on is pretty sparse. You have already admitted that the oceans are complex, with potentially large variations of readings at any particular site, then, somewhat inexplicably, you reduced down to a paltry few observations from a pitifully few sites. Quite how that explains how the oceans work remains a mystery to me, and, I suspect, a lot of others.
By the way, watching the BBC recently, I found that pH meters do exist, so that is one problem solved for a global array of readings, as mooted earlier.
RT
😉
@Richard T, @BBD
Let me just make sure once again that I have a crystal clear understanding of your statements on ‘how the oceans work’.
Please correct me if I have anything wrong.
1. ‘Always and everywhere, ocean pH falls as CO2 partial pressure rises. ‘
and the evidence you cite in support is:
2. ‘[We] have the laws of chemistry and paleoclimate behaviour. It’s enough’.
Is there anything in those two statements that you’d care to comment/expand upon?
‘pal[a]eoclimate’.
@BBD, @richard telford
Follow up question:
Given the admitted lack of much observational data (nor seemingly any requirement in your minds to have any), how would you advise I went about scientifically distinguishing between the possible scenarios of
a. The pH changes you expect will not be a problem at all
b. The pH changes you expect will be a minor problem
c. The pH changes you expect will be a major problem
d. The pH changes you expect will be a catastrophe
Over, say, the next 50-100 years in my home waters – The English Channel? I don’t have any influence over other waters, so please confine yourselves to this area.
Please be specific.
Update
Thanks to James C Orr, (Recent and Future Changes in Ocean Carbonate Chemistry, 2011) I need to correct the misleading impression I gave that there are only 800 observational measurements of ‘OA’
Orr helpfully gives a graph of all the measurements. Of course it isn’t ‘only 800’.Silly me!
It is only 500. Wow.
Mr. Alder,
500 measurements is quite a curious estimate, as the Hawaii Ocean Time-series reports ~2300 measurements from 1988-2013 of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) in the upper 200 meters of the ocean at their main sampling site (and the associated alkalinity, salinity, temperature measurements needed to calculate pH). They also report ~850 measurements at an alternate site off the island of Oahu, and a recent paper (Dore et al., 2014 Geophysical Research Letters) suggest that the rate of ocean acidification is similar across the Hawaiian Ridge at both stations.
Bates et al. (2012, Biogeoscience) report over 2000 DIC (plus alkalinity etc.) samples from the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series (they report ~300 for surface values, but note that the difference doesn’t change when you pick a different depth within the mixed layer). Also, no difference is seen between the two stations measured by the Bermuda Time-series (between HOT and BATS, it appears that “500 measurements” is at least an order of magnitude too low already!).
Bates et al. (2014, Oceanography) report OA data data from 7 time-series stations in the open ocean (data collected from 15-30 years), but do not include the three Japanese time-series sites maintained by the Japanese Meteorological Agency since the 1980’s (e.g. Ishi et al. 2011 Journal of Geophysical Research) the DYFAMED data (from 1991, see Touratier and Goyet, 2011 Deep-Sea Research I), or the repeated CLIVAR cruises.
To my knowledge, all of these time-series are continuing to collect these data, along with newer time-series programs (off the coast of Washington State, in the English Channel, in Monterey Bay, off Australia, etc.).
I eagerly await your next update on how many measurements have been made, and thank you in advance for contacting your elected representatives in England and expressing your strong support for expanded funding for ocean monitoring of the global carbon system.
Thank you for adding this information.
But curiously, Orr et al (referenced earlier) seem unaware of these measurements.As is any other ‘ocean acidification’ review paper I’ve found as well as the distinguished other contributors here. And the IPCC. How strange that they have been hidden from so many for so long.
Please can you guide us to where we can simply see graphical representations of the measured pH over time form all these stations? I’m sure that matters of such significance should be widely available.
I’ll be happy to update the number once I’ve seen the data and the resultant pH plots.
And please give more details about monitoring in my home waters – the English channel. Where is the station? How long in operation? Who controls it?
All this complexity that the average layman cannot understand sounds alot to me like the geocentirc theory. Very complex and hard for the layman to understand. Exactly how does that planet stop and change directions in the heavens… very complex.
If you think that ocean acidification sound like geocentric theory, that says more about your hearing than ocean acidification. The basic problem should be easy for anybody to grasp – human activity is releasing CO2, some of which dissolves in water to make carbonic acid which reduces the pH of the ocean.
Like any topic there are additional complexities – just look at the Earth’s orbit about the Sun.
Ocean pH has not measurably changed. Within error bars, it has not changed at all. If it had been changing, that surprise factoid would have been trumpeted from the rooftops of the media 24/7, and by every scientific organization on earth.
But aside from a few contrarian blogs, no one accepts the “acidification” scare. It jsut isn’t credible.
In fact, not one frightening prediction ever made by the climate alarmist crowd has happened. When one side of the debate has been wrong about everything they ever predicted, rational folks will stop listening to them. That’s what is happening.
A few years ago, most reader comments in the mainstream media expressed concern over man-made global warming (MMGW). But, no more. Now we see almost all the comments from the general public have turned into ridicule; now they are making fun of the MMGW narrative.
And for good reason: global warming STOPPED many years ago.
Smokey – I am not surprised that you are too embarrassed to use your real name when you spout this drivel.
Ocean acidification is accepted by everyone who understands the simple chemistry involved. Increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations will lead to a decrease in ocean pH. This can easily be tested in the lab and can be observed in several long time series of ocean pH measurements.
Really, you should try to get information from sources other that the ever-ridiculous WUWT.
Richard Telford,
Your ad hominem remark is noted. That’s a tactic used by those who have no other credible argument.
You say:
Ocean acidification is accepted by everyone who understands the simple chemistry involved.
I understand the basic chemistry and statistics, and like the majority of skeptical scientists (the only honest kind), I do not accept your “ocean acidification” scare. Here’s why:
The immense buffering capacity of the oceans is infinite for all practical purposes. This short video explain why adding more CO2 to the oceans will be buffered, and will cause no changes in pH:
There is no way that a minuscule trace gas, measured in parts per million, can measurably alter ocean pH. And that is why there is no general acceptance of ocean pH changes. They all fall well inside all error bars, therefore they are of no consequence. Unless, of course, you reject statistics.
Ocean “acidification” is only the latest climate scare to be debunked. I note that every other alarming prediction has failed, including disappearing Polar bears, and accelerating sea level rise, and Micronesia disappearing under the ocean, and vanishing Arctic ice cover, and two-headed frogs, and disappearing toads, and increassing extreme weather events, and ‘climate refugees’, and “our children won’t know what snow is” — and the grand-daddy of them all: runaway global warming and climate catastrophe. So why should this scare be any different? It is just another false alarm.
The “acidification” arguments amount to nitpicking; like debating the number of angels on a pinhead. If ocean pH was measurably changing to the point that caused most physicists, oceanographers, biologists, chemists and climatologists to start banging the drum about it, the rest of us would sit up straight and pay attention. But I note that “ocean acidification” remains on the fringe of the climate debate.
So far, the only ones who believe in the “acidification” scare cling to it like a drowning man clings to a stick — because every other prediction they’ve made has failed. When one side of the debate has been 100% wrong in all their alarming predictions, rational folks will disregard any new scares, based on the parable of the little boy who cried “Wolf!!” Trying to scare the public is becoming much less effective. “Acidification” is one false alarm too many.
If anyone wants a perfect example of hand-waving, it is “ocean acidification”. The intake pipe for the Monterey Bay Aquarium is a mile offshore, and ocean pH is constantly monitored. I’ve seen the graphs. They show no change in ocean pH. But of course real world, empirical evidence like that is always ignored by the purveyors of the “carbon” scare. Cherry-picking their factoids is the basis of all their arguments…
…and will someone please wake me when global warming resumes? Eighteen+ years now, and counting…
Zowie! I thought Latimer Alder gave Mr Telford a bit of a rough time, but you take the biscuit, there, Smokey! Maybe you are getting fed up with laying back in the arms of Mary? Anyhoo… It is nice to know that my totally unscientific intuition is supported by such uncompromising science.
Just because you wrote your comment on April 1st does not compel you to act the fool.
That a trace gas can alter ocean pH is demonstrated every single day by people running mesocosom experiments. Do you not think that someone would have noticed and published a Nature paper if the pH magically did not change with CO2 concentration increased?
The buffering capacity of the entire ocean may be immense, but it is also irrelevant because of the time it takes the ocean to mix. The warm surface waters can undergo substantial acidification before the deep cold ocean has absorbed appreciable amounts of CO2.
“If ocean pH was measurably changing to the point that caused most physicists, oceanographers, biologists, chemists and climatologists to start banging the drum about it, the rest of us would sit up straight and pay attention.”
This is perhaps the silliest thing I have ever seen you write (and there is some tough competition – ask Sou if you have forgotten). Physicists, oceanographers, biologists, chemists and climatologists are “banging the drum”. Not only do you deny that ocean acidification is possible, you deny that scientists are “banging the drum” about it. Even if you heard them, would pay attention to do anything other than smear and spread lies?
A challenge – name one oceanographer who would agree with your position that ocean acidification is impossible. It should be easy for you.
To give yourself any credence, Mr Telford, it might be an idea to set up monitoring stations as I have suggested (way, way up-thread). It need not start with a vast number, just sufficient to cover a range of possibilities – deep ocean, “constant” (or “control”, if you prefer) sites; wide ranging, estuarial site; others located according to the geology. pH meters are available, as are temperature meters and atmospheric CO2 meters; other factors may be considered, but those would be a good start. It might take a while to calibrate and fine tune, but, after a few decades, you should have enough information to come to a suitably robust conclusion.
It would be much cheaper for you to gain a little credence. All you have to do is acknowledge the large amount of evidence that shows that ocean acidification is inevitable if atmospheric CO2 concentrations continue to rise as a result of human activities and that there is plentiful evidence that it is already happening. Have you even read the discussion in the IPCC report?
Alternatively, you could gain credence by suggesting a credible hypothesis whereby rising CO2 concentrations will not lead to ocean acidification.
Demanding decades more data before you will even contemplate that there might be a problem is a classic denier strategy.
Radical Rodent says:
To give yourself any credence, Mr Telford…
True enough, Mr. Rodent. I note that this Telford person cannot comment without falling back on his usual ad hominem fallacies:
“Just because you wrote your comment on April 1st does not compel you to act the fool.”… “This is perhaps the silliest thing I have ever seen you write (and there is some tough competition – ask Sou if you have forgotten).”
Who is this “Sou”? A credible scientist? What is his CV? Care to post it here? Telford is using “Sou” as his authority, so I will defer to “Sou” if his Mr. “Sou” has a credible scientific resume. That ball is in your court, Telford. Or were you just winging it again?
Next, as usual the climate alarmist crowd typically resorts to name-calling and insults when they’re losing the debate.Telford is no exception. He has nothing but a Narrative; no verifiable, testable scientific measurements, so name-calling is his form of argument.
Like all scientific skeptics, I want testable, verifiable measurements proving that “Ocean acidification” is happening. But so far, there are no such credible measurements.
Telford says:
A challenge – name one oceanographer who would agree with your position that ocean acidification is impossible. It should be easy for you.
Ah. As usual, the alarmist contingent turns the Scientific Method on its head, and now demands that skeptics must prove a negative! But it doesn’t work that way.
See, the onus is on those making the conjecture. In this case, the conjecture is that a rise in atmospheric CO2 — a tiny trace gas measured in parts per million — will cause measurable “ocean acidification”. The job of skeptics is to debunk all conjectures. Anything that remains standing after the smoke clears is the current scientific paradigm. It is as close to scientific ‘truth’ as we can get.
Since the “acidification” conjecture is owned and promoted by the climate alarmist crowd, they have the onus of providing convincing evidence — and Telford has the onus of providing the names of a majority of scientists who support that conjecture; skeptics have no obligation to show who doesn’t support it.
So let’s see Mr. T post the names and qualifications of credible scientists who are pushing the “ocean acidification” scare.
As a benchmark, we will use the 31,000+ named scientists, all with degrees in the hard sciences (including more than 9,000 PhD’s), who have openly co-signed a statement asserting that the rise in CO2 is harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere.
I can produce all those names for Mr. Telford. Now let’s see him post the names of just one-tenth that number, who claim that the rise in CO2 is causing global harm. I will go even farther: let’s see Mr. Telford produce the names of even one percent of that number.
So once again, the ball is in Telford’s court. I predict he will emit pixels like a squid emits a cloud of ink when making its getaway — but he will never post the names of one percent of the scientists that I can post.
There’s YOUR challenge, Mr. Telford. Are you up to it? Can you meet the challenge? Or are you just emitting pixels?
Why do you presume that Sou must be male?
The Oregon Petition (do you really take this seriously!) does not mention ocean acidification. It would be perfectly possible to agree with the Petition’s claim that greenhouse gases will not cause “catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate” and yet accept that CO2 will cause ocean acidification. Hence even if all 31000 people who signed it had relevant expertise (spoiler – they don’t), it would not be evidence that any oceanographer rejected ocean acidification.
So you fail your challenge to name one oceanographer who rejects ocean acidification. In return, I offer you the authors of IPCC AR5 chapter 3. There are ~70 names there.
Richard Telford says:
Why do you presume that Sou must be male?
You brought him/her up as your authority. I asked for his/her CV. You deflected.
So, what is this “Sou’s” CV, anyway? Is he/she a cartoon character? A Nobel laureate? What? You never say, and I don’t know.
And:
The Oregon Petition (do you really take this seriously!)
Yes, of course. So do tens of thousands of other scientists and engineers — at a minumum. Every name has been vetted, and every scientist co-signing the statement has a degree in one of the hard scciences. Signers include Dr. Edward Teller, Prof. Freeman Dyson, and many other well known scientists.
So your comment is just more deflection. It shows you have no credible counter; no names of scientists who contradict that statement. As usual, all you are doing is changing the subject because you’ve lost the science debate.
You say:
Hence even if all 31000 people who signed it had relevant expertise (spoiler – they don’t)
But you can’t even produce 310 names, much less 31,000+. Your ’70’ un-named people are not even one percent of the number of names on the OISM statement! And you still cannot name a single one of those (paid) individuals presumably warning that “ocean acidification” is occurring. Where do they explicitly state that ocean “acidification” is happening?
More to the point: where are your measurements?? Produce verifiable, testable empirical measurements, beyond any error bars, showing that the overall pH of the planet’s oceans is changing. But you can’t even produce one measurement, can you?
All you can do is make your endless, baseless assertions. But that is not nearly good enough. All that amounts to is alarmist propaganda. Science requires verifiable measurements. But you have none. Thus, skeptics have done their job: they have debunked your conjecture.
The “acidification” scare is just more Chicken Little nonsense. I proved upthread that the tiny trace gas CO2 is far too minuscule to cause any change in ocean pH. And of course, no such change has ever been verified. All the fossil fuels in the earth could be burned, and the oceans’ pH would not measurably change. Anyone who understands buffering knows that. Look at the video I posted above. The minuscule amount of CO2 in the atmosphere cannot possibly change ocean pH.
Chicken Little found out that the sky was not falling; it was only a tiny acorn. The “acidification” scare isn’t even an acorn. It is truly nothing.
Which part of my comment didn’t you understand? The Oregon Petition is not about ocean acidification it is about global warming. By using it to claim that 31000 signers reject ocean acidification you are making the gross assumption that all 31000 are omni-deniers. By your “logic”, you can use the Oregon Petition to claim that second-hand smoke is harmless and that the Earth is flat.
I have absolutely no interest in compiling a list of 310 scientists who accept that ocean acidification is occurring, but you could peruse the list of members of the Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network. Meanwhile, you have yet to name a single oceanographer who would agree with your position. Could that just be because there aren’t any?
The 70 authors of the IPCC are not unnamed – their name is in the IPCC chapter – and they are not paid by the IPCC. If you are going to make stuff up, at least try to make it plausible.
Measurements? You have read the IPCC section on ocean acidification haven’t you? There are plenty of measurements there.
You did not prove that trace gases could not cause ocean acidification, you proved that you were unwilling to consider the everyday experience of people working with mesocosoms, so great is your personal incredulity.
Do you really think that scientists who work on ocean acidification have not considered that the oceans are buffered? CO2 acidifies rain to pH 5.5, the buffering capacity of the oceans mean that ocean pH will never reach this level.
That’s as maybe, but I am not the one making such outlandish claims. The large amount of evidence the you have provided shows that there is no detectable decrease in oceanic pH values, despite the increasing CO2 concentrations, natural or otherwise – or are those increases that can be solely attributed to humans of a more pernicious nature, creating significantly stronger acids?
For a theory to be wrong, it only needs to be wrong; an alternative theory is not required. I have no hypothesis about this; I have no theory; I merely observe. Oceans have ALREADY been shown to have large variations in pH values for a wide range of factors; a small rise in concentrations of a minor gas in the atmosphere will have no detectable effect, given the many and various other factors involved, not least the geology within and around the oceans. Observations have also shown that, even when atmospheric concentrations of CO2 were around 10 times present day levels, the oceans never became acidic, with pH values merely reduced by (perhaps) 0.5.
Ah, then there is the snide little put-down. Sorry, but that does not wash. The oceans are too vast, with too many contributing factors to their constituency for any rational thinker to assume that it is possible to formulate any idea of their construct from such pitifully few readings (800) from an abysmally few sites (3 – 3!). That is even worse than trying to visualise an elephant from a strand of its hair! (You might remember how Monty Python viewed that idea.)
Then there is the classic ad hominem strategy. Given that you are assuring us that what is happening is almost in direct contradiction to the evidence that you have provided, quite who is the denier, here?
As for the presumption that Sou is male, this seems to be one of the positions of the human psyche; in certain fields, a person is assumed to be of a gender unless the indications are otherwise. Thus, in this case of scientific endeavour, a name like “Sou” is presumed to be male, whereas “Sue” would not; if I talked about a nurse called “Pat”, what is the immediate gender attribution that arises in your mind? From personal experience, it is a mistake that is probably made irrespective of you own gender (i.e. I also assumed “Sou” to be male). This is why my name was given to me, so that people may make the assumption about my gender that might make them more open to my views – there are many arguments that contain the rejoinder: “What does a girl (or man) know about that?”
I think the term you were searching for is casual sexism. If you are not sure of someone’s gender (or it is not relevant) you should use gender neutral language. Or learn Finnish – never a problem in Finnish.
Sou has listed some of the silly things written by Smokey here.
@richard telford.
Gotta say that I’m underwhelmed by your repeated appeals to the authority of oceanographers rather than to measured data to support your contention about ‘ocean acidification’
As its Easter Sunday, perhaps its a good time to reflect that at least 97% of Catholic priests believe in both the resurrection and transubstantiation. But science is not done by voting or belief…its done by observation.
At the risk of teaching grandma to suck eggs, I remind you of this.
So far, you’ve got a nice theory. But you ain’t done much of the ‘comparison with nature’ bit.
Smokey made the foolish claim that “aside from a few contrarian blogs, no one accepts the “acidification” scare” yet is unable to name a single oceanographer who would support this claim. By asking Smokey for a name – just one – I am not appealing to authority, I am showing Smokey’s claim to authority to be baseless.
So, you are desperate to be seen as politically-correct. You should know that Finnish is a language that is heard in few places outside Finland; all the Finns I have met speak excellent English. Most other languages in the world have gender structures (do you remember your French lessons at school?), some stricter than others; perhaps you ought to be spending more of your efforts correcting that. Interesting to note, though, that your political-correctness only extends so far, as you wholeheartedly support entire posts dedicated to attacking the man, not the argument. While I think that you are misguided, and foolish in your entrenched beliefs, I would not pour any scorn upon you, outside this argument, and certainly not to the depths that “Sou” has done on others. I actually consider that to be a greater reflection upon “Sou” and “Sou’s” supporters than upon the target of the ridicule, and it is not a very flattering reflection.
You do need to accept that it doesn’t matter how beautiful the theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are or what your name is, if reality does not agree with your theory, the theory is WRONG.
@richard.
Not sure that I want to pursue this byway much further, but your reference to
‘the 70 authors of the IPCC’
and
‘Do you really think that scientists who work on ocean acidification have not considered that the oceans are buffered?’
suggests a greater reliance on an ‘appeal to authority’ than you just asking for the name of a single oceanographer who disagrees.
Good science is not done by voting or opinion. Its done by data. Of which there is precious little.
@richard telford,
Thanx for posting the “Sou” rants. I have never seen any of that before. She sure is fixated on WUWT! What an unhappy person, no? She is truly a hater. I don’t think I’ll be clicking on her blog any more.
I thought you were using far too many ad hominem fallacies in trying to debate me. I was wrong: Sou puts you to shame. You need to jack up your name-calling and invective, richard. It needs to be doubled and squared, before you have a chance of matching ‘Sou’.
Also, you have never produced a CV for ‘Sou’. Why not? I asume it’s because she has no scientific credibility. Prove me wrong. Post her CV. IF you can.
Nor do your own arguments hold water. None of them do. I have posted facts and evidence, while all you do is argue your beliefs. Worse, when you run out of arguments, you get a really nasty proxy — ‘Sou’ — to deliver your ad hominems for you.
I state categorically that for those reasons I win this debate. The facts and the evidence I posted are entirely unrefuted by you or anyone else. “Ocean acidification” is a complete false alarm. If it wasn’t, your whole “consensus” gang would be on board, banging the drum on “acidification”. But they’re not. There is only you, along with a couple of other purveyors of that baseless scare. And you are so desperate that you had to dig up a non-entity to do your dirty work for you.
You do not have a single credible measurement of ocean pH changing due to ∆CO2. Science is all about measurements. But all you have is your baseless opinion. So you lose. Evidence trumps beliefs.
Finally, you argue by demanding that skeptics must prove a negative. It is not incumbent on me to produce the name or names of anyone who does not agree with you, richard. The CAGW conjecture, along with its corollaries like “ocean acidification” are YOUR conjectures. Therefore, YOU have the burden, not sceptics. Because skeptics have nothing to prove:
Ei incumbit probatio, qui dicit, non qui negat; cum per rerum naturam factum negantis probatio nulla sit. –- The proof lies upon him who affirms, not upon him who denies; since, by the nature of things, he who denies a fact cannot produce any proof.
As to the hypothesis that CO2 is causing “unprecedented” global warming or ocean acidification: the onus lies on those who say so.
You have the Scientific Method backward, and your debating tactics consist of name-calling and pejoratives. You do not have any credible measurements to support your eco-religion, only your Belief. That isn’t nearly good enough. You need unrefuted, verifiable, testable evidence, and real world facts, and measurements. You have none of those things. Thus, scientific skeptics have debunked another wild-eyed Chicken Little scare.
So Smokey’s sockpuppet has appeared, and is no wiser.
Reading someone’s CV is a shortcut to assessing their credibility. A better way it to read their work. Sou has a good understanding of climate change and I have rarely seen her write something I would disagree with. I would rate her as credible. Yes, she is scathing when someone writes something stupid at WUWT. Do you think she should praise stupidity?
Thank you so much for explaining to me how science works. I thought that after 20 years I was beginning to understand the process. Now I see that even when hundreds of scientists have worked for decades, developing a coherent theory, supported by vast amounts of experimental evidence, modelling studies and observational data, enough to convince any rational person, should all be rejected if one sceptic with no relevant experience does not believe it. Truly, this is a revelation. We can now disprove evolution, germ theory, heliocentric theory, and of course general relativity. And that’s before lunch. Imagine how much more so-called science could be disproved before night-fall.
On second thoughts, perhaps this radical philosophy is rather nihilistic. Might it not be better least demonstrate problems with existing theories, show cases where the evidence does not fit (genuine) expectations, and hint that a new theory might be a better explanation, than to simply deny that the evidence exists.
It is so kind of you to claim that ocean acidification is my conjecture. Alas I must decline the honour, for I have only worked on ocean acidification for a single day (helping a colleague with some statistical analysis). Hundreds of scientists have a better claim than I to share this accolade.
Hundreds of papers by hundreds of scientists are published on ocean acidification. This is not some fringe idea I dreamt up. If there was concern that ocean acidification, someone somewhere would have published something to show it is all nonsense. But yet you cannot show a single oceanographer, a single paper that rejects it.
You can take a sceptic to the data, but you cannot make them think.
My posting to “…..the ever-ridiculous WUWT” (which is very much correct):
I looked at: https://quantpalaeo.wordpress.com/2014/12/26/not-phraud-but-phoolishness/ I noted that to the right of the third figure is a scale from “More acidic” to “Less acidic”. The numbers ran from 8.20 down to 7.95. Since the definition of acidic is a pH below 7.0, ALL these numbers are in the alkaline range.
Ian M
I didn’t make this figure – I wouldn’t have chosen either the colour scale or the legend text.
Quality of pH Measurements in the NODC Data Archives
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/Quality+of+pH+Measurements+in+the+NODC+Data+Archives
Scroll down for:
Issues related to pH measurement technique and data reporting in the pre-1990 era
Thank you for posting this useful explanation of why the early pH measurements are uncertain and hence almost useless for trying to detect ocean acidification. I somehow doubt that Mike Wallace has read it as it ruins his fantasy.
So what measurements are there that have actually detected ‘ocean acidification?
Please be specific and as comprehensive as you can. With time series graphs.
Read the relevant section of the IPCC report.
@richard
Thanks. I’m very familiar with the evidence they cite. Here it is, in full
Three stations only, Maybe 500 observations. And that’s it. Period.
I think you make my point for me.
@richard telford
You say:
‘The buffering capacity of the entire ocean may be immense, but it is also irrelevant because of the time it takes the ocean to mix. The warm surface waters can undergo substantial acidification before the deep cold ocean has absorbed appreciable amounts of CO2’
Fine. We can test this theory quite easily by observation.
1. If true, we would expect to find the less alkaline water at the top of the ocean and the more alkaline at the bottom (further away from the atmospheric CO2).
Does this happen?
Looks like not:
In both the North Pacific and North Atlantic observations the CO2 level goes up and the alkalinity goes down as we go down in the ocean. This is entirely counter to the atmospheric CO2 as driver theory..which would imply that it should be the other way round. Curious.
2. Buffering is only irrelevant if the oceans truly don’t mix and are a long way from any sources of carbonate….as in Hawaii. But we could easily measure the effects somewhere whre mixing definitely takes place.
The English Channel is stormy in winter, well mixed and conveniently has big chalk/limestone cliffs on both sides. It has ample opportunity for water mixing and for chemistry to take place. It would surely be simple enough for one of the schools of oceanography at a French or English institution to setup a monitoring station or two. Let’s do it and see.
That is only an expectation you would have if you knew nothing about carbon cycling in the ocean, had not read any literature on carbon cycling, and had not thought much about ocean carbon cycling. Where do you think the carbon in plankton goes when the organisms die and sink?
@richard
‘That is only an expectation you would have if you knew nothing about carbon cycling in the ocean, had not read any literature on carbon cycling, and had not thought much about ocean carbon cycling’
Maybe so. But as a relative layman, I look to the pros to explain it for us. Please do so, without resorting to the snootiness or the appeals to your own authority. You’ll have gathered by now that some here are kinda fond of data, not just assertions that Mr I AM Oceanographer believes in something or other
And I’d be interested to understand why you think any atmospherically induced ‘ocean acidification’ would be a problem when the mouths of any rivers are already (truly) acidic, and the deeper oceans are already far less alkaline. Neither of these places are notably barren. What’s the big deal, even if only theoretical? Why would we (or anything else) care about a tiny change in pH – even if it were eventually to be demonstrated?
In answer to your question about plankton. I imagine that they fall to the bottom of the ocean. Where, according to your theory of (lack of) mixing of the waters , there won’t be any oxygen to make CO2. So it doesn’t provide an explanation of the observed data.
Simply put..if oxygen can get there from the atmosphere, so can CO2. Or neither can.
So you think the deep ocean has no oxygen. The fish who live there would disagree! If you bother to read a basic text on ocean circulation, you would be able to find these things out for yourself.
Sorry I missed all the fun earlier. I think you gathered a few people from another dumb and misleading (to be polite) post from Mike Wallace. If only Smokey and Latimer Alder and Radical Rodent were as sceptical of what they read at WUWT. They didn’t pick up that Mike’s “global” pH includes years with no data at all – from any part of the ocean. And for most of the time, where there is any data, it’s in very small areas of the ocean – often around coastlines and estuaries.
Are they worth even responding to, Richard? I expect you’re probably replying for the interested lurkers, not to give any credibility to what the hard-core WUWT fans are writing.
Your article is much more informative than anything I could write, but here’s a sample:
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2015/01/know-your-data-ocean-acidification-again.html
And this one is about the techniques used at WUWT to disinform – still on the same subject:
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2015/01/defamation-tricks-slur-and-slurp.html
@sou/Ms O’Brien
Way back when last year at the beginning of the discussion in 2014, we established
‘…..that you are Telford, I am Alder and neither are Watts or Wallace. It makes for easier discussion’
The relevance of your remarks about WUWT to our discussion of the lack of adequate observational data to confirm the ‘ocean acidification’ hypothesis has escaped me.
Please explain.
>>The relevance of your remarks…escaped me.
As does the problem of ocean acidification. So I’m not surprised.
(My comment wasn’t meant as a drive by. I heard someone mentioned my name, so decided to pop in. In my experience there is no point engaging further. All that needs to be said is already explained in this thread and elsewhere.)
I’d add that you can find occasional contributions from me at the Bish’s place and at Judith’s. But only very rarely at Anthony’s.
You are tilting at windmills.
Thanks, Sou. Your follow up was exactly as helpful as I expected it to be.
And it isn’t the ‘problem of ocean acidification’ that has escaped me. I understand the hypothesis very well. It is the comprehensive data to confirm it that seems to have escaped.
If you have it, please release it
A bit presumptuous, there, Sou. Not a very scientific outlook, I would have thought. I cannot remember when I last looked as WUWT, but can assure you that it was a while ago. I have been attempting to point out to Mr Telford that his conclusions seem to be contrary to the information that he is giving us. Also, you mention that Mike’s conclusions are based upon limited data; surely 500 readings from 3 sites could also be considered limited? Given the scale and complexity of the oceans, even you should concede that a lot, lot more data is required to get a truly realistic picture as to whether there is a genuine “threat” of acidification, let alone what the cause is (rather than surmised, ’cos it fits your ideas).
Good grief. Not still at it Latimer? You can’t simply bore chemistry out of existence you know, although I begin to fear for RT.
Hereafter to be immortalised as “The Sea-Lion Thread”.
@bbd
Not ‘boring chemistry out of existence’, old pal, but still looking for data to confirm your hypothesis.
And the more I look, the more it comes back to those same old 500 data points only.
And the more I look the narrower the hypothesis seems to become. The best statement that I can glean for ‘ocean acidification’ is now something like:
‘For a shallow band of surface water only we hypothesise that in 100 years time the average pH may fall by 0.1 units from about 8.1 to 8.0 making that water (while still considerably more alkaline than deeper more neutral waters) a bit nearer neutral’
Is there anything you’d like to change in that statement? Or have I summarised the hypothesis correctly?
LA
I’ve explained this (and so have others) repeatedly.
– Basic chemistry tells us that as the partial pressure of atmospheric CO2 rises, so ocean pH will fall.
– Palaeoclimate (sp!) evidence confirms that at times of rapid increase in atmospheric CO2 in the past ocean acidification occurred.
– The few continuous and suitable-for-purpose observational data of ocean pH change available unambiguously confirm what in any case is physically (chemically) inevitable: ocean pH is falling
In other words the available observational data confirm the theory (not hypothesis).
You have decided to make this an argument about the density of sampling but really, it isn’t. Your refusal to reason from inference prevents you from seeing what is very obvious to the rest of us. Unfortunately, nobody here can help you with that problem.
@BBD
Excellent. You have finally grasped my point.
‘The few continuous and suitable-for-purpose observational data of ocean pH change available …’
And there are indeed few of them. Only three, That’s my point.
The hypothesis of ‘global warming’ was equally well supported by ‘reasoning form inference’. And yet the IPCC needed to analyse temperatures from about 5000 stations
and about 10 million observations before it felt able to conclusively detect its fingerprint.
But oceanographers have got to 3/500 samples (not 5000/10000000) and to all intents and purposes have stopped looking. I think that’s called confirmation bias.
As to reasoning from inference (aka armchair science). It can be a useful tool. But it is by no means the end of the story. With it previous generations of scientists proved (to their own satisfactions at least ) the existence of both phlogiston and the luminiferous ether.
But until its backed up with the hard yards of real observations done in the lab at the bench or (in this case) in the field, it isn’t much better than informed speculation.
..
I’ve understood your faulty argument from the outset.
* * *
AGW isn’t a hypothesis.
* * *
Of course they haven’t ‘stopped looking’. Making things up is counter-productive. Unfounded accusations of confirmation bias likewise.
@BBD
‘Of course they haven’t ‘stopped looking’. Making things up is counter-productive. Unfounded accusations of confirmation bias likewise’
Then how am I to take the loud shouts of ‘case already proved’ from yourself and others when I point out how limited (in both time and geography) the actual observational evidence is?
You can’t have it both ways. Either you are satisfied that there is already enough evidence to prove the case for ‘ocean acidification’..or you agree with me that it is insufficient. There is no halfway house.
And I see absolutely no signs among the oceanographic establishment of any desire to do any further research, The case, as far as they are concerned, is proven and is taken as an unchallenged assumption in any and all further work.
How right you are, BBD.
(I do hope I haven’t misunderstood you on this point.)
So, why are we shown that the distribution of CO2 is NOT over the industrialised areas, yet the level of CO2 is blamed on industrialised areas; pH levels shown to be highest under the more concentrated CO2 areas (as well as where the sea is coolest) yet we are told that this means that CO2 is causing pH reduction (and that CO2 is being driven out of warmer waters). As most of what this post is about does seem to be in contradiction to the evidence that is being presented, is the conclusion simply mistaken, or is it being made up?
Are monitoring stations being set up, worldwide, to monitor the situation, as should be the case here? Or are you just making that up, BBD?
Basic chemistry + palaeoclimate evidence + modern obs = sufficient evidence for ocean acidification.
Deny the chemistry, deny the paleoclimate evidence and deny the validity of modern observations and wayhay! No ocean acidification problem.
Brilliant.
BTW am I the only person rather suspicious that Radical Rodent is a sock?
WRT all other sea-lioning why-why-whys: get off your lazy behinds and find out the answers for yourselves. You have the astonishing power of the internet at your fingertips. Use it.
Here is a single example to get you started, the result of looking back a few posts on this blog itself. Do the rest of your homework yourselves. How the hell you survive in employment – if you do – is a mystery to me.
We’ve already had an admission that reality can sometimes be at odds with theories based upon basic chemistry:
All we need do, now, is to accept the palaeoclimate evidence that high CO2 need not necessarily mean intense acidification of the oceans, and that we do not have enough evidence, yet, to come to any reasonable conclusions as to how, if at all, the oceans are responding to the slight increase of a trace gas in the atmosphere, whatever its source.
As for searching the internet for information – if the information was there, why was it not used in this study? Why were 1.5 million observations ignored? Why were less than 1,000 observations used, if there is so much more, out there, on the internet?
I do hope you are not employed as a scientist, BBD, as your level of scientific thinking could set your subject back decades. Better to be a sock (whatever may be meant by that), perhaps, than a lemon.
RR
It is the rate of increase in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere that causes rapid shifts in ocean pH and the concomitant marine extinctions – which are detailed in the paleoclimate literature for you to go and find out about.
The rate of increase is crucial. The same goes for the rate of warming and the level of impact on marine and terrestrial ecosystems. That you still haven’t grasped this, after all this discussion, is really quite disturbing.
@bbd
To validate your claim:
‘of course they haven’t stopped looking’
please list (by year of establishment), all the stations that are currently building pH time series. And where we can see the graphical results a la BATS and Canaries that are so oft shown.
Have you completely lost the ability to find things for yourself on the internet?
What do you think the Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network are up to (http://www.goa-on.org/) ? Why don’t you read their website and pester them for not already having a hundred years of data from thousands of stations.
@bbd
‘It is the rate of increase in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere that causes rapid shifts in ocean pH’
H’mm
The data from Bermuda and the Canaries both show that the seasonal change of pH each year is consistently far greater than any small change on average pH that they may have observed. How come all the little critters don’t get wiped out each summer (or winter as the case may be)?
If a regular pH change from 8.1 to 7.9 and back again every year doesn’t kill them, I need a lot of convincing that an average change of 0.1 over a century will do so. Please explain.
I suppose you believe that a 2°C warming is no problem because it is smaller than the diurnal range. It is an equally clueless argument.
Do you wonder why plants don’t die overnight when there is no sun, or worry you might stave the moment you stop eating?
@bbd
I should have quoted your remark in full:
‘It is the rate of increase in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere that causes rapid shifts in ocean pH and the concomitant marine extinctions ‘
Have we seen any ‘concomitant extinctions’ from pH changes in the last 100 years? What? How do you know it is extinct? How do you know pH was the cause?
Latimer Alder
No. Get off your lazy arse and do it yourself. If you care about the facts then research them instead of making empty and false claims as you do upthread.
Local seasonal / interannual variability doesn’t have the environmental impact of longer-term pH shifts in the bulk ocean. It’s irrelevant. If you cared enough about the facts, you could confirm this yourself. Instead you prefer denial and sea-lioning.
Nobody is making this claim. You are setting up a tedious strawman. We are talking about the future under sustained CO2 emissions. The extinctions that occurred in the past during acidified ocean conditions show that OA is strongly associated with marine extinctions. Why don’t you read eg. Hönisch et al. (2012)? It’s been linked often enough. But no, for you, denial and sea-lioning are always preferable to being objective, doing some reading and trying to understand the topic. It’s pitiful, LA, and tedious beyond belief.
Seeing as you have such confidence in your predictions, BBD, could you give us the name of the winner at the upcoming Grand National this Saturday?
All the data we are referring to is not much more than “Local seasonal / interannual variability” (800 observations at 3 sites over 35 years). What you are refusing to do is accept that basic principle; a lot more data is required before a sensible conclusion can be reached, which is why Mr Alder and myself are so puzzled that so much data has been discarded. Could it be that it did not conform to a preconceived idea? Could that be why you are getting so rabid in its defence?
It has been explained numerous times in this thread why the old pH data are not adequate for detecting pH trends. If you want to challenge the problems we raise with these data, go ahead, but do not claim we have not explained it.
Interesting to see that there is an organisation monitoring this. However, do you not feel that its name: “Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network” might give it some sort of bias? It quite clearly states that they are NOT showing the correct level of disinterest in their observations; they are seeking ocean acidification, thus, there is a high probability that they will find it – especially if their funding depends upon it. (Let’s face it, would you spend money on weedkiller if you could not find any weeds in your garden?)
Remind me, what did Lewandowsky have to say about conspiracy ideation in fake climate sceptics?
@richard telford
‘What do you think the Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network are up to (http://www.goa-on.org/) ?’
I guess they’re making measurements to see if the ocean is actually ‘acidifying’ as the theory says.
Good news that they too agree with me that the case ain’t yet proven.
And when they come back in twenty or fifty years time, then we’ll know if the theory’s been verified. We’ll have enough data over a long enough period and from a wide enough sample of geography to have a good idea.
But as yet, we haven’t. Which has been my point all along. 500 observation from only 3 sites isn’t nearly enough to confirm a worldwide, universal, everywhere, all the time phenomenon.
Gotta say I don’t quite understand why some commentators have been so reluctant to admit this simple truth. Is it a religious attachment or something?
@bbd
So we’re back to the idea of some future unquantified/unquantifiable ‘harm’, rather than any actual current evidence of that harm. No species have become extinct as a result of ‘acidification’. No harm has been done. But since over 300 million years some species died out (this is a surprise) and it may be that the ocean pH changed a few ttimes over 300 million years too, therefore we must all get excited?
That’s pretty weak evidence.
So let’s summarise again what we actually know about pH changes from actual observations of the oceans today (As you guess by now I’m a chemist by training and I like real observations far more than theories)
In 3 places, with a total of 500 observations over 35 years we think we can detect a change in some sort of locally ‘averaged’ pH from 8.11 to 8.07.
And that’s it. All the rest is inference with a lot of correlations = causation thrown in.
For the central tenet of the whole ‘OA’ subject to be quite so poorly documented/observed is quite remarkable. Taking pH readings ain’t particularly hard. Not much harder than taking temperature readings …and there are millions of them.
That a small academic industry has grown up on such weak and shaky foundations of actual real world data is worrying. I hope none involved ever get to do engineering or architecture. You need strong foundations to make strong buildings.
Latimer Alder
No, it isn’t. You simply don’t understand it.
@bbd
‘That’s pretty weak evidence.
No, it isn’t. You simply don’t understand it.’
An appeal to your own self-authority isn’t very persuasive either.
Try explaining why you think this is good evidence. Beyond ‘we know from palaeoclimate’, you’ve said nothing much about it.
In particular I;d be interested to know how a 300 million year record (with all its huge uncertainties in timing (give or take a few million years) can reliably tell us much about what might happen in, say, the next 50 to 100 years.
Thank you, Mr Alder. A point I have been trying to get across for a while, now, to be met with obfuscation and evasion. BBD tells us, with his self-appointed authority, that it is the rates of increase that are unprecedented, but cannot provide us with evidence that such rates have not or cannot have happened in the past, surely a prerequisite for the “unprecedented” claim? How odd.
As for the basic chemistry: about 98% of the free CO2 is already in the oceans, so, I fail to see how adding just a few fractions of a percentage point from atmospheric CO2 will wreak the havoc of acidification that he assures us will happen.
Mind you, the use of the (well-shredded) Lew paper has to indicate that this argument has really gone down the pan.
LA
I’m not appealing to my ‘own self-authority’. I’m pointing to
– basic chemistry
– palaeoclimate evidence
– modern observations
– the scientific expert opinion amongst chemists, oceanographers, palaeoclimateologists and marine biologists
You are the one setting yourself up as knowing better than all of the above. And you have presented absolutely NOTHING in support of your ideas.
You are a clown, Latimer.
RR
First, I am not referring to any ‘self-appointed authority’ but to the available scientific evidence. This is in contrast to the troupe of clowns who routinely deny the validity of the scientific evidence on the basis of their own… ‘authority’ and absolutely nothing else by way of actual supporting evidence. Please get a grip.
Second, there is no evidence that atmospheric CO2 has ever increased at the rate it is doing now. Even the input from the eruption of large igneous provinces like the Deccan Traps appears to have been far slower than the anthropogenic pulse. Nevertheless, the CO2 release from LIPs is *rapid enough* to trigger ocean pH shifts, significant global warming and ocean anoxic events.
Why don’t you spend some time looking up the ‘big five’ extinction events and their probable causes?
BBD: can you help with my basic chemistry – if 98% of CO2 is already in the oceans, and the oceanic pH is about 8, how much will that pH change if ALL CO2 went into the oceans? (Please regard that as a hypothetical occurrence; I acknowledge that it might not actually be possible for it to occur – and I add this codicil as it seems quite common on this thread for postulated hypotheses to be read as claimed fact. Another oddity amongst supposedly scientific minds.)
I suspect the answer would be: “Not a lot.” However, I also suspect that you will deny that, too.
As Mr Alder has actually not presented any ideas, other than the equivalent of “Where’s the body?” quite how he can present anything to support that is a mystery.
Published today: Clarkson et al. (2015) Ocean acidification and the Permo-Triassic mass extinction:
Nice to see such unqualified wordage in use; leaves nothing to doubt [sic].
So, the present rate of change is not as unprecedented as we have been assured it is, it seems. Who knew?
Of course, all other environmental conditions on Earth were identical to those we enjoy today, so there can be no other factors in play here, can there? (Remind me again: what is the source of limestone and chalk? Or are they rocks that have been here, like, forever?)
Can you answer my question about the pH change of the oceans if the 2% of CO2 in the atmosphere were to join the 98% in the oceans? Or are you in denial about that, too?
RR
Clarkson et al. presents the evidence. I am struggling to believe that your apparent misunderstanding of the quote isn’t simply a wind-up. Can you really be so dull-witted?
Please tell me that this too, is a joke and that you didn’t really fail to join up the colossal dots you have been presented with.
Look, Ratty, when there is a rapid increase in the atmospheric concentration of CO2 – rapid but not demonstrably as rapid as the modern anthropogenic one – we get ocean acidification, ocean anoxia, global warming and marine and terrestrial extinctions including the biggest one the world has ever know at the end of the Permian.
Your utter failure to understand the basics is your problem and for you to clear up. I am not here to deal with that mess. Instead, for reasons not now entirely clear to me I have tried very hard to explain the consequences of large-scale increases in CO2. So far you have understood nothing so I’m not really sure why I am still bothering to respond. You are absolutely hopeless and I despair of you.
So you ARE saying that it is possible to detect increases in palaeoclimate records within the time-frame of modern measurements (<50 years), else how can you be SO sure that the record is not of an event that happened over a few years, but can only be pinned down to within considerably more? I am sure there are a great many palaeoclimatologists who would like to know how you can do it; most seem to do it on a millennial basis.
You are obfuscating again, BBD. You have no answer, so, rather admit that simple fact, you duck and dodge and weave and swerve around what few facts you might have. Rather than give me an answer as to the pH change with an increase of CO2 might give us, you charge off on a tangent. “It matter not what is said but what is heard.” I have passed comment on your apparent inability to read what is written, instead preferring to put your own interpretation on quite innocuous statements and questions; this is an excellent example – even after you have repeated it, you show that you are unable to understand what is said. You seemed to find it amusing, then; I find it rather sad.
RR
No I’m not. That’s why I used the words ‘not demonstrably’, with ‘demonstrably’ italicised for emphasis.
Read. The. Words.
Yesterday you waved away Clarkson et al. Today you will deny the validity of the conclusions of Veron (2008) Mass extinctions and ocean acidification: biological constraints on geological dilemmas which reviews the causes and effects of the ‘big five’ mass extinctions. The main conclusion is hinted at in the title.
Here’s the abstract. Please note that the link is to the full pdf and works properly. It’s time you stopped spouting crap and did some reading. And I do mean *reading*, not a quick quote-mining foray. Read the words. Try to understand what is being said. Stop denying and start thinking. I cannot fix this for you.
BBD: so, you dismiss the possibility that the historical decrease in might have occurred within a few years (or decades) within the period being studied. Do you not consider that, in the distant future – say, 100,000 years hence – there might be a similar argument, with one arguing that there was “no demonstrable increase as rapid as the modern [anthropogenic] one in the period 101,000 – 100,000BN (Before Now)”, bearing in mind that the rate you are in such high dudgeon about, now, averages at just over 0.1ppm per year for the past thousand years? Not so scary when looked at that way, though, is it?
Oh, my sides!
While I do have great respect for those who study events of the past, I am a bit more concerned about the conclusions that they might be reaching, based upon the limited information of that period that they really do have. Such information should really be taken as a guide, until the results of many other, disparate studies of the time can be gathered. One thing that you really do have to consider is that environmental conditions then may well have been considerably different from today. Minor detail, maybe, but I suspect that you will be denying that, too.
As I have asked (not that I expect an answer, yet again), quite what is the fall in oceanic pH likely to be should ALL the CO2 presently in the atmosphere be subsumed into the oceans (i.e. the present 98% of CO2 presently in the oceans increases to 100%)?
Yup, exactly as predicted, more confused nonsense and utterly clueless denial. Ratty, you are a lost cause.
BBD: read the words – where have I denied anything? On the whole, I have merely questioned your assumptions; quite how that could be construed as denial is an odd interpretation.
Now, answer the question, which I shall keep simple: assuming all else being equal, what is the reduction in oceanic pH likely to be should ALL the CO2 presently in the atmosphere be subsumed into the oceans (i.e. the present 98% of CO2 presently in the oceans increases to 100%)?
Ratty, we are *adding* CO2 to the atmosphere by mining carbon from geological sinks and burning it. That’s what is causing modern warming and modern ocean acidification. Goodness knows what you are trying to argue here, but at the very generous best, it’s an irrelevance.
In the past, large fluxes of CO2 from geological sinks to the atmosphere produce warming, ocean acidification, OAEs and both marine and terrestrial extinctions. Perhaps if you were to *read* the papers linked, this would become clearer.
These things happen regardless of the boundary conditions at the time. That’s because the laws of physics do not change. It is apparently the case that Earth System Sensitivity (ESS) is *higher* when there is a larger cryosphere because the slow ice-sheet albedo feedback (strongly positive) is diminished when the cryosphere is small or absent (hot climate states). But we are in an ice age. This is the Holocene interglacial, not the Paleocene. There is no comfort in the fact that the slow-feedback ESS is higher now than it was during the PETM event.
Ratty
This is painfully disingenuous. The ‘assumptions’ are not mine. They are those of the expert scientific community. But this august body of clever people doesn’t allow assumptions to pass unchallenged. If Scientist A sees a problem with an assumption (based on the scientific evidence, of course) from Scientist B, they don’t just light a spliff and let it go by. They challenge it by publishing a reply. Scientists are sceptics first and foremost. And they like taking scalps because that is how their profession enhances human knowledge. Hence the nullius in verba stuff.
Where are the challenges to the papers I’ve linked in this thread?
We aren’t playing in this game, only observing it. But we can be confident that those with dogs in the race aren’t going to mess about. The echoic silence should be enough to give you pause.
Our astonishingly patient host, RT, is at a scientific conference as we speak. Why do you think that scientists have conferences? Would they be good for bad assumptions, or bad for bad assumptions?
BBD:
Your evidence being? Even the IPCC admit that there has been no significant warming for over 18 years, though I suspect you will deny that, too. As for “acidification”… well, bearing in mind Mr Telford’s warnings about the vast number of variabilities, we have yet to see any solid evidence.
Returning to my question – well, no surprise there, yet again. Once more, you have ducked and dodged to avoid answering. You are telling us that it is the increase in CO2 that is “causing the acidification”; in other words, while I have asked you to conjecture what the reduction of pH would be should ALL CO2 presently in the atmosphere be absorbed into the oceans, you are trying to scare us that it is not the amount already in the atmosphere, it is the small amount of increase that is going to do the damage. Not only that but:
you typed, before linking to a site which shows a line that is wobbly, but rather straight, certainly in its latter part. Do you know what “exponential” means? If you do, how can it be exceeded?
As you have been assuring us that you know all about it, this chemistry, history and such stuff, just play a long a little, and tell us what the reduction of pH would be if the present concentrations of CO2 (about 400ppm) were to be absorbed into an environment that already contains about 50 times as much. Is that too difficult? Will you admit that, or dodge the question (yet again…. Ho-hum…)?
As for the Clarkson paper you are so enamoured with: “In principle the approach is good, but there may be different explanations for what they’re seeing.” – Andy Ridgwell, an earth systems scientist at the University of Bristol. He continues by saying that “The end of the Permian was so geochemically complicated […] that untangling the various factors may take some time yet.” Will you be denying this, too?
Ratty
Whoops. Misthreaded. Hopefully this one will end up in the right place…
Ratty
The climate system is accumulating energy as predicted. The troposphere is only a little bit of the climate system, which is mainly comprised of the ocean. The rate of energy uptake by the ocean is quantified as ocean heat uptake (OHU). The rate of energy increase in the ocean is quantified as ocean heat content (OHC).
Look at the OCH measurements for the 0 – 2000m ocean layer.
What do you see?
Variations in the rate of ocean heat uptake (OHU) modulate tropospheric temperature. Sometimes more energy goes into the oceans (look at the red line on the graph) and sometimes a little less. Then the troposphere starts warming again.
Well no. But it’s still silly.
Yes, I know what exponential means and you should read the link more carefully.
You aren’t reading the words. This is not my knowledge. I’m just pointing at the knowledge.
It just came up. Find me some research that contradicts the emerging understanding set out in Veron (2008). Then we might be getting somewhere. Clarkson supports Veron (and lots more besides). Expert knowledge from the experts. What have you got?
You seem to have quite an enchanting belief in experts; though, while you may deny that you are a chemist, you will quite happily shout down the comments made by those who are self-avowed chemists – like, what do they know, right? Somewhat selective, there, BBD. However, “Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.” (Richard Feynman). Would you deny or otherwise question his statement?
As the experts you point us to are writing papers filled with ifs, buts and maybes, perhaps you should open your mind a little to other possibilities. When scientists say, “This is what might have caused it…” they are also saying, “Something else could have caused it. As yet, we cannot be sure, and are looking into it.”
You, in your zeal, leap upon one small part of the possibilities, and declare that, “This is IT! THIS is what is going to kill us all! Act NOW!” When others suggest that you calm down a bit and wait until all the evidence is in, you get a bit stroppy. I am sorry that I am reluctant to leap onto your bandwagon, BBD, but that it not how I operate. My own inclination is to wait until what pitifully few acceptable observations over such a tiny, tiny part of the Earth’s surface over a paltry few decades can be supported by more information; Mr Telford’s hasty conclusion might be right; but he also might be wrong. One of the cruelties of science is that there are vastly more scientists who are proven wrong than there are who are proven right.
Nice of you to admit that you cannot answer what I had thought was quite an easy question (what would be the reduction of pH of the oceans if the all present-day aerial CO2 was subsumed into it?). While my own answer would be, “Not a lot,” I would not have been able to offer my calculations or a definitive figure (say, 8.1 to 8.05).
I’ve been uncharacteristically patient with you, Ratty. You would know if I was being stroppy.
The evidence *is* in. The problem is that the clowns are denying it and refusing to read the words.
There was an interesting presentation at EGU today by Oksana Tarasova et al (who I missed). They showed eight long pH series, seven of which showed a clear downwards trend.
“The state of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere using global observations through 2013” http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2015/EGU2015-15173-3.pdf
Thanks for this RT. But these ‘experts’ know nothing. For the True Knowledge, we must turn to the pub bore.
who speaks of Marx and nuclear fussion with all a rustic’s intuition.
Ratty
I admitted nothing of the sort, Ratty. I said it was a silly question that – as posed – merited no serious response. And predictably your answer is badly wrong. See Caldeira & Wickett (2005) Fig 2, Fig 3, Fig 4.
Okay seen them. Very good exercises in logic, filled with the usual ifs buts and maybes.
Fig 2: “…with concentration changes applied from the three-
dimensional ocean model simulations.”
Fig 3: “Predicted surface ocean pH change …”
Fig 4: “Predicted horizontal mean ocean pH…”
You do understand that model simulations and predictions are NOT the same as observations, don’t you?
Once we have enough observations from as wide a range of sites as is practicable, then, and only then, will we be able to reach a reasonable conclusion. Until then, it is only supposition, despite your insistence, and that of others, that your suppositions have to be correct. I suspect that things will become considerably more clear in the next 2-3 years; I hope that I am right, but can accept that I could be wrong.
Please explain why you call it a silly question; to me, it seems quite apt: what would be the change in pH if all the present aerial CO2 was dissolved into the oceans? I accept that it would not actually be possible; consider it more of an exercise in logic, perhaps. IF the answer is “Not a lot,” then it would make the scare seem rather pointless, would it not?
Mr Telford: it is nuclear fusion, not “fussion”. I would have thought such snidey comments not worthy of you.
Ratty
Wrt Betjeman, how characteristic of you to ignore the wit and focus only on the typo.
As for the ‘modulz are stoopid’ shtick, well, where is your referenced counter-argument showing that C&W is flawed? If you simply argue from (stupid) assertions all I am obliged to do is point to your formal logical fallacy. Much more of this and I will be openly taking the piss out of you.
Do you realise that you are telling me that, from the palaeological record, it is possible to determine the rate of increase of CO2 over a few decades? As that “rate” is likely to be within the bounds of error for measurement, I find that highly unlikely.
You also give the implication that the rate of warming we have had is high, which, as we all know, it has not been (certainly not over the past 20 years, when it has been effectively zero). As it is accepted that rates of 1K per century or less is pretty normal, over the last 100 years, the rate has been well below the “worst” of the past, at around 0.8K.
Why are you so intent on whipping up a scare with such as “…rapid shifts in ocean pH…”? What rapid shifts? Absolutely NO evidence has been presented which verifies that there are rapid shifts in ocean pH! All this, you assure us, leads to “…concomitant marine extinctions…”; but what evidence do you have that there have been ANY marine extinctions, let alone more than might be reasonably expected in the cut and thrust of evolution?
RR
No, because I’m not.
Yes it has. See Hönisch et al. (2012) The geological record of ocean acidification. The link is upthread, where you ignored it the first time around in favour of spouting denialist crap.
The problem here is you, not me, and certainly not the fields of palaeoclimatogy or oceanography or climatology.
You don’t know anything, you refuse to learn anything and you don’t therefore understand the various topics well enough to grasp that you are wrong from top to bottom.
I cannot help you with this. You have to sort the mess out yourself.
In refutation of my noting that, though there is historical record of greater CO2 concentrations, there are few records of serious ocean “acidification”, you have attested that it is the rate of increase that is important, not the actual increase. That, surely, has to infer that you claim that the palaeoclimate rate of increase over a few decades (as is possible with measurements, today) can be determined. Why do you deny this?
Hönisch et al. (2012) “The geological record of ocean acidification” is pay-walled (didn’t you know? Didn’t you check?); however Zachos et al. (2005) “Rapid Acidification of the Ocean During the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum” is not, but, while there are some facts there, they are linked by an awful lot of inferences and suppositions:
As our patient host has said:
Yet you insist that less than 1,000 measurements from 3 sites, all close to one another, over a period of just a few years can give you cause to insist that we Do Something!
As has been said by a wiser head than mine, perhaps we should adhere closer to Richard Feynman’s maxim, paraphrased as, “Does the real world behave in the way we predict from our lab experiment?” The answer is increasingly appearing to be, “No!” Yet you are determined to deny this. I wouldn’t mind if you were determined to sort the mess out yourself, but you insist that we follow you without question over the cliff edge. Why?
RR
I don’t deny strawmen. What would be the point? Read the reference. There’s no evidence that the extremely rapid modern increase in the atmospheric concentration of CO2 has a palaeoclimate counterpart. This should make you think.
Yes, I checked for the convenience of interested readers. I linked to an open copy. This link still works – I have just downloaded the PDF again to test it.
BBD: Thank you. This one works. Not sure why the other one didn’t, but I am not much of a computer engineer.
The first sentence more or less agrees with what Mr Alder and I have been saying:
As the sample period – and the geological range of samples – for the study in question for this discussion (see above) is so limited (<1,000 observations at 3 sites over 35 years), it does seem rather presumptuous to reach a conclusion for such a complex system, a system that we have only recently begun to study to any meaningful depth (no pun intended).
Yet another paper full of inferences and suppositions, but certainly more scientifically orientated than anything you have managed to spray at us, so far. Perhaps you never manage to get to its conclusion:
[My bold] In other words: “while we have looked at this in detail, it is but a small cog in an immensely large machine and altering it in any way may have no impact whatsoever, as other cogs may compensate.” Or, to put it more succinctly: “More information is required.” Which is what Mr Alder and I have been saying all along. The conclusions reached by Mr Telford might be correct, but we really do not have enough information to confirm or deny that. This is why Mr Alder asks why a lot of data has been ignored (a question that has yet to receive a reply, satisfactory or otherwise); this is why I mooted the installation of ocean monitoring stations, to gather more of the data required. An eminently scientific viewpoint, I would have thought. I fail to understand why such thinking raises your hackles to such a degree. Is it fear that your favourite theories could proved wrong? Or is that something else you will deny?
RR
First things first:
And:
What ‘other one’ are you talking about? I’ve looked back and as far as I can see I linked H12 twice and only to the full paper, not a paywalled abstract. So it seems as though you may have been indulging in some dishonest rhetoric at my expense.
I’m sure you would wish to correct that impression, so please quote the date and time-stamp of the comment containing the link which you have variously claimed led to a paywall or simply did not work. Claims which are contradictory, you will note.
I wouldn’t normally bother with this, but your tone is sufficiently offensive to make it worth the effort 😉
———————————————-
I originally linked to Hönisch et al. (2012) here. Then I linked to the study again, here. Both links worked then and work now.
RR
More evidence denial from you along with a demonstration that you have understood very little if anything you have (belatedly) read.
Let’s start at the beginning (emphasis mine):
You need to try to read carefully and understand what is being said. I made the point about the rapidity of covarying changes being key to the scope of their environmental impacts only a short way upthread. You ignored it.
You also need to stop truncating quotes to create a deliberate misrepresentation of the text. Oh, and you need to learn what the word ‘covariation’ means:
BBD: You are right; I did miss that, intent on getting to the main text. And you are right – thank you for shattering my illusion of its scientific thinking! “Unprecedented”? Where is the evidence for that? You have already assured me that it is not possible to determine palaeoclimate rates of change over as short a period as we have measured in this thread:
Now, in support of a treatise that contradicts you, you are backtracking, yet again. Or will you be denying that, too?
Another unscientific bit I missed…”mainly fossil fuel”. Where is the evidence for that? Do you not think it odd that, while the use of fossil fuel has risen exponentially for the last 60-70 years, the rate of increase of CO2 has been more or less linear (at 2ppm/year)? No doubt you will be in denial about that, too.
Anybody who denies that post-Industrial CO2 increase is anthropogenic places themselves outside the bounds of rational discourse. I’m not going to argue about this with you because if you believe crap like that there’s no point in wasting the time.
Fair enough (though I have never denied that anthropogenic CO2 will be involved; all I argue is that, how can we be so sure that has been “mainly fossil fuel” CO2 release; in other words, mainly anthropogenic? Such casual dismissal of possible natural origins does seem rather unscientific – correlation is NOT causation!). Never mind; let me leave it to you to explain why, when the use of “fossil” fuels has risen exponentially, the rate of increase on CO2 has been linear.
Mainly fossil fuels, partly land use change. Oceans and natural vegetation have been net sinks, i.e. human activity is responsible for more than 100% of the CO2 rise. A simple carbon budget shows this. Anyone who argues is either a fool or a liar or needs to have some very persuasive evidence.
“I don’t believe it” does not count as persuasive evidence.
The rate of CO2 increase is not linear. It is exponential or exceeding it.If you just look around you can correct misunderstandings quite easily.
“Good news that they too agree with me that the case ain’t yet proven.”
Latimer Alder cannot even read the goals of the Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network. Only someone with a serious case of confirmation bias would interpret those as saying that “the case ain’t yet proven”.
@marco
Whatever they say, they’re still looking.
Good.
In 50 years we may have enough data from enough sites to consider the case proven (or not as the case may be).
But until then, it ain’t.
Thanks for admitting you indeed do not understand what the GOAON does.
Ratty
The climate system is accumulating energy as predicted. The troposphere is only a little bit of the climate system, which is mainly comprised of the ocean. The rate of energy uptake by the ocean is quantified as ocean heat uptake (OHU). The rate of energy increase in the ocean is quantified as ocean heat content (OHC).
Look at the OCH measurements for the 0 – 2000m ocean layer.
What do you see?
Variations in the rate of ocean heat uptake (OHU) modulate tropospheric temperature. Sometimes more energy goes into the oceans (look at the red line on the graph) and sometimes a little less. Then the troposphere starts warming again.
Well no. But it’s still silly.
Yes, I know what exponential means and you should read the link more carefully.
You aren’t reading the words. This is not my knowledge. I’m just pointing at the knowledge.
It just came up. Find me some research that contradicts the emerging understanding set out in Veron (2008). Then we might be getting somewhere. Clarkson supports Veron (and lots more besides). Expert knowledge from the experts. What have you got?
Truly a strange thread.
For a change of pace (and surely everyone is acidified out by now) …Smokey, who doesn’t deny being a full time resident at WUWT, claims he doesn’t know who I am. Latimer assumes I’m talking about him, knows me, but disowns WUWT where he’s made hundreds of comments (and which is how he knows me), Radical Rodent, who I’ve never heard of before, assumes I’m talking about him, her or it. As does Latimer. And Latimer, in a thread about an article about an arguably defamatory article at WUWT (with last week’s contribution, it’s up to four almost identical articles at WUWT I believe) wonders why I’d mention the blog.
BBD – I’ve just learnt what “sea-lioning” is, though I’ve experienced it often enough myself. A useful term that I’ll no doubt use in the future.
Sorry. I hadn’t realised that you were talking about that other Radical Rodent (and Smokey and Latimer Alder) – which is odd as he/she/it does not appear to have made any comments on this thread, all those with my moniker being by… er… me, so why talk about it/her/him?
Yours seems to be an odd logic, Sou. Mind you, referring to the utter balderdash by you that we have recently been directed to, I should not be surprised: “Let us to attack the man, not the argument,” seems to be your mantra.
Oops – I should read my own comments before I write replies 😦
Still, if only ….
f@Miriam O’Brien/Sou
‘Latimer assumes I’m talking about him, knows me, but disowns WUWT where he’s made hundreds of comments (and which is how he knows me),’
I assume you’re talking about me from the following remark of yours:
‘If only Smokey and Latimer Alder and Radical Rodent were as sceptical of what they read at WUWT.’ Unless I have a doppelganger (and I ain’t found him yet), your refrence was crystal clear.
I know of you not from WUWT but from a rather fatuous twitter exchange with (i think) Jo Abbess a while back..
And I don’t ‘disown WUWT’. When I first came to be interested in climate it was a favourite spot of mine. And I’m proud to say that I was the first to bring news of the Gaurdian”s famous Climategate debate to the world via that blog in July 2010.
But that was five years ago. Tastes change, as do hangout spots. I doubt if I have made a dozen comments there this year. It is not currently high up my reading list.
I do hope that your other remarks to the world are better fact- and content-checked than this.
From the inferences given by Mr Telford, Sou is an acclaimed scientist. All I can say is, “Lord, help science,” as she clearly displays atrociously non-scientific thinking to her rationale. Basically, it appears that facts and evidence are irrelevant to her logic; no, let us pick out any errors and faux pas the “enemy” has made in the expression of their views, and gloat over them. I am truly loathe to say it, but it could be construed as a very feminine way of arguing (witness the landing on the comet; rather than lauding the achievement, “feminists” could only complain about the shirt). Not helping the cause of women in logical thinking one jot.
it is a little strange to read this discourse….all these true believers battling against 2 sceptics. And then, thankfully, one of the true believers drags in a reference to a Lewandowsky paper. If this true believer were really a scientist, he would know that this paper is pseudo-statistical junk…but he cited it and thus demonstrates his lack of scientific scepticism. All hail Monseigneur Telford. LMFAO
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