Carnegie Researchers Say Geotech Can't Cure Ocean Acidification

CarnegieScience writes "Plans to stop global warming by 'geoengineering' the planet by putting aerosols in the atmosphere to block sunlight are controversial, to say the least. Scientists are now pointing out that even if it keeps the planet cool, it will do almost nothing to stop another major problem — ocean acidification. The ocean will keep on absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (making carbonic acid) and the water's pH will get too low for corals and other marine life to secrete skeletons. So this is another strike against a quick fix of our climate problems."

Comments

What Climate Problem?

[jayme0227]

I'm still using my will to suppress your evidence that global warming is a problem.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[arizwebfoot]

And what about Methane?

As I understand it, methane is a bigger problem them CO2. They tell us to not fart anymore.

And yet, when those monster Apatosaurus, including the popular, but obsolete synonym Brontosaurus roamed the earth. I dare say one herd/tribe/pod produced a much methane as all the cattle that currently populate the earth.

Now, take into account how many of these methane makers roamed the earth in their day and one wonders - if methane is the bigger problem - how life ever survived at all.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

This might be a dumb question, but where does all the extra energy required to raise the earth's temperature come from? Out of the back of my car? Why can't my car use it?

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Overly Critical Guy]

Weird, I'm using my reliance on actual figures to support my conclusion that it isn't. I understand, however, that not being able to blame society for destroying the planet in some way doesn't allow lefties to feel enlightened and judgmental or convince the public to accept increased government control over their lives.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[blitziod]

I only have one thing to say----------

Giant ROLAIDS!

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it is a dumb question. for answers this and other dumb questions see google.com and wikipedia.com

Re:What Climate Problem?

[jayme0227]

According to my layman's understanding of climate change theory, the energy comes from the sun. What your car is doing is emitting CO2 which builds up in the atmosphere. Because of the extra buildup of CO2 and other so-called "greenhouse gases" the energy that would normally leave the earth into space does so at a much slower pace, thus the average temperature of the earth is slowly increasing.

For more information: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=global+warming

Re:What Climate Problem?

[hardburn]

A) Methane is fairly reactive, and doesn't last long in the atmosphere. CO2 is compartively stable.

B) The Greenhouse Effect isn't bad in itself. Without it, the Earth would be too cold, like Mars. Having too much of it, like Venus, is the bad thing.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Cedric Tsui]

That is exactly what the standard solution to water acidification is.
They dump lime into whatever body of water they want to cure of acid rain problems.

The ocean is just a tad bigger though.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[at_slashdot]

God could change the CO2 atmospheric concentration with one fart...

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

The one killing coral reefs and making poor polar bears homeless. Also the increase in extreme weather.
Maybe you can't see it in your home wearing blinders, but the effects are measurable.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

You, sir, are an idiot. The number of cattle in the world is approximated somewhere around 2 billion. That's a two followed by nine zeroes. It would have to be quite the herd of just about anything to match the consumption rate of our cattle. And since the methane production is proportional to food consumption, the total output of all herbivorous dinosaurs could not have been much more than the total output of herbivorous creatures now since there's only so much food available (and back then, of course there weren't people artificially increasing the number of herbivores and growing food for them).

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who was the limpdick that modded parent troll - I thought it was a good question.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[revjtanton]

I've been in a coma for 12 years and i didn't even know there was a climate! Couldn't we just kill the climate and then it wouldnt be a problem?

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Rei]

As I understand it, methane is a bigger problem them CO2

You understand wrong. It is a large problem, but CO2 is larger by over threefold.

They tell us to not fart anymore.

Who, your roomate? Certainly not the scientific community. Most animal-based methane emissions come from ruminants. And not from "farting", but "belching" (the initial breakdown occurs in the rumen, and the bolus moves back and forth between the mouth and the rumen). "Farting" isn't even the second leading cause of ruminant methane emissions -- that goes to manure decomposition.

Livestock-sourced methane is only one significant anthropogenic component. Others include rice agriculture, peatland/wetlands development, the oil and gas industry, landfills, and biomass burning. Other significant human-sourced methane emissions, including ruminant raising, are nearly double those of natural emissions. Ruminants may be the largest single anthropogenic component, but they're less than a sixth of total human-sourced methane emissions.

And yet, when those monster Apatosaurus, including the popular, but obsolete synonym Brontosaurus roamed the earth. I dare say one herd/tribe/pod produced a much methane as all the cattle that currently populate the earth.

Little is known that could lead one to draw any conclusions about the large sauropods in terms of methane emissions. They weren't ruminants, although they did eat large quantities of plant matter. We don't know their herd size, and haven't even conclusively shown that herding behavior was significant for them. And more importantly, we don't know their total worldwide population. However, as large herbivores, one thing can be certain: they didn't have a particularly high global population density. It just wouldn't support them.

There are approximately 1 trillion cattle worldwide. This is just cattle -- not counting other ruminants. These average about 1.5 tons at adulthood. An adult apatosaurus is estimated to weigh about 30 tons. If we assume a weight equivalence, that's the equivalent of 50 billion apatosaurus. It is extremely unlikely that there were that many apatosaurus -- or even total sauropods. We support this much cattle mass cattle via modern intensive agriculture and research.

Furthermore, your notion is based on a premise -- that either the atmosphere is static or it's always changing harmlessly. But that's not the reality. The atmosphere has changed dramatically over history. Generally these changes are very slow; that's not a problem. It's when changes are rapid that there are problems. The last atmospheric change similar to what we're forcing nowadays was the PETM (Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum). The causes are still unknown, but one thing is known: over the course of hundreds or thousands of years (the blink of an eye by geologic standards), there was a CO2 and heat spike. This triggered a methane spike, which amplified the heat spike. The total warming input was approximately what we'll have locked in to if we continue the "business as usual" scenario through 2100. The results were dramatic and catastrophic. Entire ocean currents shifted. The climates of regions across the planet dramatically altered. Forests became plains became deserts became forests. The ocean became acidic, and most of the world's corals and carbonate-shelled plankton died, causing a massive upheaval in the oceanic food chains. The planet was left such a changed place that we give it a different name -- the Eocene.

Now, my question to you is this: do you really want to create the Anthropocene?

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm more worried that the magnetic pole are going to shift shortly.

And the Core of the earth is cooling.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Rei]

Wow. Your source is Bob Carter, one of about two dozen (out of the world's several thousand professional climatologists) who is a public skeptic. And actually, he's not really a climatologist; he's a paleonolotist -- but don't let that stop you.

FYI: 1998 was one of the strongest El Nino events in modern history. El Nino raises the atmosphere's temperature by slowing the upwelling of deep, cold water in the eastern pacific. La Nina cools it by just the opposite. It doesn't change the long-term picture, of course; the rate at which water cycles in the ocean has no bearing on how much total heat input there is into the system; ocean waters aren't magically decoupled from the rest of our atmosphere. It's just a source of white noise on top of the blatantly obvious signal.

But don't let that stop you deniers from picking it as your starting point.

And, also FYI: only one of the three major global climate databases lists 1998 as the hottest. The other two list 2005 (they were close). But again, don't let that stop you.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Apatosaurus is approximately 43 times the size of an average cow. Wikipedia only estimates 1.3 billion cattle on the planet not 1 trillion, you missed that one by about a mile and a half.

150 million years ago there were tens of thousands of Apatosaurus and other very large ruminants living in a lush tropical like forest, and that was only in the North American Continent. World wide, there would have been millions more.

If you eat plant matter, you produce methane, I have seen nothing to ever dispute this. If you eat plant matter by the tonnes every day, you produce methane by the tonnes every day.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

Global Warming != Ocean Acidification

Until people stop relating every fricken environmental problem to "Global Warming"(tm) the sooner we can start giving attention to things like Ocean Acidification, that are less politically motivated and debatable. Al Gore has done more to harm the environment than help it by incorporating and profiting from Global Warming, to the detriment of more serious issues that have far better science and less political hyperbole.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[TinFoilMan]

Mod the parent up, it was an honest question.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[mr_mischief]

Growing food for herbivores takes carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, at least. Well, unless you put more into it in the way of fossil fuels and fertilizer manufacturing than the plants take up anyway. Score one more for grazing cattle over corn-fed.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Rei]

Ack, sorry -- it's 2 billion cattle, not trillion. Either way, though -- cattle aren't the only ruminants, there weren't an equivalent number of sauropods, and the only reason we can support as many as we do is modern high-density agriculture.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[mr_mischief]

No problem. The central US is all limestone, which was deposited the last time the oceans covered it. Let that dissolve, and you'll have saltier water with a decent pH. Where all the humans live in the meantime is the big issue. Where's Kevin Costner when we really need him?

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

There needs to be a -1 Jackass mod for responses like this.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Rei]

Why can't my car use it?

Not a dumb question at all! :) You brought up one of the biggest misunderstandings of physics that is the basis for innumerable perpetual motion/free energy scams: the concept of heat as energy.

Yes, heat *is* energy. But you can't harvest it directly; you can only harvest heat from differences in temperature. Why? Entropy. A hot material is more "disordered" than a cold material. Hence, you harvest energy from heat alone, sure, you wouldn't be violating enthalpy, but you would be violating entropy. Entropy must always increase. Now, if you have a hot reservoir and a cold reservoir, you can harvest some energy from heat, so long as you increase the entropy of the cold reservoir more than the hot reservoir lost.

If this law of the universe didn't exist, perpetual motion would be possible. Picture a closed system where you have a "heat harvester" that produces electricity without a cold reservoir, surrounded by a working fluid. It then runs some electrical appliance. The waste heat from the electrical appliance goes back into the working fluid, where it's harnessed again to make more electricity by the "heat harvester". Ad infinitum. Perpetual motion. And entropy forbids it.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[alexborges]

I dont know about god...

Now, Chuck Norris...

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a very good point.

Global warming has become a cliche gratuatiously thrown into anything even slightly related to the environment and sometime no relation to the environment at all.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Rei]

I corrected my post on the billion / trillion issue, but not soon enough, I see. But either way, the point still remains. There's no way the Earth supported 50 million saurupods, much less 50 million Apatosaurus.

If you eat plant matter, you produce methane, I have seen nothing to ever dispute this.

I eat plant matter. I produce a tiny fraction as much methane as a ruminant of the same mass. Ruminants produce so much methane because they have an anerobic digestion process.

150 million years ago there were tens of thousands of Apatosaurus and other very large ruminants. World wide, there would have been millions more.

1) Apatosaurus was not a ruminant, that much is known. They weren't even mammals, much less Artiodactyla.
2) Ruminants didn't even exist at the time. Heck, *mammals* didn't even exist at the time.
3) We don't know how many there were in the US -- only that they weren't being fed mass-produced intensive selectively-bred fertilizer-pumped weed-suppressed grain in massive, efficient feedlots after millenia of animal husbandry.
4) Why on Earth would you expect scaling up from "tens of thousands" in North America (16.5% of the world's land mass currently) to "millions" worldwide?

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Rei]

Ack, again, I should proofread better: "because they have an anerobic fermentation process". :P

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where's Kevin Costner when we really need him?

Over Here

Re:What Climate Problem?

[scorp1us]

The Church of Global Warming (renamed to the Church of Climate Change, since we're now cooling since 2001), does not allow itself to be questioned. It is headed by Al Gore, known to followers as the AlGoracle, or 'Goracle, It is in mimicry of the Goracle's own behavior, that he has refused to debate any climate-educated scientist. The Goracle is infallible, and options or questions to the contrary are forbidden, lest be be proven fallible. If the Goracle's words were ever to be disproved, his followers would have to examine evidence to the contrary and decide for themselves. This is always doom for any religion. This is not desired by the Goracle, or his followers, so information to the contrary is vehemently suppressed. I myself have fallen victim to their zealotry, even when not attempting to directly challenge the Goracle.

It seems that there is a segment of society that must feel guilty, that just can't be happy with the status quo. That this guilty carbon pleasure somehow justifies their suffering (I am guilty, and that is why I am unhappy) These people are not a new phenomenon, rather the Puritans that settled this country thought in very similar ways. We will be stuck with them forever I am afraid.

But the evidence is stacking up the CO2 induced warming is not as risky as the church preaches. There are certain things you can say that will get you modded troll:

• Lest we forget that corals were some of the earliest forms of life on the planet. Yet, they survived the time when all that carbon we were burning was still in the atmosphere and the oceans.
• Despite ever increasing levels of CO2, we have been cooling since 2001. Look at the UAH Global temperature anomaly.
• Jesus had several magic tricks - turning water into wine, walking on water, etc. The most amazing trick that the 'Goracle has done was when he waved his hands during an "Inconvenient Truth" and said "the relationship between carbon dioxide and temperature is complex". Everything after that statement was science by consensus (80% of scientists), and not science. While 80% is a convincing number, if they all use the same models, its a wonder its not 99% to 100%.
• A side effect of that statement is he has everyone believing that temperature follows CO2. But there are quite a few studies that it is the opposite - that show temperature increases cause CO2. If that is the case, then fighting CO2 is a waste because we can't control the temperature of the planet.
• Despite years of predicting no Arctic sea ice, ice area has rebounded for the past two years and is now back in 1 STDEV of normal.

Don't get me wrong, I love the environment. But CO2, is a wolf outside of our fence, and we have wolves inside our fences. There is a plummeting of amphibian populations from toxins. There is MTBE in breast milk (a rocket fuel additive). There are plenty of species about to go extinct from habitat destruction. There is plenty to worry about. Many people forget that we're talking 2degrees C per century.

I think the biggest problem is scientists have found out how to be lawyers. They've found a way to create a need for themselves. By forecasting doom, they need to study the nature of doom. You don't see headlines from the other stories as much because they are much smaller scale, higher degrees of accountability, smaller error bars, and relatively well-understood outcomes.

Another great trick is they've tricked everyone into thinking there is such a thing as "climate science". But no one can perform an experiment big enough and measure it accurately enough to get any meaningful data. Its a heyday! All the funding and no accountability!

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Curunir_wolf]

Good job, sir! Very insightful.

There is a plummeting of amphibian populations from toxins. There is MTBE in breast milk (a rocket fuel additive). There are plenty of species about to go extinct from habitat destruction. There is plenty to worry about.

And this is the one of the main reasons I am opposed to the ClimateChange hoax. It diverts attention from these issues, and other serious ones like proper disposal of waste products from electronics, and agricultural run-off that is poisoning our bays and oceans. These are things that have effective solutions available. Instead the hucksters and the ignorant masses they have following them along are intent on using vast resources in a vain attempt to change the global climate of the Earth.

Arrogant foolishness at best. Let's instead concentrate on reducing actual pollution instead of creating boogeymen that can never be defeated.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[BlackSnake112]

Not to troll here, but is that actually true? It is a fact that the poles have shifted many times over the Earth's history. Are we close to it happening again? The changing of the pole would screw up a lot of things. Is it an instant switch or does it take a few 100 or thousand years?

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are only about 1.3 billion cattle in the world today...you must be British, or just misinformed....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle

Re:What Climate Problem?

[pluther]

So you're telling us that yet another problem would be solved by nuking Florida?

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

Using the number you provided (1 trillion), there would be over 100 cattle for every person on earth. Are you sure about that number?

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

"But I'm Super Serial!!" - Al Gore

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Golddess]

The Church of Global Warming (renamed to the Church of Climate Change, since we're now cooling since 2001)

I realize it may be a hard thing for some folks to understand, especially the kind that blindly follows a book allegedly written some 6000 years ago (not that I'm claiming you believe it, only that those kinds of people are the kind I am familiar with), but making a claim, and then later revising it when you've found out you may not be correct, is a Good Thing. From the rest of your post, you do still seem to believe that we are fucking up our planet, but I'm just pointing out that the way you started off is more conducive to the people who believe that we can do no wrong, that humanity can waste and waste and the planet will always be here, perfectly habitable for humans. Again, not saying you think that.

Personally, while I believe us to be having an impact on our climate, I do not believe we as of yet know enough about it to know how to combat the change (including, but not limited to, whether we need to do stuff to heat us up or cool us down). I would also like to point one thing out.

Lest we forget that corals were some of the earliest forms of life on the planet. Yet, they survived the time when all that carbon we were burning was still in the atmosphere and the oceans.

All that carbon that we are currently putting back into the atmosphere and oceans? It's never been in the atmosphere and oceans all at once.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[TapeCutter]

A) When methane degrades in the atmosphere it turns into CO2 and water.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[TapeCutter]

"And actually, he's not really a climatologist; he's a paleonolotist"

Bob Carter claims to be all sorts of things, I belive his basic education was in geology. He is from the "Institute of Public Affairs" who are basically anti-science lobbyists for the coal and other industries here in Oz.

Listening to his opinion on AGW is akin to listening to Ivan the Terrible's opinion on human rights.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[mOdQuArK!]

Those are the magnetic poles that have been shifting, not the physical "spinning-like-a-top" poles.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[TapeCutter]

"Weird, I'm using my reliance on actual figures to support my conclusion that it isn't"

No you are relying on Bob Carter who says: "the role of peer review in scientific literature was overstressed, and whether or not a scientist had been funded by the fossil fuel industry was irrelevant to the validity of research"

"Weird" how pseudo-skeptics like Carter opt for lobbying instead of publishing. Sad how many people are still desperately clinging to their politically inspired FUD.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[TapeCutter]

I find it remarkable that pseudo-skeptics denigrate science by appealing to science.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Rei]

Or have made a typo that I corrected above.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Loopy]

No you are relying on Bob Carter who says: "the role of peer review in scientific literature was overstressed, and whether or not a scientist had been funded by the fossil fuel industry was irrelevant to the validity of research"

Well, to be fair, you're not separating the possible fact (that someone's funding by a particular industry is irrelevant to the validity of his research) from the absolute fiction (that peer-review in ANY science can ever be overstressed). This, IMO, is what confounds most of the arguments on this subject today: that bias is even considered as part of the equation when honest, scientific peer review should be able to discern purposeful deviations in the data itself. Of course, on the other hand that won't show you a conclusion that is biased, though honest scientists should be able to discern even that.

I suppose the biggest question is my mind is, A) "Why is there such a large population of scientists on both sides of this argument," and B) why does such a huge gap exist between the two. One side (the skeptics) advocate more research and/or different angles of study where the other side (the proponents) are advocating stringent controls that both may not even be attainable by humans _and_ may have secondary effects that will cause more harm than good in the systems they propose to "fix."

We're all going to look back 50 years from now and probably laugh at BOTH sides as more or less equally flawed. The only differences will be which side was closer and which side did more harm than good with its proposed policies.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Burnhard]

Generally these changes are very slow; that's not a problem. It's when changes are rapid that there are problems. The last atmospheric change similar to what we're forcing nowadays was the PETM (Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum)

Good lord, what a load of rubbish. The surface temperature, mostly measured in the USA (as it has by far the majority of sensors), mostly with stations cited next to air conditioning units, tarmack and barbeque's, surrounding by half a century of urban growth, has shown a small increase. An increase, I have to say, well within the bounds of natural variation and an increase, it also must be said, that is not outside of the scope of the possible error (2 degrees, with an increase of around 0.5).

It's rump-smackingly obvious that you and your fellow Warmists overstate your case. Your projections of doom are beyond parody. It just so happens that I'm reading a book right now called, "Irrationality" - there is a chapter in it for the Warmists. It's called: Distorting the evidence.

Happy days!

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Burnhard]

1998 was one of the strongest El Nino events in modern history

Given that almost ALL of the energy circulating in the oceans originates from the Sun, not the atmosphere, it's interesting that you don't raise an eyebrow at a significantly strong El Nino in 1998. I mean the oceans heat capacity is over 1,000 times that of the atmosphere, so I would suggest you have your cause and effect back to front (I could also say that about temperature preceeding CO2 rise, which is obvious from the record).

I'm loving the ad hominems about people who are sceptics, especially loving the arguments from authority. In my view the geologists have more to say on this issue than the "adjusters". They have a much broader perspective on what we sceptics call, "Natural Variation". It's also interesting to note that the "blatantly obvious signal", is not a signal of anthropogenic climate change, it's a signal of some (very small) increase in temperature, well within the bounds of natural variation.

Given that the met office has just installed a computer system that uses around 1.2mw of electricity (enough to power a small town) and that its models failed to predict the temperature trend post 1998 to present day, and that it's yearly predictions of record warm summers here in the UK are absurd and almost always wrong, I'm finding it hard to understand why you're so confident about your assertions.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[sunnyflorida]

I agree completely. Down here in Florida we get these asshat snowbirds from NY, NJ, MA, Ohio, Michigan, etc. that think lawns should be green all year. Grass is a seasonal plant and Florida has at least two seasons - the winter desert and the summer swamp. These damn yankees throw massive chemical baths on their lawns to keep them green in winter when all the grass wants to do is go dormant and rest up for the rainy season. Much bigger problem than the CO2 put out by my trucks, cars and boats

Re:What Climate Problem?

[TapeCutter]

A) There isn't, that is media driven.

To be fair to the mas-media they just reprint the lobbyists press-releases because conflict makes a good story and the psuedo-skeptics keep inventing new names for their think tanks but most of them can be tracked back to the Heartland Institute. If you remeber the "tabacco scientists" from the 80's you will recognise some of the names (eg: Fred Singer). They are nothing more than proffesional lobbyists in lab coats. That is not to say there are no arguments about the finer details but the idea our emmission can warm the Earth is now over a century old and the National academies of science first warned the US government that it was happening in the 50's.

Yes peer-review is imperfect but I challenge you to find one paper in a reputable journal such as Science or Nature that disputes the much maligned "consesus". As you can see there are nearly 40,000 papers in just those two prestigious journals alone. I realise that's an unfair challenge because it's a daunting task and since the IPCC have already done it I'm pretty sure you won't find anything. I would prefer genuine skeptics (and I think you may be one), read what the editors of (say) Nature think about the problem, talk to some IPCC scientists and look at thier reports.

I also agree it's true that it's possible to be paid by a FF company and still do honest science, however I ask you to be skeptical of people such as Carter who disagree with mainstream science, can't get a paper published on the subject and are paid by think tanks because, those traits put the in the same boat as young earth creationists. I also ask genuine skeptics to do a bit of their own geeky mythbusting before posting psuedo-skeptical drivel to slashdot as anything other than an example of anti-science.

B) The "gap" in opinions exists because one side is driven by lobbyists, the other by science. I agree it's a complex subject and I admit that without some background it can appear to be a simple case of experts who can't agree on basic answers. However that's exactly what the psuedo-skeptics want you to think in order to delay any action that would upset their sponsers. They are a cynical bunch of pricks who know they have lost the science argument, they just want to drag it out as long as it's possible to be paid to do so.

Here is just one example of that kind of political dishonesty.

"We're all going to look back 50 years from now and probably laugh at BOTH sides as more or less equally flawed."

In 50yrs I will either by getting a telegram from the Queen or be dead but I think in the next decade the coal industry are in for the same treatment the tabacoo companies recieved in the 90's. What this proponent of emmission control is saying is let's slow down this uncontrolled experiment on our biosphere and carefully examine how we can replace (or clean up) coal and let's do it with a free market based approach such as cap and trade rather than just another useless tax that allows the rich to pump out as much pollution as they can pay for while the rest of us suffer.

Disclaimer: Politically I describe myself as a "fiscally conservative, science based greenie" but I have not been interested enough to vote since 1978. OTOH I have followed the scientific and political arguments over AGW for almost three decades now and became convinced we have a serious problem when the IPCC released their 1997 resports, I have never seen Gore's movie simply because I knew

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Evil Pete]

But CO2 is a much weaker greenhouse gas than methane. So the small amount of methane is a problem as methane, but those same carbon atoms in CO2 are far less effective.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quote: There are approximately 1 trillion cattle worldwide.

The number I can find is ~1.5 billion in 2007. Let's try a simple bullshit check of your number, though, shall we? The area covered by a cow is, conservatively, 2 feet by 6 feet? That would be about 12 trillion square feet of shadow cast by cattle, using your population estimate and my observation that the damned things don't stack well :) What's the surface area of the planet that is not water, since they don't seem to swim well, either? I get that number as approximately 488648294706 square feet. Since I'm not sitting on a cow as I write this...

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Rei]

Good lord, what a load of rubbish. The surface temperature, mostly measured in the USA (as it has by far the majority of sensors), mostly with stations cited next to air conditioning units, tarmack and barbeque's, surrounding by half a century of urban growth, has shown a small increase

Three major fallacies in one sentence -- good job!

1) The US is not the world. The US has been warming slower than the rest of the world.
2) Surface stations are only one method of measuring the planet's temperature.
3) If you knew anything about how surface station temperature measurements are used, you'd know that this is already compensated for *and* validated. First off, each individual station is de-trended. This means looking for periods where it goes out of whack with other stations in its area. So, for example, someone puts an exhaust fan up near a station, its temperature spikes, and it is detrended to compensate for the artificial input or removed from collection entirely if a statistical analysis shows that its data is no longer useful. City stations are compared with rural stations to determine the urban heat island effect, and this is removed. The removal of the urban heat island effect is validated by comparing data on windy days with data on calm days, since windy days reduce the heat island effect by bringing in rural air faster. The validation checks out almost flawlessly. The detrended urban station data is compared with the rural data and the results must coincide; they do. Surface station temperature trends for specific regions are compared with satellite data readings for the same regions; the strength of artificial heat sources is validated. And about twenty other validation and detrending steps.

What, you thought they just dumped the raw data from all stations and averaged them out? Perhaps if you actually read papers on the subject you wouldn't be so ignorant.

An increase, I have to say, well within the bounds of natural variation

No.

It just so happens that I'm reading a book right now called, "Irrationality" - there is a chapter in it for the Warmists. It's called: Distorting the evidence.

Well, good to know that you keep up on climate science by reading a book by a psychiatrist! If you'll excuse me, I need to go take a class on biology taught by a carpenter and then get a patent prepared by a stonemason.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Rei]

Why do people post "corrections" without bothering to look for whether the author already corrected their post? Several times?

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Rei]

Given that almost ALL of the energy circulating in the oceans originates from the Sun, not the atmosphere, it's interesting that you don't raise an eyebrow at a significantly strong El Nino in 1998. I mean the oceans heat capacity is over 1,000 times that of the atmosphere, so I would suggest you have your cause and effect back to front (I could also say that about temperature preceeding CO2 rise, which is obvious from the record).

Once again, what sort of idiot would assume that the strength of El Nino's and La Nina's influence on the climate hasn't been extensively studied? Seriously! And not just ENSO, but other oscillations, such as the PDO. Even in the deep La Nina's we've been dealing with for the past two years we've been in the top 10 hottest years in recorded history. It's easily removed white noise on top of the signal. Its effects are trivially calculable and it broadcasts itself quite visibly when it happens.

especially loving the arguments from authority

Argument from peer review is not argument from authority. It's argument from science. Try it some time instead of just making sh*t up.

They have a much broader perspective on what we sceptics call, "Natural Variation"

Which you'd be aware has been *extensively* studied, literally thousands of papers, had you actually read the IPCC reports.

It's also interesting to note that the "blatantly obvious signal", is not a signal of anthropogenic climate change, it's a signal of some (very small) increase in temperature, well within the bounds of natural variation.

Far outside the bounds of natural variation. Which again, you'd know if you actually read peer-reviewed science. And the strength of all major forcings for the temperature trends have been well quantified, and the anthropogenic factors are far greater than the natural factors. If you disagree, you've got hundreds of papers to refute, so start busting your arse.

Given that the met office has just installed a computer system that uses around 1.2mw of electricity (enough to power a small town) and that its models failed to predict the temperature trend post 1998 to present day

Actually, it did. I don't have a graph for you starting at 1998, but I have one for you starting at 2002, if you're interested: . I point this out to you to show you that big gray area around the line. See that? That's the 95% confidence interval on their forecasts. See how almost all of this random noise falls within it? The models aren't designed to predict the noise; they're designed to predict the trends. It's like weather forecasting. We can only predict the weather a few days in advance before the "noise" (the weather) becomes dominant. But we can still tell farmers quite accurately whether a certain region will be dryer or wetter than usual and by how much, hotter or cooler than usual and by how much, and so forth. The long range projections can't tell you when an individual front will be passing, but they can quite reliably estimate how many total fronts will cross, how much rain they'll dump, etc. This is known as "convergence". Convergence is a statistically verifiable phenomenon.

The scientifically illiterate deniers, having never actually read a paper on their subject to save their life, often just latch on to the median of the range and act like it's supposed to tell them exactly how hot it's supposed to be at any point in time. Which is ridiculous; that's never going to happen. There's always going to be noise in the signal. But the signal itself will always remain.

The worst about this are people like Monckton who I can only conclude are *deliberately* trying to sow confusion on this by taking a starting point, taking a long-term projection, drawing a line from the start to the end -- *leaving out the curve* -- and then literally making up a fake confidence interval.

If you want to see the forecast confidence i

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Burnhard]

Your points are just plain WRONG. The US isn't the world, no, but it's one of the few countries that has been able to maintain almost continuous sensor coverage. Places like Russia/Western Europe (a vast expanse) just haven't, particularly throughout the first half of the 20th century and (in Russia) the latter quarter of the 20th century. The majority of temperature stations are in the US. A lot of those stations are cited in idiotic locations, vulnerable to the Urban Heat Island affect.

Secondly, the satellite temperature anomaly differs from the surface temperature anomaly and they only come into agreement via. "adjustment". This is the process where so called Scientists massage the data to make it fit their pre-conceived ideas. For further information about "adjustment", I refer you to Climate Audit. For information about just how dodgy a lot of these temperature stations actually are, take a look at Surface Stations.

Yes, it is well within the bounds of natural variation. Weather didn't start in year 1,000. As I understand it, temperature records from Roman times are hard to come by. Dendro records have their own problems (climate audit has a very comprehensive review of the issues, if you care to look).

Your idiotic graph stops in the year 1990. We've had 20 years of data since then. Moreover, a large part of the increasing trend shown starts around 1900, so is obviously not man-made CO2 based. Furthermore, almost half of the observed change occurred before widespread industrialisation and the increase has NOT accelerated through the second half of the 20th century (apart from in the fake graph of Dr Hansen, proven to be statistical nonsense). Moreover, look at the Y scale. What does it show? Try looking at a graph of temperature with a more natural scale, rather than zooming in to make the end look worse than it actually is.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Burnhard]

Once again, what sort of idiot would assume that the strength of El Nino's and La Nina's influence on the climate hasn't been extensively studied?

The sort of idiot who knows that the "extensive study" you talk of is, to put it mildly, immature. Satellite measurements have only been available for the briefest period of the Earth's history. Your view, that we know all we need to know already to make 50 year predictions, is idiotic. Would you have the same confidence in an economic model as you have in these climate models? I very much doubt it.

Argument from peer review is not argument from authority. It's argument from science. Try it some time instead of just making sh*t up.

Oh yes it is, you're making the assumption that peer review is some guarantee of correctness. It isn't. It's a guarantee that some other people have looked at the paper for trivial mistakes and in Climate Science, often not picked them up. If you've read the Wegman report, you'll know what I'm talking about. Would you like me to list the thousands of papers, submitted and cleared by peer review that turned out to be unmitigated rubbish? I shouldn't need to, you should raise an eyebrow to any assertion, peer reviewed or not. Climate Science papers, consisting of mostly statistical arguments, are not peer reviewed by statisticians, they are peer reviewed by other climate scientists. As the recent Steig debacle shows, Climate Scientists don't understand the methods they are using.

Which you'd be aware has been *extensively* studied, literally thousands of papers, had you actually read the IPCC reports.

While we are often told about the "2,500 scientists" who contributed to the latest IPCC report, the vast majority of these contributors had no influence on the conclusions expressed by the IPCC and were not asked if they endorsed those conclusions (McLean 2007, 2008, 2009). The IPCC's key personnel and lead authors are appointed by governments, not by scientific organizations. Its Summaries for Policymakers (SPM) are produced by a small group of scientists and are revised and agreed to, line-by-line, by representatives of member governments before they are made public (McKitrick 2007). The full reports of the IPCC are then revised after their executive summaries were written in order to agree with the political documents.

The scientists involved with the IPCC are almost all in careers that rely on government contracts and rely on government grants to support their IPCC activities. Does that fill you with Scientific confidence? Just how gullible are you?

Actually, it did. I don't have a graph for you starting at 1998, but I have one for you starting at 2002, if you're interested:

Do you understand what a confidence interval actually "means"? I refer you to the following article: Numerical Climate Models

Huh? Here's last year's: A typical British summer. Which it was. Only slightly warmer than average (i.e., cooler than recent years), as they forecast. And of the top 20 warmest summers in Britain's history over the past four centuries as of just 2006, three were 1995 or later. Including 2006, the hottest. Which, as you note, they forecast as a record warm summer.

The Met office have taken their AGW message to new highs (and just as well, they needed to sting the Government for some new computers). They have taken to predicting record hot summers every year recently. It's just a shame that the last three have been complete washouts: "For the third straight summer, the UK Met Office has forecast hot weather using their state of the art computer models. Summer 2007 and 2008 were complete washouts, ranking as two of the most miserable, rainy summers on record." (reference:

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Rei]

The sort of idiot who knows that the "extensive study" you talk of is, to put it mildly, immature

And you know that from reading a whopping zero papers on the subject. Come back when you know what you're talking about.

Your view, that we know all we need to know already to make 50 year predictions, is idiotic.

That's just the tiniest fraction of the data used. Of course, no surprise that you'd make that argument, since you've read a whopping zero papers on the subject. Come back when you know what you're talking about.

Would you have the same confidence in an economic model as you have in these climate models?

Yes, if it had as much study and peer review behind it.

Oh yes it is, you're making the assumption that peer review is some guarantee of correctness.

I'm making the assumption that it's infinitely better than a slashdotter whose read no papers on the subject talking out their arse.

If you've read the Wegman report, you'll know what I'm talking about.

You mean a non-peer-reviewed report? Cute. Keep avoiding peer review. It shows what you think of science.

And, FYI, I have read it. And, FYI, fixing of the errors reported by the Wegman report doesn't change the shape of the reconstruction. And, FYI, that's about one single paper out of many thousands. Including many more on the exact same topic using different methodologies that reach the exact same conclusion (the most recent, for example, is "Proxy-based reconstructions of hemispheric and global surface temperature variations over the past two millennia"):

Following the suggestions of a recent National Research Council report [NRC (National Research Council) (2006) Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years (Natl Acad Press, Washington, DC).], we reconstruct surface temperature at hemispheric and global scale for much of the last 2,000 years using a greatly expanded set of proxy data for decadal-to-centennial climate changes, recently updated instrumental data, and complementary methods that have been thoroughly tested and validated with model simulation experiments. Our results extend previous conclusions that recent Northern Hemisphere surface temperature increases are likely anomalous in a long-term context. Recent warmth appears anomalous for at least the past 1,300 years whether or not tree-ring data are used. If tree-ring data are used, the conclusion can be extended to at least the past 1,700 years, but with additional strong caveats. The reconstructed amplitude of change over past centuries is greater than hitherto reported, with somewhat greater Medieval warmth in the Northern Hemisphere, albeit still not reaching recent levels.

But no surprise you'd conflate a single, now obsolete paper to somehow be the keystone of all of climate science. On, and one more FYI: if you read the original paper, it's actually all about the uncertainty levels at different points in time.

While we are often told about the "2,500 scientists" who contributed to the latest IPCC report, the vast majority of these contributors had no influence on the conclusions expressed by the IPCC and were not asked if they endorsed those conclusions

Would you like polls, then? How's this? According to polls, more climate scientists think the IPCC was too lax with their conclusions than too harsh, 97% of climate scientists say that temperatures have risen, and 97% think humans are responsible.

Its Summaries for Policymakers (SPM) are produced by a small group of scientists and are revised and agreed to, line-by-line, by representatives of member governments before they are made public (McKitrick 2007).

You know, you could at least not

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Rei]

Your points are just plain WRONG. The US isn't the world, no

I'm glad to see you admit your error where you conflated warming in the US, which you accused of being false, with proving that AGW was wrong.

but it's one of the few countries that has been able to maintain almost continuous sensor coverage. Places like Russia/Western Europe (a vast expanse) just haven't

Russia has 35 stations that have been operational since 1961, many of them earlier. Spain, 9; Portugal, 3; France, 17; UK, 17. And so on. And these are just for self-monintoring, modern stations. Individual measurements have a far longer history. Written temperature records in the UK go all the way back to the 1600s.

The majority of temperature stations are in the US. A lot of those stations are cited in idiotic locations, vulnerable to the Urban Heat Island affect.

You *want* to know what the heat island effect is. Did you completely skip reading my post where I talked about detrending?

Secondly, the satellite temperature anomaly differs from the surface temperature anomaly and they only come into agreement via. "adjustment"

A complete misunderstanding of how the MSU dataset was assembled. It has to be adjusted because it's not all data from one satellite; it's a data from many different satellites, each with differences. *And* the data doesn't come as temperatures; it comes as radiance measurements, which have to be interpreted. Different algorithms have been used over the years to interpret the data. And lastly, we only care about the temperature for the lower troposphere when talking about warming trends, so the effects of the upper troposphere and stratosphere have to be mathematically removed. It's a very complex science, and has nothing to do with the notion you present of scientists looking at a satellite data reading and saying, "Let's move it a couple degrees to match what it says on the surface!" In some cases, ground readings are taken into account, but only to measure how the data gathered by the satellites corresponds to a known point or point on the surface, to better understand how to interpret the satellite data.

There's also radiosonde balloon data, but that's even more complicated than the satellite data.

For information about just how dodgy a lot of these temperature stations actually are, take a look at Surface Stations.

I already have an entire post on this thread busting that notion. I'm not going to repeat myself. Anyone who makes this argument has made it blatantly obvious that they have never once looked at surface station climate reconstruction methodologies.

Yes, it is well within the bounds of natural variation.

Completely and utterly false, as even a most cursory look at the data shows.

This is the process where so called Scientists massage the data to make it fit their pre-conceived ideas. For further information about "adjustment", I refer you to Climate Audit. ... As I understand it, temperature records from Roman times are hard to come by. Dendro records have their own problems (climate audit has a very comprehensive review of the issues, if you care to look).

Peer review has a very comprehensive review of the issues, thank you very much. There are dozens of papers on this topic. Pointing people to a website of one of the couple dozen professional deniers (out of thousands who don't) is the antithesis of science.

Your idiotic graph stops in the year 1990. We've had 20 years of data since then.

20 years out of 1200 is essentially meaningless and would barely be visible on the graph. And the hottest years on record have been since 1990, so you're not helping your case.

Moreover, a large part of the increasing trend shown starts around 1900, so is obviously not man-made CO2 based.

Huh? You are awa

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Burnhard]

Wow, a whole diatribe of ad hominems and argument from authority. On the points that are worth replying to:

Yes, if it had as much study and peer review behind it.

I'm sorry to have to tell you that many of the economic models in use today have that much if not more peer reviewed science behind them and not one of them is correct over the long-term. Models are conceptual representations of real entities. Their results may be indicative, given their assumptions only, notwithstanding errors in accuracy and method that have a significant impact on results. The point I am making wih respect to peer review however, that you fail to understand because of your tunnel vision, is that it's almost impossible to get a paper published that casts any doubt whatsoever on the dominant paradigm. It is therefore obvious that a greater proportion of published research (by far the majority of it) will support the paradigm, aided by the credulous, alamist media and stupified politicians. This is the reason why peer review is an imperfect indicator of validity. Even a 10 year old can understand this point; you, however, seem to have trouble with it.

ut no surprise you'd conflate a single, now obsolete paper to somehow be the keystone of all of climate science. On, and one more FYI: if you read the original paper, it's actually all about the uncertainty levels at different points in time.

There are many issues with the kinds of reconstruction you cite, particularly if they involve activist scientist Michael Mann, e.g. Proxy inconsistency and other problems in millennial paleoclimate reconstructions. Again, this wasn't an easy paper to get published, not because it lacks merit (the authors know a lot more about statistical analysis than the average Climate Scientist), but because the conclusions go against the paradigm supported by the very people who have to peer review the paper.

Would you like polls, then? How's this? According to polls, more climate scientists think the IPCC was too lax with their conclusions than too harsh, 97% of climate scientists say that temperatures have risen, and 97% think humans are responsible.

That assertion is laughable. How many Climate Scientists agree that supporting the paradigm has grealy increase the amount of cash their institutions get in the form of research grants? 97% perhaps? Consensus is a meaningless concept in Science, if you knew anything about science, you would at least agree with this statement.

Like most scientific research. So? And where is this notion that the governments of the world are secretly trying to push global warming? The world's largest economies have been trying to *resist* global warming research. China's been trying to play it down. So has India. The Bush administration heavily was, even firing people for conducting GW research.

Of course they have. The politics of this is a totally different issue that we can come onto if you wish. Yes, China and India want nothing to do with it but I expect will be all too happy to see the West roll back their industrial revolutions on the alter of environmentalism. The issues of using or not using fossil fuels is a totally different issue to the one we're discussing. I am in favour of alternative energy, primarily because I resent the West sending 1 trillion dollars overseas every year to some pretty disgusting regimes in return for their oil and gas. As I say, it's a different issue. The interplay between activists, the media, science and politics is complex.

What part of last year's forecast of a "typical summer" that I linked did you not understand? What part of 2006 *actually being* a record summer did you not understand? What part of (had you actually read the forecast) the northern UK getting above-averag

Re:What Climate Problem?

[TapeCutter]

"There are many issues with the kinds of reconstruction you cite, particularly if they involve activist scientist Michael Mann, e.g. Proxy inconsistency and other problems in millennial paleoclimate reconstructions [pnas.org]."

To me this one sentance conclusively demonstrates you are a political troll, possibly a paid one. You are no doubt aware of the senate inquiry into Mann's hockey's stick to which anti-science lobbyists point as proof Mann is a "political acticvist". However the thing these luddites fail do do with monotonous regularity is point to the NAS Testimony on which they base their lies.

Quoting from the link:"our reservations with some aspects of the original papers by Mann et al. should not be construed as evidence that our committee does not believe that the climate is warming, and will continue to warm, as a result of human activities. Large-scale surface temperature reconstructions are only one of multiple lines of evidence supporting the conclusion that climatic warming is occurring in response to human activities, and they are not the primary evidence. The scientific consensus regarding human-induced global warming would not be substantively altered if, for example, the global mean surface temperature 1,000 years ago was found to be as warm as it is today. This is because reconstructions of surface temperature do not tell us why the climate is changing. To answer that question, one would need to examine the factors, or forcings, that influence the climate system. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, the primary climate forcings were changes in volcanic activity and in the output of the Sun, but the strength of these forcings is not very well known. In contrast, the increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over the past century are consistent with both the magnitude and the geographic pattern of warming seen by thermometers."

Aside from the facts not fitting your politics, who the hell (other than spanish inquisition types) holds a senate enquiry into a single scientific paper?

As for you slur about grants, you are obviously unaware that Mann and all the other scientists who write the IPCC reports DO NOT GET PAID for what is basically tedious peer-review work. The entire IPCC budget is less tha $6 million/yr and is sourced from 300+ politically diverse nations but lets not let the facts get in the way of your anti-science conspiracy theories.

IMHO you and your willfully ignorant bretheren at the Heartland institute are even more ridiculous than the young earth creationists at the discovery institute, I thank FSM that the only attention your diminishing circle of anti-science lunatics is recieving nowadys is ridicule.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Troed]

All that carbon that we are currently putting back into the atmosphere and oceans? It's never been in the atmosphere and oceans all at once.

We're currently close to 400 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere. We've been at 4000. That's an order of magniture - yet the world didn't burn.

Peer reviewed paper, you want fig 8: http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Reference_Docs/Geocarb_III-Berner.pdf

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Troed]

Global Warming isn't, and hasn't, killed any coral reefs.

Polar bears are increasing in numbers, and have been since several decades.

There's been no increase in extreme weather whatsoever.

The question you should ask yourself is why you believe differently. Who fooled you, and why?

(My statements above are easily sourceable through common search engines)

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Golddess]

First off, I'd just like to say that I wasn't trying to claim that CO2 will be the death of us, only that I did not believe that that particular argument about why CO2 _won't_ be the death of us does not work.

Along the same lines as the above, just because the planet was at 4000 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere some 500 million years ago, that doesn't mean that humans could have survived in such an environment, even though other lifeforms did.

Again, while I believe that we are fully capable of influencing the environment through our actions, I do not believe we as of yet understand _how_ we are influencing the climate, nor (given the fact that climate will naturally change over time even without our influences) do we know how to keep the climate comfortable for humans.

Re:What Climate Problem?

[Troed]

Oh humans would, like other animals, plants and coral reefs did, "survive" 4000 ppm CO2 just fine. You've got 800 ppm easily indoors in a normal environment: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ewh-semt/pubs/air/office_building-immeubles_bureaux/co2-eng.php

My point was that the earth survived it as well. No positive feedback loops spiralling out of control.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Idea

[jimbobborg]

Why don't they use something to up the alkalinity of the ocean, like, crushed coral? Oh, wait...

Re:Idea

[TnkMkr]

Wait... I have a better idea, lets engineer some sort of biological creature that will live off collecting the
carbon from our atmosphere and sequesting it into some sort of solid state. We should engineer it to be solar powered and
should be deployable over the entire surface of the earth.

Don't worry, I'm sure technology will save us by developing this totaly new and radical solution.

Re:Idea

[Jaysyn]

It's only a matter of time before my submarine patent on trees makes me a rich man.

Re:Idea

[Obfuscant]

It would be funnier if you had a patent on submarine trees.

Re:Idea

[rwiggers]

Ha, mine on algae will put yours in oblivion.

Re:Idea

[dunkelfalke]

And that is another reason why geotech sucks. Your nifty green solar powered device stops working after a while when the sunlight is blocked, or at least, isn't that efficient anymore.

Re:Idea

[Lars T.]

Too bad the lumber lobby won't like the idea.

Re:Idea

[drinkypoo]

We should engineer it to be solar powered and should be deployable over the entire surface of the earth.

As soon as the oceans rise, we'll be able to do this... with algae.

The existence of deserts proves that you can't just go forth and reforest the earth, and anyway, no one is making a serious effort at it.

Re:Idea

[blind biker]

Yes, and that biological creature (or group) is plankton. Plankton is the most important CO2 sequestrer, but it dies in acidic seawater. Hence the whole problem with acidic oceans...

if i remember well from high school chemistry

[circletimessquare]

the ocean is a sort of buffer solution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffer_solution

what is major component of this buffer? us. living critters and how they react to an increase in CO2

http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/SeaWiFS/TEACHERS/CHEMISTRY/

which means the oceans will maintain their pH over a wide range of abuse and this notion of ocean acidification is hysteria

Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry

[DoofusOfDeath]

the ocean is a sort of buffer solution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffer_solution

what is major component of this buffer? us. living critters and how they react to an increase in CO2

http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/SeaWiFS/TEACHERS/CHEMISTRY/

which means the oceans will maintain their pH over a wide range of abuse and this notion of ocean acidification is hysteria

You're probably right. I'm sure what you remember from high school is a good reason to dismiss the Carnegie Melon research team's results.

Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry

[wjousts]

Clearly you don't remember well from high school chemistry. Le Chatelier's principle only reduces the effect of a perturbation to an equilibrium, it does not remove it. Buffering will only slow down acidification, not stop it.

Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry

[Rei]

what is major component of this buffer? us. living critters and how they react to an increase in CO2

Wow! Amazing that all of those egghead boffins living in their ivory towers with their hoity-toity "science" missed that one! Thank you so much for pointing it out!

Except for the fact that most ocean life is not primarily constrained by CO2, but nutrients, especially iron. Whoops.

I never ceased to be amazed at people who insist that something must be wrong with the science on a subject when they haven't done even the most rudimentary amount to educate themselves on what the science of the subject actually is. You could at least start by reading the relevant sections of the IPCC technical reports to see what actually has been studied and how. I guarantee you, it's way, way more than you ever expected.

There's a reason why people go to college for years to get a degree in these fields. This isn't high school baking-soda-and-vinegar-volcanoes here. It's an incredibly complex science that you need a solid background in. At least spend a week reading peer-reviewed papers on the subject before you put fingers to keyboard. You're coming across like if someone who had never used a computer started talking about how programmers should make every piece of software be run by voice commands in spoken English sentences like "Could you open up the letter to my grandmother and edit out the part where I told her about my chihuahua?", and have the software figure out what you want it to do. You're broadcasting ignorance on the topic like a beacon.

Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry

[Anonymous Coward]

Pardon me sir/madam, your facts are not welcome here. You must take your hysteria-free reasoning and go call a right-wing talk show or something.

Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in oceanography research, and I've seen a number of talks now talking about changing pH in the oceans.

pH doesn't only change due to increased partial pressures of atmospheric CO2. Nutrient loading to suface waters can cause pH in bottom waters to drop as well.

Whether or not the overall average ocean pH is changing - we cannot say yet.
But there are some regions, the Gulf of St. Lawrence for example, where pH has had clear downward trends over the last 50 years or so.
This effect, in combination with dropping levels of dissolved O2 is displacing a growing number of biota. In this case, much (but not all) of these changes can be linked to changes in ocean currents. I'll have to read the papers over, but for now I seem to remember that fertilizer runoff in the St. Lawrence river is another significant contributing factor.

Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry

[interkin3tic]

the ocean is a sort of buffer solution

If there's one thing I've learned about buffers, it's that they have limits and will not keep the pH the same if you dump in too much acid.

If you'll excuse me, the stumps where my hands used to be are needing new bandages after all this typing.

Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry

[ArcherB]

I'm sure what you remember from high school is a good reason to dismiss the Carnegie Melon research team's results.

I think the important thing to ask is, "Who paid for the study?"

Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry

[drunken_boxer777]

And with a vague memory from high school you managed to disprove hundreds of scientists who spend all of their time studying the ocean as an ecosystem. Bravo.

In all seriousness, some of the media reports are over-hyped, but the concern of ocean acidification has been around for at least a decade and you'd think that someone would have raised your objection during that time. Are some proponents hysterical? Yes. Is their concern valid? Yes.

Regardless, are you willing to gamble that what we do now has no real impact on the planet? Furthermore, are you willing to gamble that if we don't begin to limit our footprint on the planet our descendants will do so?

For instance, the widespread pollution of rivers by industrial chemical plants occurred rampantly throughout the US. Then we realized, "Hey! We have an impact on the environment!" It was a hard-earned and costly lesson, which fortunately we managed to clean up, for the most part. It could be argued that we didn't know any better at the time. But I think we know better now, and to argue that we don't have an effect on our environment is negligent. To argue that there's nothing we can do and we'll let future generations sort it out (in the meantime the situation worsens and the population continues to increase, compounding the damage) is downright evil.

By the way, it's already been published that even if the earth doesn't warm from human CO2, ocean acidification will still be a problem.

Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry

[Red Flayer]

Hey, why not go back and re-examine your textbooks from high school chemistry? It seems you slept through the second part of that lecture.

Remember the lab where you had to determine the concentration of a buffer in solution that had pH-sensitive dyes in it?

And how you could pipette huge amounts of an acid (or base) into the solution without a notable change in pH? But then you add one more drop and *presto* your solution was now purple (or orange, etc)? And with each drop added after that, there was no buffering effect?

Buffer systems in the ocean are like that, though more complex.

Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry

[Rycross]

No, that's an Ad Hominem. The important thing to ask is, "Is the research scientifically sound?"

Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry

[syphax]

Oh, the ocean is very well buffered. There's no shortage of carbonate.

But the timescale of the buffering is way, way, way slower than the timescale with which the extra CO2 is going into the ocean.

So, over a couple million years, no big deal.

But over 100-500 years? Kind of a big deal.

Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry

[Anonymous Coward]

Please.
CMU does not received grant money for this type of research if there is not a problem
There aren't any numbers in TFA.
CO2 is 370 ppm now. Pretty much an all time low over the last 500 million years.
Is CMU saying the more recent increase of 20-30 ppm over the average will acidify the oceans?
You think that small change could affect anything?
Whatever, it is all worth bankrupting our economy, right? Taxing air.
Good one.

Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry

[CorporateSuit]

No, that's an Ad Hominem. The important thing to ask is, "Is the research scientifically sound?"

Is water from a poisoned well drinkable? Whenever a study has money involved, the first thing the scientists will buy is a Jump to Conclusions Mat. They've shown that increased temperatures causes a release of CO2, but they have NOT shown that CO2 increases temperatures, rather they can map almost direct correlations between CO2 levels and temperature levels. What does this data really tell you? If you're not brainwashed, working for the "green" industry, or running for office?

Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry

[DoofusOfDeath]

No, that's an Ad Hominem. The important thing to ask is, "Is the research scientifically sound?"

You're right, my reply was kind of ad hominem-ish.

But I think the notion of ad hominem is overly simplistic. I agree that the correctness of an argument is generally independent of who advances it. But most of us have limited time to consider a given issue, and we need to use our best judgment to decide whose arguments to consider, simply due to time constraints.

When given two arguments, one presented by a research team from a respected univeristy, and another from a guy who admits that he might be mis-remembering his high school chemistry, I'm going to invest much more time in the latter, because it's more likely to be a good use of my time.

Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry

[Rycross]

And yet someone has to fund the research. Climate change studies are expensive, since they usually require copious data-collection and analyzing a myriad factors. Those that fund the research always have a vested interest. Otherwise, why would they fund it? You simply can't use the source of funding as a yardstick for the validity of the research. It is best to analyze the science based on its merits. If it is poisoned, as you say, it will be easy to discredit.

It has been shown, scientifically, that C02 contributes to the greenhouse affect, that C02 levels have been rising due to industrialization, and that global temperature is positively correlated with that C02 level. That you consider me brainwashed for looking at the science says more about you than me.

Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry

[Rycross]

I was actually replying to the following idea:

I think the important thing to ask is, "Who paid for the study?"

This sort of reasoning is typically used to throw away useful results without properly analyzing the research. If the source of funding is affecting the results, then a peer-review of that research should turn up discrepancies.

On the other hand, believing an argument based on the authority of the person giving the argument isn't valid logic per se, but for everyday life, and general cases, its usually an effective short-cut. There are not enough hours in the day to properly validate every single claim we come across in every-day lives. However, these sorts of logical short-cuts should not be applied by scientists and policy-makers. These are the exact same people that are often asked to ignore the scientific evidence and give weight to emotional arguments.

For instance, it is one thing for you and I to disregard an oil company's research as "probably invalid." It is altogether entirely different for the scientific community and politicians to do so. They should not disregard the research because of the source.

Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry

[Anonymous Coward]

The CO2 rises after the temperature. It is a lagging indicator.

Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry

[CorporateSuit]

It has been shown, scientifically, that C02 contributes to the greenhouse affect, that C02 levels have been rising due to industrialization, and that global temperature is positively correlated with that C02 level. That you consider me brainwashed for looking at the science says more about you than me.

Only because you look at the scientist more than the science. I found myself in association with some of climate change's most vigorous proponents (on a science level, not political) and no -- they have not shown that CO2 affects temperatures outside of correlation. Methane? Yes. CO2, no. When I read up on the disputations of the "you got it backward" argument that I suggest, there is a lot of fiddlefaddle that says "Ice coverage of the earth was more reflective, so when I make a new calculation, it fits!" and doublehelix models... but no scientific method. Perhaps if I wait for another 10 years, I'll see some data that fits the models before someone has to spin it into place.

Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry

[Rycross]

If that is the case, then you are arguing against the research on scientific terms, which does not conflict with my original statement that the science is what matters, not the source of funding.

Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry

[Anonymous Coward]

Carnegie 'Melon'? It's not CMU. It's the Carnegie Institution of Washington / Carnegie Institution for Science.

Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry

[Anonymous Coward]

You're broadcasting ignorance... like a beacon.

Of course he is. It's kinda his "thing".

Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry

[hmm_slashdot]

CMU doesn't receive any grant money for this research because it wasn't done at CMU. This is a Carnegie Institution for Science project, not a CMU one.

Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry

[myowntrueself]

I'm in oceanography research, and I've seen a number of talks now talking about changing pH in the oceans.

Maybe you can answer a question for me then.

According to wikipedia, the Great Barrier Reef of Australia dates back maybe 600,000 years.

During the last 600,000 years there has been some significant climate change, way more radical than what we have been experiencing with the whole 'global warming' thing. There was an ice age, what? 20,000 years ago?

So my question is, do we have any evidence of historical ocean acidification and if so what impact did it have on the reefs at the time? Because OBVIOUSLY they have survived and thrived in recent millennia.

Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry

[ShortRound]

"When given two arguments, one presented by a research team from a respected univeristy, and another from a guy who admits that he might be mis-remembering his high school chemistry, I'm going to invest much more time in the latter, because it's more likely to be a good use of my time."

You mean the former right? Unless I'm misunderstanding what you consider a good use of your time.

Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry

[c6gunner]

They've shown that increased temperatures causes a release of CO2, but they have NOT shown that CO2 increases temperatures

Nonsense. Kids in grade 5 are performing experiments which confirm this effect. Here, you can try this one at home:

1. Obtain 2 glass jars, 2 thermometers, and a lamp.
2. Place thermometers inside jars, and place jars under the lamp (either with lid on, or upside-down).
3. After 20 minutes, check the temperature. Both readings should be identical.
4. Fill one jar with C02. After 20 minutes, check the temperature. Compare to initial readings.

I'm sure your children could have shown this to you if you had asked them, but, just on the off-chance that they haven't seen it, you might want to talk to them about it. It could be a fun science-based activity for the whole family!

Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh dear, so I take it you didn't end up with a career in chemistry?

Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry

[danbert8]

You're going to be waiting for awhile... My problem with the climate change fearmongering is that there isn't enough data to predict the climate, and there won't be for a long time. 10 years proves nothing on a climate scale. Heck the maybe 1000 years of good temperature data isn't worth much either.

I hate to tell the climate scientists, but the earth's climate changes... It did long before humans lived, and it likely will continue now that humans are here. That's the key. The climate changes. Whether we are affecting it is moot because someday, it's going to get colder or warmer without our help. Quite frankly, if we are causing the world to get warmer, I sleep a lot better at night.

Global warming might cause some additional severe weather, maybe some flooding along the coastlines, heaven forbid some polar bears die. But if global cooling occurs, most of us here in the northern US are going to be under 500 feet of ice... The moral of the story is, warm weather on earth is much more life supporting than cold. The earth won't get as hot as Venus, it will only get about as hot as the cretaceous period, which supported more life than any other time we know of.

To sum this up, I'd rather be farming in Siberia with New Orleans under water, than have to live in Mexico because a large portion of every continent is under glaciers.

Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry

[coopex]

That's a nice experiment that I assume proves that CO2 absorbs IR better than air (and, like a greenhouse, heats up because of stopping convection, unlike the atmosphere).

It also completely ignores the dynamics of a CO2 based atmosphere like, say, Venus. From just the adiabatic lapse rate and barometric equation, you can easily see that Venus is hot because of 92 atmospheres of pressure, and a pure CO2 atmosphere would be slightly cooler than N2/O2 because of its lower specific heat capacity.

T(P) = Tsurface/(1+(y-1)/y*(ln(Psurface)-ln(P))) Derivation here

Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry

[c6gunner]

That's a nice experiment that I assume proves that CO2 absorbs IR better than air (and, like a greenhouse, heats up because of stopping convection, unlike the atmosphere).

What in the world ....

How do you go from "absorbs IR" to "heats up because of stopping convection"? You've made two contradictory guesses in one sentence. If you expect a response, you need to clarify what you meant.

FYI, the greenhouse effect has nothing to do with convection; the name is somewhat misleading.

Re:if i remember well from high school chemistry

[coopex]

The jars are essentially in thermal equilibrium because of their size, they are sealed, therefore, hot air doesn't expand and rise, no convection. Simple thermodynamics.

As for the greenhouse effect and convection, assuming CO2 has the warming power attributed to it, Venus would probably be a good place for some clear effects to show. However, the adiabatic lapse rate (convective heat transport in the atmosphere) = dT/dz = -Mg/R*(y-1)/y = ~7.82K/km (I was lazy and used 100% CO2 for this, also y = gamma) which isn't too far off from the ALR calculated from measurements using least squares = ~7.74K/km. Note that this only depends on molar mass, gravitational acceleration, gas constant, and specific heat capacity, so we may safely conclude that the greenhouse effect is caused by pressure. HTH HAND

Re:Volcanoes

[Anonymous Coward]

Acidic. Volcanic ash is very high in sulfur and results in quite a bit of sulfuric acid.

Dream on. Chemtrails cause heating.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://home.earthlink.net/~root.man/warming.html

http://www.carnicom.com/gwmodel.htm

A study has been done to examine the role of the aerosol operations with respect to global warming. It has long been proposed1,2,3 that the aerosol operations have the effect of aggravating the heating condition of the planet, and that they show no prospect for cooling the earth as many have claimed. This is in direct contradiction to many of the popular notions that commonly circulate regarding the operations, i.e., that these operations are somehow intended for our benefit, but it is best that their true nature remain undisclosed and closed to fair examination by the public. Whether or not such popular theories are intended to mislead the public is open to question; the facts, however, speak of an opposite end result. The aerosols are being dispersed into the lower atmosphere, and it can be shown from this fact that they will indeed heat up the lower portion of the atmosphere. Global warming itself is defined as the heating of the lower atmosphere and earth4. The notion that the aerosols are in some way cooling the planet is contradictory to direct observation and the examinations of physics. To cool the planet, the intentionally dispersed aerosols would have to be in the upper regions of the atmosphere or in space; readers interested in that conclusion may wish to read more closely the proposals of Edward Teller that are often cited in the claims of supposed mitigation. It will be found that any claims of aerosols cooling the planet will usually require those materials to be at the upper reaches of the atmosphere to the boundaries of space; aerosols in the lower atmosphere will usually be shown to be heating the planet. These facts must be considered by any of those individuals that continue to promulgate claims of anonymous and beneficial mitigation in conjunction with the aerosol operations.

The current model examines the effects of deliberately introducing barium particulates into the lower atmosphere, and the subsequent contribution to the global warming problem. The results are not encouraging. The results indicate that these particulates, even at rather modest concentration levels, can contribute in a real and significant way to the heating of the lower atmosphere. The magnitude appears to be quite on par with any of the more popularly discussed contributions, such as carbon dioxide increase and greenhouse gases. It is recommended that the public be willing to consider some of the more direct, visible and palpable alterations to our planet and atmosphere within the pursuit of the global warming issue, namely the aerosol operations as they have been imposed upon the public without informed consent for more than 8 years now.

The graph above shows the expected interactions from 3 variables that relate to the global warming issue; these are: aerosol concentration, time and rise in temperature. On one axis, relatively modest concentrations of barium particulates in the atmosphere are shown. The magnitudes shown are not at all unreasonable with respect to the numerous analyses that have been made by this researcher in the past, e.g., visibility studies available on this site. As a point of reference, the EPA air quality standard for particulates of less than 2.5 microns in size has been recently lowered5 to 35 ugms (micrograms) per m3 (cubic meter). It will be seen from the graph, for example, that even a 10% level of this standard (i.e., 3.5-ugms / m3) can produce a noticeable heating of the lower atmosphere. As has been stated previously, the candor and accountability of the EPA is sorely lacking over the past decade, and this agency has failed miserably in its duty to the public to maintain environmental safeguards. It can no longer be assured or assumed that minimal air quality standards are being honored in any way, and the integrity of the EPA to serve the public interest can no longer be upheld. It is quite possible, and unfortunately somewhat expected, that enforceable and accounta

straw man argument

[Captain Kirk]

Geo-engineering may make people think that we can carry on as now with no sacrifices. This article tries to re-inject a sense of fear. Its like saying "OK so the vacuum cleaner is good at cleaning the floor. But does it paint the garage? No? Well back to cleaning the floor with a mop then"

Surely we deserve a more rational debate? Sacrifices are needed but sophistry will not persuade anyone.

Re:straw man argument

[vertinox]

Geo-engineering may make people think that we can carry on as now with no sacrifices.

"A technical solution will always trump a political one." -Me

The reasoning behind this is that political solutions never really address the root core of the problem and usually does not change the fact that some people say they will go along with the compromise and then not do it after all.

With a technical solution, the involved parties are made moot because their participation is no longer needed for a solution.

Re:straw man argument

[kannibal_klown]

Geo-engineering may make people think that we can carry on as now with no sacrifices. This article tries to re-inject a sense of fear. Its like saying "OK so the vacuum cleaner is good at cleaning the floor. But does it paint the garage? No? Well back to cleaning the floor with a mop then"

Surely we deserve a more rational debate? Sacrifices are needed but sophistry will not persuade anyone.

Poor analogy. Unless I'm reading things incorrectly, tour analogy is trying to join 2 separate things (clean floors, painted garages) while their issue is trying to join 2 symptoms of the same problem.

If I'm reading it correctly: they're trying to use Geo-Engineering to solve one of the main concerns of greenhouse emissions: global warming. However the increased greenhouse emissions are also causing the acidity issue in the ocean due to the carbon in the atmosphere getting absorbed.

A better analogy might be:

There's this dark spot of rot on the wall of our house. We are going to sand it down and apply a new anti-fungal paint to the wall so it looks nice and so the spot doesn't get visibly bigger.

However, this doesn't address the problem that the rot is starting to eat away at the wood underneath, and if left untreated we'll have both structural and health problems.

That's not to say sanding and painting is a bad idea, but by simply taking care of one symptom of the rot we aren't addressing other less obvious symptoms.

Re:straw man argument

[ivan256]

We're never going to have a rational debate or an un-biased study at this rate.

Geo-engineering may make people think that we can carry on as now with no sacrifices.

[...]

Sacrifices are needed but sophistry will not persuade anyone.

If your motive is to get people to make sacrifices and alter their lifestyle, you're going to find solutions that require such alterations, and spend time shooting down proposals that don't require such things. That's the problem with almost all mainstream environmentalists. They care more about altering people's lifestyles than solving problems.

If we could harness an equivalent amount of energy to what we're using now without emitting greenhouse gasses in the process, we wouldn't need any "sacrifices" beyond the investment in the technology. This is sufficiently obvious to everybody outside of the mainstream environmental movement that we have hundreds of millions of people who dis-trust and completely dis-believe said environmentalists. If they're obviously lying about what we need to do to solve the problem, why wouldn't people think that they're lying about the problem itself too?

Bullshit arguments like yours cause the existence global-warming deniers.

Re:straw man argument

[Yvanhoe]

In the climate change debate, there are no places for sanity anymore. For years scientists have tried to warn politicians that *maybe* we ought to be *careful* about some *possible* consequences of our wastes and pollution. Every one dismissed them. Then, for right or wrong (I think for right but who knows), comes the IPCC and Al Gore. They put the scientific argument in the closet, took a deep breath and shouted PAAAAAANIIIIIICC ! And finally got some politicians to take actions. In the 70s you were a irresponsible hippy if you studied sea level rises or the downfall of biodiversity, now you are a irresponsible lackey of oil interest if you examine the various cataclysmic claims and propose to refine a model in the way that seems to minimize the IPCC conclusions.

Big financial and political interests have now come into play, rational public debate is out.

Re:straw man argument

[Anonymous Coward]

sophistry will not persuade anyone.

YMBNH

Re:straw man argument

[Anonymous Coward]

"Geo-engineering may make people think that we can carry on as now with no sacrifices." That's the point of the article, that there's more to the climate than temperature. To borrow your analogy, it's more like saying "I just cleaned the floor with a vacuum cleaner! Why do I have to paint the garage?"

Re:straw man argument

[Anonymous Coward]

rational public debate is out.

Public debate has never been remotely rational. However, the scientific debate is far more rational and unbiased than you seem to realize. Everyone I know who has expertise in an area covered by the IPCC reports says they are spot on or a little too conservative (minimizing the risks). Al Gore on the other hand isn't a scientist and isn't consistent with the IPCC reports.

Re:straw man argument

[Anonymous Coward]

Any chance most of them are dependent on paranioa^H^H^H^H government money for their funding? oops!

Re:straw man argument

[Anonymous Coward]

Rational debate was never in. Politicians were already involved in the 70s. The Brundtland report, anyone? And shouting panic was done by the club of Rome. And no, political science isn't.

Stop driving or die

[Anonymous Coward]

We're all hollering about global warming, but I don't see anyone, even the ones hollering about global warming, ceasing transportation activities that involve burning stuff and releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. People keep driving to work, getting on cloud-belching diesel busses, hopping onto their 80cc motor scooters, etc etc. It's going to take a mass shift to telecommuting by any company that has people sitting in chairs most of the time, but that shift isn't happening. It hasn't even begun to happen.

Re:Stop driving or die

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see anyone, even the ones hollering about global warming, ceasing transportation activities that involve burning stuff and releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere

Well, the ones that DO get dismissed as dirty hippies, and then you stop looking at them.

Re:Stop driving or die

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one, have set my air conditioner at 70 degrees to help offset the extra warming. If everyone would follow my example, we'd have enough cooler air for everyone and completely reverse global warmin'

Re:Stop driving or die

[mcgrew]

It's going to take a mass shift to telecommuting by any company that has people sitting in chairs most of the time

Most people don't do their jobs sitting in a chair. It would be pretty hard for a construction worker, barber, sales clerk, chef, mechanic, etc to telecommute.

What we need isn't to stop traveling, we need to develop technologies that allow travel without ruining the environment.

Re:Volcanoes

[Anonymous Coward]

Good thing you thought of that - you should probably send them an email right away! You discovered the missing forcing that will keep our planet cool and our oceans pH balanced! Turns out that in all this freaking out about climate change, nobody who was even somewhat competent got involved at all.

Stop global warming?

[tcopeland]

And miss out on the Brazilian ice wine?

Re:Stop global warming?

[dunkelfalke]

Germany - the origin of ice wine - produces plenty of that stuff.

Re:Stop global warming?

[Lars T.]

Wow, imagine that, it's cold in coldest city of Brazil. Quite recently they started making wine there, because, well, could it be - Global Warming made it possible?

Re:Volcanoes

[Rei]

Do these climate models take into account the fact that Volcanoes erupt from time to time, spewings tons of ash into the atmosphere, which reflects sunlight, and thereby cools the earth?

Yes. And it's not the ash that primarily reflects the sunlight; it's the SOx. And the cooling is only temporary. And volcanoes also emit CO2. But a small fraction as much as humans release.

And yes, volcanic ash is acidic.

It's a pity...

[MillionthMonkey]

... a few hundred billion metric tons of calcium hydroxide would be a really nice thing to have right about now.

Re:It's a pity...

[32771]

You got off with a funny, just imagine somebody would have taken you serious.

Re:It's a pity...

[MillionthMonkey]

Especially somebody with a lot of hydroxide... there are a lot of nutcases out there.

Re:It's a pity...

[32771]

I just made a similar remark as you did so short while ago. Mostly calcium hydroxide is produced from lime stone by splitting off carbon dioxide at high temperatures. Your carbon footprint would just be huge in other words. I also never took my comment to be serious.

Interestingly people seem to think that more carbonic acid in the water dissolves calcium carbonate in the shells of marine creatures. The mechanism is not really obvious to me from what I learn't in chemistry class but who knows. It might have something to do with the fact that calcium carbonate dissolves into a solution with a ph higher than 7 and therefore there is some pressure for the calcium ions towards staying in a more acid solution as opposed to some shell.

Actually the wikipedia entry explains that much better:

" 3) As ambient CO2 partial pressure increases to levels above atmospheric, pH drops, and much of the carbonate ion is converted to bicarbonate ion, which results in higher solubility of Ca2+."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_carbonate

Re:It's a pity...

[MillionthMonkey]

Keep in mind that most CO2 in solution is actually still in the form of neutral CO2, not H+/HCO3-. Each molecule spends only a few percent of the time hydrated/deprotonated as a carbonate before reacquiring the proton and popping off the water. So as the deprotonated carbonate gets consumed and precipitates as salts, more will keep appearing from the reserve of dissolved gas (at whatever partial pressure we're currently jacking it up to). So keep in mind that you're interested in the steady state, because the partial pressure will mostly remain constant until we reach our final goal with all the carbon on the earth existing in fully oxidized form as the dioxide and carbonates.

It's a shame this planet has an oxidizing and not a reducing atmosphere. Maybe the Arabs would be buying oxygen from us.

I have the answer.

[yttrstein]

http://image52.webshots.com/152/1/14/3/518111403JQgFmi_ph.jpg

Re:I have the answer.

[Fozzyuw]

Wait? Tums now have 33% more new flavor?!? Where do I sign up?

It's the humans, stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Get rid of (a whole lot of) humans, and most of the problems will solve themselves.

Re:It's the humans, stupid

[SomeJoel]

I assume you mean people you don't know, or people you don't like. I bet if your government decided to apply your sweeping "kill humans" idea and started killing random citizens in your area (including friends/family), you probably wouldn't be behind that effort. Most likely though, you're just posting for "shock" value, much like those ASCII penises I see on here.

Re:It's the humans, stupid

[eric-x]

AC is right. We're trying to fix the problem by throwing ice in a boiling pot while simultaneous heating it.
If humans are the cause of global warming then reducing population size is the most logical and long lasting fix.
You don't have to kill anyone, just stop them from reproducing. If selective breeding is applied then there may be additional benefits for everyone.

Re:It's the humans, stupid

[mr_mischief]

Don't worry, if the projections are right then nature will take care of us pesky humans if we don't get around to it first.

you must be new here

[circletimessquare]

random trolls on slashdot always trump learned academics ;-)

Re:you must be new here

[cthulu_mt]

Hey Pot, have you met Kettle?

I think you guys are going to get along.

Re:you must be new here

[Anonymous Coward]

well a clever little troll. haha. love me. i'm lonely.

Al Gore's manbearpig got another one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Al gore and his manbearpig got to you too huh?

Seriously, though, anyone with half a brain knows global warming is complete and utter bullshit. How many "snowstorm in july" stories will it take to convince you morons?

Re:Al Gore's manbearpig got another one.

[dgatwood]

In the southern hemisphere, a great many. Why do you ask?

Re:Volcanoes

[wjousts]

Prior to the industrial revolution, volcanoes were the main source of acid rain.

Global experiments with us as guinea pigs

[RichMan]

Ok, the whole solution of Geo-engineering is a WTF moment.

We did not understand the global bio-sphere to begin with so we are in the Global-Environment change state. Now we propose attacking the symptoms without a full understanding of the dynamics.

It is like we have are playing russian roulette here and we don't know how many chambers are loaded.

Look at most attempts to "fix" environmental problems by introducing others. The bio-sphere is just way more interconnected than we can account for.

The best solution is to reduce our foot-print as rapidly as we can. And make sure it stays that way.

Re:Global experiments with us as guinea pigs

[jayme0227]

It reminds me of attempts to control the invasive Purple Loosestrife flower here in the states. One of the earlier efforts to control it was with the use of the Small Engrailed moth. It turned out to be just as bad as it not only ate the Purple Loosestrife, but pretty much everything else. They now have a species of beetle that kills off the Purple Loosestrife without attacking other plants. Making this kind of mistake on a global scale rather than just in a local ecosystem, though, has the potential to be catastrophic to say the least.

Re:Global experiments with us as guinea pigs

[vertinox]

We did not understand the global bio-sphere to begin with so we are in the Global-Environment change state. Now we propose attacking the symptoms without a full understanding of the dynamics.

To be fair, once we start tinkering, we'll have a better understanding of what does what.

Its like those old 1960's films of the doctors who crack open patients skulls and put the electric prod onto spots of the brain saying "What does this do? How about now?"

Re:Global experiments with us as guinea pigs

[Anonymous Coward]

I prefer this question......

Should the ultimate goal of an advanced civilization be to coexist 'naturally' with the planet? Meaning, should the purpose be to minimize, or exterminate negative impact to any and all ecosystems and life while progressing technologically?

Unfortunately, I find this idea to be implemented only after a catastrophic manmade event occurs that leaves only a small minority of the human population left.

Re:Global experiments with us as guinea pigs

[Anonymous Coward]

The best solution is to reduce our foot-print as rapidly as we can. And make sure it stays that way.

Scientists are unsure about the coloration between atmospheric CO2 and temperature increases. Forcing everyone to be "Carbon Neutral" will increase the cost of energy and may have little to no effect on the temperature. I do not want my own set of the Emperors New Cloak.

Re:Global experiments with us as guinea pigs

[mrlibertarian]

The best solution is to reduce our foot-print as rapidly as we can.

Is it safe to do that without a full understanding of the dynamics? Or does that argument only apply to your opponents?

Re:Global experiments with us as guinea pigs

[Anonymous Coward]

I love the anti-human attitudes of the typical environmentalist. Yeah, sure kill off all the humans and that WILL solve the problem...

Re:Global experiments with us as guinea pigs

[vic-traill]

We did not understand the global bio-sphere to begin with so we are in the Global-Environment change state. Now we propose attacking the symptoms without a full understanding of the dynamics.

Thank you. Very succinctly and clearly stated.

I've never understood what appears to me to be an urge to rush headlong into 'fixing' one problem that came about through poor understanding into another initiative or second phase that is also poorly understood.

Of course, you never know what you don't know, so there is a danger of paralysis resulting from fear (and even FUD) of the unknown.

The James Bay Project http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bay_Project is an example of a tremendously complex initiative w/ an obvious goal and an amazing number of social, environmental and resource impacts (ranging from the obvious and straightforward to the unanticipated and complex). Many impacts were known and/or anticipated, but many weren't.

At the time, what I gleaned out of the controversy surrounding the proposed final phase on the project (often referred to as the James Bay Project 2) was that by the time man becomes aware of effects, through monitoring/observation/testing, etc. they are often a *done* deal. Monitoring, adjusting and reacting quickly enough in such circumstance is very difficult.

So what? Well, often the idea that we can fix specific elements in such complex systems is hubris and sheer folly. However, the fear-of-the-unknown objection can be the pendulum swinging to the other extreme to stop any activity. This planet is out in the middle of nowhere, and is all we have in terms of resources. There's no going down to the Milky Way corner store to pick up replacements for things we seriously fuck up.

This is serious shit. I'm glad to see serious study is occurring at the Carnegie Institution. The idea of countering warming with geoengineering on a piecemeal basis scares the crap out of me.

Re:Global experiments with us as guinea pigs

[khallow]

The best solution is to reduce our foot-print as rapidly as we can. And make sure it stays that way.

That's an interesting opinion. Do you have a reason you believe that?

As I see it, we do stuff with that footprint (eg, grow a high tech, industrial civilization, increase the standard of living, do science, etc). And to be blunt, a high CO2 world with say an orbital sunshade is similar to environmental conditions in our past (I believe when trees first evolved, CO2 concentrations were far above present while sunlight significantly below current levels). So we may be experimenting with the environment but not to an extent never seen before. So in my view, there's a reason for that footprint and I'm not going to advocate letting go of it without a better reason than some weak, vague environmental worry.

Re:Global experiments with us as guinea pigs

[Anonymous Coward]

It is like we have are playing russian roulette here and we don't know how many chambers are loaded.

That is the most fun way.

"Buffering will only slow down acidification,

[circletimessquare]

not stop it"

which i already knew and doesn't refute anything i said

durrrr

Re:Volcanoes

[Publikwerks]

...So volcanos are terrorists? Or is the Earth trying to Carradine itself?

Re:Volcanoes

[geekoid]

The amount of material eject by volcanoes is minuscule compared to what we put in the air, year after year.

Re:Volcanoes

[cthulu_mt]

Prior to the agricultural revolution asteriods were the leading cause of mass extinction.

Humans! The leader in every field of industry!

Back then...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm. Carbion dioxide levels were higher some 130 thousand years ago if you believe in ice core data. What happened back then? Did all the sea life die? Obviously not since there's fish in the lakes and oceans (and in my frying pan).

My Turn.

[TinFoilMan]

Perhaps I have this incorrectly and someone can fix it for me, but now that I've got my tin hat on, please answer this:

IF the earth gets warmer, then that would create more water vapor - becoming clouds - and clouds prevent reflect IR (heat), thus cooling the earth back down?

Re:My Turn.

[LuvlyOvipositor]

Not necessarily. UV light penetrates through clouds, and is partially absorbed/reflected off the ground as IR light. This IR light then is reflected back to the earth by the cloud cover, causing an overall increase in heat.

Re:My Turn.

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Water vapor itself is a powerfull greenhouse gas. So more warming, whee.
2) The extra clouds you get aren't enough to counter 1.

Re:My Turn.

[Burnhard]

Honestly, I give up. It's blatantly obvious that if you stand outside and the sun becomes obscured by a cloud, even with your very own biological temperature measuring system, you will notice a considerable change in temperature. The poster was quite correct that clouds are a feedback mechanism. The natural variation denialists in the adjustment/modelling movement, with their big expensive computers, seem to think clouds are a positive feedback, whereas anyone with a brain can easily see that the feedback must be negative.

in for a penny in for a pound

[allawalla]

Couldn't we just then drop a bunch of limestone into the ocean to mitigate the acidification?

Re:in for a penny in for a pound

[Etrias]

Happen to know of a deposit large enough to dump in the ocean and make a global difference? It would be like taking a grain of salt and expecting it to measurably effect the salinity of a bathtub of water.

Re:in for a penny in for a pound

[oldspewey]

Define "bunch"

Re:in for a penny in for a pound

[mr_mischief]

"North America"

Hey, they said the oceans were gonna rise, right? So all that limestone sediment in the Mississippi drainage basin goes back into the sea, and the corals are fine. The humans get kinda screwed, though.

Re:in for a penny in for a pound

[Duradin]

Lots of minerals are already being deposited into the oceans from the very natural and rather unstoppable run off from the land.

These minerals are not carried away by evaporation and thus stay locked in the ocean, which means that slowly and inexorably the salinity of the ocean is increasing, with or without human intervention.

Or are we not suppose to mention completely natural changes in the environment that will change an ecosystem?

Here's An Idea

[spoonboy42]

We could dump a bunch of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) into the ocean. It'll neutralize the acid and release... carbon dioxide. Crap! We're doomed.

Noone is enthustiastic about geoengineering

[amorsen]

Aerosols at best delay the rising temperatures. Perhaps we can come up with a temporary fix for the oceans, to tide us over until we can come up with a solution.

If this report is correct, we'll need some quick hacks, because sustainable energy production has no chance to solve the problem on time.

Simple solutions are possible

[juanergie]

at least conceptually.

The solution? Plant trees and cut carbon emissions by a fraction such that old trees + new trees absorb and stabilize carbon levels. The problem? Major polluters are not taking bold steps; they are like the United Nations-- speak a lot, and hope speeches will accomplish something.

Why are we looking for esoteric ways to "heal the planet"? We have the answer, it is just a matter of someone with a lot of balls standing up and saying "listen, fuckers, we are going to cap the carbon emissions and every human family will plant a tree. If we don't do it we will be fucked, and I will not fucking allow that to fucking happen" (notice than my stereotype of "person with a lot of balls" uses the word "fuck" a lot).

Re:Simple solutions are possible

[eean]

Dumping fertilizer into the sea would also work to absorb CO2 by promoting the growth of sea plant life.

But any of these more biological solutions aren't really as easy as they first appear. Some forests produce large amounts of methane due to rotting plant material. In otherwords, some forests might actually just be greenhouse gas neutral (which makes sense, ecosystems work because they don't mess stuff up).

So yea. Capping emissions is a good idea.

Re:Simple solutions are possible

[deanston]

I second your simple solution and salute you sir! There are only 2 problems (of human nature and society, which are the root cause of all this in the first place) -

1) Most people are too lazy to plant a tree.

2) Major corporations and Wall Street do not make a ton of money from this *solution*.

If you have proposed that it be mandatory for each family to buy a genetically altered tree that will absorb extra carbon and grow extra fast from the new super fertilizer from Mosanto, then, yeah, maybe the bureaucrats' ears will perk up. Then the subsequent soil and water pollution will kill us all anyway. Sorry to say.

Re:Simple solutions are possible

[LuvlyOvipositor]

Dumping fertilizer into the sea would also work to absorb CO2 by promoting the growth of sea plant life.

Which leads to algal blooms, which prevent sunlight from reaching submerged aquatic vegetation, which leads to plant die-off which leads to lack of oxygen production, which leads to fish kills. Look up submerged aquatic vegetation (SAVs) in the chesapeake bay for examples of this happening (and excessive oyster dredging).

Re:Simple solutions are possible

[juanergie]

We should avoid the "butterfly effects" of the proposed solutions. We don't know what will happen if we just dump shit in the ocean, it might be that the remedy is worse than the disease.

For the plant argument, I agree we cannot just plant whatever ficus we happen to like. However, planting trees of the same species we've cut in the same places where we've cut them would be a start-- they were already there, and nothing bad happened to us.

Re:Simple solutions are possible

[Anonymous Coward]

Dumping fertilizer into the sea would also work to absorb CO2 by promoting the growth of sea plant life.

Already happening.

Aquatic and marine dead zones can be caused by an increase in chemical nutrients in the water, known as eutrophication. Eutrophication leads to harmful algal blooms (HABs). When algal blooms die off, oxygen is used to decompose the algae which creates hypoxic conditions. Chemical fertilizer is considered the prime cause of dead zones around the world. Runoff from sewage, urban land use, and fertilizers can also contribute to eutrophication. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_zone_(ecology)

Re:Volcanoes

[Rei]

Thank you for so hilariously summing up the deniers in one simple post. ;)

Pffft! Who are you going to believe?

[StefanJ]

Micheal Crichton, whose best-selling techno-thriller disproved global warming hysteria with copious footnotes . . . or so called "scientists" working for a "university" producing "peer reviewed research?"

I tell you, these "facts" and "evidence" are trouble.

Re:Pffft! Who are you going to believe?

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing is, the Chrichton book was "correct" in that much of what you hear about the environment is hysteria, regardless of the underlying truth. The earth is warming, we are likely in part responsible, and we can make some vague predictions. But what most people hear are summaries of information with political slants. Sometimes a statement like "best case scenario, nothing changes for at least 50 years, worst case scenario, new york is under water in 2 years." And of course, the news reports the last part of that statement only, with no chance estimate or any challenge to the predictions.

After the base truths, we just can't say anything for sure. What will happen in 10, 20, 50, 200 years? What can/should we do about it? The opinions there vary by MUCH more than simply how much CO2 are we producing, and there's almost nothing we can call "proof", either of our predictions or of what we may accomplish by changing behavior.

Re:Pffft! Who are you going to believe?

[rgviza]

how about the NASA PhD's who say the earth is already cooling again and CO2 concentrations lag 6 months behind temperature change, indicating the temperature change is causing the rise in CO2, not the other way around?

or the veritable explosion of dissenting climate scientists?

Go ahead, believe a self promoting politician ;) Of course the cooling is an even bigger problem than the warming because we won't be able to grow enough food within 20 years.

from http://www.drroyspencer.com/

"The Central Question of Causation

I believe that the interpretation of the Vostok ice core record of temperature and CO2 variations has the same problem that the interpretation of warming and CO2 increase in the last century has: CAUSATION. In both cases, Hansenâ(TM)s (and othersâ(TM)) inference of high climate sensitivity (which would translate into lots of future manmade warming) depends critically on there not being another mechanism causing most of the temperature variations. If most of the warming in the last 100 years was due to CO2, then that (arguably) implies a moderately sensitive climate. If it caused the temperature variations in the ice core record, it implies a catastrophically sensitive climate.

But the implicit assumption that science knows what the forcings were of past climate change even 50 years ago, let alone 100,000 years ago, strikes me as hubris. In contrast to the âoeconsensus viewâ of the IPCC that only âoeexternalâ forcing events like volcanoes, changes in solar output, and human pollution can cause climate change, forcing of temperature change can also be generated internally. I believe this largely explains what we have seen for climate variability on all time scales. A change in atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns could easily accomplish this with a small change in low cloud cover over the ocean. In simple terms, global warming might well be mostly the result of a natural cycle."

which coupled with this article, is pretty convincing.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html

Since this is a cause which has nothing to do with man, and is also cyclical it's breaks most of the "theories" of man made climate change.
Inconvenient truth? How about convenient mass stupidity? Al Gore has played ya'll and it went like this:

1. cause hysteria
2. create environmental companies
3. profit!

The results of a survey of climate scientists, conducted by the US Senate Committee on the Environment & Public Works revealed that less than half of climate scientists believe that the climate change has primarily anthropogenic cause any more and that number is shrinking very quickly.

http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=10fe77b0-802a-23ad-4df1-fc38ed4f85e3

"
Israel: Dr. Nathan Paldor, Professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has authored almost 70 peer-reviewed studies and won several awards. âoeFirst, temperature changes, as well as rates of temperature changes (both increase and decrease) of magnitudes similar to that reported by IPCC to have occurred since the Industrial revolution (about 0.8C in 150 years or even 0.4C in the last 35 years) have occurred in Earth's climatic history. There's nothing special about the recent rise!â

Russia: Russian scientist Dr. Oleg Sorochtin of the Institute of Oceanology at the Russian Academy of Sciences has authored more than 300 studies, nine books, and a 2006 paper titled âoeThe Evolution and the Prediction of Global Climate Changes on Earth.â âoeEven if the concentration of âgreenhouse gasesâ(TM) d

Re:Pffft! Who are you going to believe?

[jnaujok]

Where are my mod points when I need them. Please, someone, mod this up before it gets buried in the flood of Al Gore kool-aid drinkers.

Re:Volcanoes

[ElektronSpinRezonans]

Actually it's not. In 1850s (exact year evades me) a volcanic eruption caused a prolonged winter that caused Europe and North America to see snow in summer. No crops grew that year, there was famine... But again, this is temporary. What we are putting into the atmosphere causes long term damage.

Re:Volcanoes

[jayme0227]

In the short term, volcanic eruptions do indeed cool the earth, however, that effect is only temporary. In the long run, they actually help to warm the Earth because of the the CO2 that they release. They are actually cited as the reason that Earth was able to break out of/avoid becoming Snowball Earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_Earth

By all means. You first!

[gbutler69]

Stop: * Driving * Eating * Breathing * Consuming Water * Consuming anything

Re:By all means. You first!

[Etrias]

And this post pretty much sums up why we could potentially be screwed in all of this. The parent talks about some rational concerns and mentions a possible solution (also one that is in some ways obvious) which will require sacrifice and out come the posts about "you first".

It's not that reducing our footprint is impossible, it's just how do you get a society to change their ways when the trappings of modern life built around comfort are so hard to escape? The difficulty will really be convincing people that living a less convenient life actually will help later generations and the results of your sacrifice will never be tangible.

Re:By all means. You first!

[Yvanhoe]

Most important option missing : Stop making more than 1 baby per couple !

Re:By all means. You first!

[mr_mischief]

Also, wait until you're older to have that one child.

A big part of the problem is also that when you live 80 years and have kids at 20, you have your kids, yourself, your parents at 40, your grandparents at 60, and your great-grandparents at 80 all alive at once.

If you're living to 80 and having kids at 15 each generation, that's your kids, you, your parents at 30, grandparents at 45, great-grandparents at 60, and great-great-grandparents at 75. Maybe even some great-great grandparents.

If, OTOH, you dial that back some and have kids at 30, you have you, your kids, and your parents at 60 and maybe some of your grandparents.

Three to four living generations are a lot more sustainable than six or seven. It's not all about the kids per generation, but also the time between generations.

academic research is cliquish

[circletimessquare]

it often follows dire preconceptions and focuses on hysterical predictions in spite of obvious mitigating factors, most notably time scale, that dull real implications. if you sound the alarm bell, you get press and you get funding. if you say something like "more CO2 will increase the pH of the ocean, but at such a tiny amount over such a giant span of time, it doesn't make any sense to worry about it right now" then you won't make the slashdot front page. its "the emperor's new clothes" writ large. good science and good education is being done by climate researchers all over the globe... and also a pretty heavy dose of indoctrination and mythology making

i believe global warming is a real force and we need to do something about it. but i'm hard pressed to worry about corals disappearing in an acid ocean on any time scale that is supposed to mean something

if we are going to mitigate mankind's effects, we need to lose the hysteria

Re:academic research is cliquish

[Rei]

if you sound the alarm bell, you get press and you get funding.

Just the opposite. Any scientist willing to deny global warming has an automatic lucrative job lined up for them in the oil, gas, and coal industries. Period. And extensive press coverage to boot. There are about two dozen (out of the world's several thousand professional climatologists) who deny global warming. They get almost as much coverage as the rest of them combined.

You don't make a name for yourself in the scientific community by simply repeating what others have said; you make a name for yourself by saying the opposite. And frankly, I'm sick and tired of every scientist in the world being accused of caring more about grants than funding, and the notion that the world's peer-review processes are a giant conspiracy.

i believe global warming is a real force and we need to do something about it. but i'm hard pressed to worry about corals disappearing in an acid ocean on any time scale that is supposed to mean something

Read about the PETM. It's happened before. We're doing it again.

And again, it doesn't matter what you *believe*; it matters what peer-reviewed science says. It's not a matter of belief. It's a matter of empirical data. We have models, field data, lab data, and historical data all saying the exact same thing about ocean acidification. You can deny it until you're blue in the face, but that won't change the facts.

Re:academic research is cliquish

[techno-vampire]

And again, it doesn't matter what you *believe*; it matters what peer-reviewed science says. It's not a matter of belief. It's a matter of empirical data.

To be more accurate, it doesn't matter what you *believe,* it's what's actually happening, and only the empirical data can tell you that.

Re:academic research is cliquish

[Anonymous Coward]

You had me on your side until you cited wikipedia.

If your are going to talk science, facts, data, etc. at least cite a real source and not that steaming pile of left wing crap.

Re:academic research is cliquish

[Rei]

It wasn't a cite. It was "don't make me have to explain everything about it" insta-link. I didn't want to have to spend a long time digging up a better backgrounder.

You can tell that I didn't spend a lot of time on it because apparently I linked to a redirect.

Re:academic research is cliquish

[Lars T.]

Ohh? http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1602646/acidic_ocean_threatens_sea_life/

The eight-year study was based on 24,519 measurements of ocean pH. It represents the first detailed dataset on variations of coastal pH where the world's most productive fisheries live, in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Washington.

"The acidity increased more than 10 times faster than had been predicted by climate change models and other studies," Wootton said. "This increase will have a severe impact on marine food webs and suggests that ocean acidification may be a more urgent issue than previously thought, at least in some areas of the ocean."

Re:academic research is cliquish

[Anonymous Coward]

Just the opposite. Any scientist willing to deny global warming has an automatic lucrative job lined up for them in the oil, gas, and coal industries.

Total Bullshit.

Care to back it up with some evidence?

Though not.

BTW I was in a Physics department that didn't side with the press on this one. We all have different jobs now. None of us received a dime from the oil industry nor got new jobs in the oil industry.

Oil and gas companies are not stupid. They see everyone jump up and down about the evils of global warming. They also see an *increase* in demand for their wares.... They know dam well most folks only care enough to make noise, not change.

Sorry can't seem to get the formatting to work

Re:academic research is cliquish

[Rei]

BTW I was in a Physics department that didn't side with the press on this one. We all have different jobs now.

Back it up or it didn't happen.

None of us received a dime from the oil industry nor got new jobs in the oil industry.

Then you weren't looking. Exxon, for example, has an outstanding offer to pay scientists to publish papers against global warming.

Re:academic research is cliquish

[coopex]

Unfortunately, The Union Of Concerned Scientists article is too busy with political arguments like consensus and conspiracy theories about Exxon's lobbying power to provide much info on how to get paid for regurgitating my undergrad thermodynamics text.

Do you have any ideas who I should contact to get funding to expand Venus' temperature caused by ~92 atmosphere of pressure into a more detailed paper?

Do not disturb the ghosts of the Mellon brothers

[dolphino]

When you say Carnegie Melon you make me think of an industrialist sitting down to eat a cantaloupe.

Re:Volcanoes

[Anonymous Coward]

Prior to your mom I was doing your grandma.

Re:Volcanoes

[blueg3]

The average quantity of material ejected by volcanoes is small compared to human production, particularly when talking about greenhouse gases, which are long-term agents. Ash is a short-term agent, and volcanoes are well-known to produce their materials in short bursts. They can certainly cause dramatic short-term problems. In terms of greenhouse gas production, though, they are not a large force.

absolutely

[circletimessquare]

eutrophication seems to be a much more worrisome human-created force than rising CO2 levels, at least when it comes to the health of ocean ecosystems

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eutrophication

but since its been known about for awhile, you can't generate headlines and hysteria and funding with dire predictions. the effects are real and sobering with eutrophication, and deserve far more study and mitigation than the notion of rising CO2 levels in the oceans on the timescales involved, that's for sure

Where did all the non idiots go?

[Anonymous Coward]

Guess the bunch of sudo scientists here believe communism is a viable economic system also.

Re:Where did all the non idiots go?

[Anonymous Coward]

TROLL=1
alias sudo='pseudo'
sudo ./do_smart_science_stuff.sh
-bash: pseudo: command not found.
read SUBJECT_LINE

Re:Where did all the non idiots go?

[Anonymous Coward]

The McCarthy era is over, get over it. You can't win arguments by associating labeling everyone against you as a liberal commie, maybe in Alabama..

Head over to Fox news' website for some like minded hick rednecks and good 'ole fashioned commit bashing.

why do you think

[circletimessquare]

that saying the obvious

1. is somehow educational
2. modifies my point in any way

Re:why do you think

[Red Flayer]

Just because it is obvious doesn't mean that

(1) it doesn't invalidate your point, and
(2) it doesn't need to be said

Your claim was that biological buffers are sufficient to dismiss concerns of acidification. This claim must be qualified by examination of the limits of the buffering systems, and the inputs created that could overwhelm those limits.

Your gross oversimplification of "it's buffered, we don't need to worry about it for some value of abuse $x" is insufficient, since we do not know what the limit of $x is.

Re:Volcanoes

[Anonymous Coward]

It's volcanoes fault is a classic rationalize. There have been far worse volcanic episodes in the last flew million years without causing the spike we have seen in CO2. The increase in CO2 mirrors the onset of industrialization. Deal with it. In the short term acidification is probably a far worse problem than actual warming and ironically in the long run it's the most frightening. Also simply blocking sunlight seems like an extreme solution when we depend on the sun for food. The extreme end of that scale is called night. Which is easier in the end, behaving responsibly or spending trillions of dollars on unproven techniques for undoing the damage we are doing? If we'd simply spend the money spent on avoiding the issues on actual solutions we could fix the problem. I recently heard that it will likely cost an additional trillion dollars for carbon sequestering so we can keep burning coal, a trillion dollars! And that's just an estimate since it's also unproven technology. Is it smarter to keep spending trillions of dollars on the status quo or to fix the problem once and for all?

Just

[shelterpaw]

let nature take it's course!!!

your observation:

[circletimessquare]

1. i am a troll

logical conclusions:

2. i am trolling when i say trolls trump academics on slashdot
3. therefore, the actual truth must be that academics trump trolls on slashdot
4. therefore, i must be offering the opinion of a learned academic when i say trolls trump academics
5. therefore, i must be a learned academic, and you must be a troll
6. therefore... i really should get back to work now

Leave my world alone!!!

[char70ger]

I think if we just leave it all alone it will take care of itself. All this science is just a best guess anyways. If mankind is able to destroy the world it would have died a long time ago. It seems the more we try to fix things the worse they get. Give the environment some credit and let it fix itself.

Re:Leave my world alone!!!

[Acapulco]

I believe the worrying comes not from "destroying the world" per se, but destroyig human life.

I also believe, as yourself, that we can't *destroy* this world completely, i.e. blowing it apart or shifting it's orbit to collide the Sun (just yet...). What people mean when they say "we will destroy the earth" is "we will destroy all human (and possibly most of the other lifeforms as well) life". So the problem is not really "fixing the planet" as much as "fixing the planet for human life to continue being possible and/or comfortable".

Re:Leave my world alone!!!

[EvilToiletPaper]

I seriously doubt if we can destroy the Earth, I doubt if we can even wipe out all life on it. Destroy our own species, destroy a large majority of lifeforms : absolutely.
All these experiments are desperate attempts to keep our own species going for a few more millenia.

To paraphrase the late George Carlin: The Earth doesn't give a shit! :)

Re:Leave my world alone!!!

[char70ger]

What I am saying is that if we were able to destroy our species then we would have died out a long time ago. This whole climate thing is just a scheme to put money on peoples pockets and scare others into paying out the money. When we purposely try to change the climate we are going to screw up things more than all of the indirect so called human changes have done. I for one don't want anyone dumping stuff into the atmosphere for any reason, that can't be a good idea. Maybe the oceans need a good dose of alka-seltzer to neutralize the acid. That make as much sense as blowing dirt into the atmosphere. All these fixes could cause real problems. By the way, if the human species dies out isn't that just natural selection? Why worry it may just be time for the lizard men to show up and take over an over baked earth.

Re:Leave my world alone!!!

[EvilToiletPaper]

I don't totally agree with you, when you say a long time ago, how long ago do you mean? Homo Sapiens have been on this planet less than 2Ma and civilization can be traced back to less than 8k-10k years. On an evolutionary scale that is iniscule.
We constantly change the climate around us 24/7 what with air conditioners and space heaters all over the world. This seems to be doing the same at a very large scale.

Every species, no matter how tiny has a profound effect on the atmosphere around it, this will in turn change things for better/worse, the success of a species depends on how fast it's able to adapt to the change, perhaps even make it work to it's advantage. For a species to successfully adapt, the change has to be very gradual.

Survival is the most basic instinct in any creature, we're just trying to survive by doing what we do best: change the conditions around us instead of evolving to adapt to them, perhaps that's our way of evolving.

I agree though we shouldn't try to change it on such a large scale, nature comes back to bite us in the ass every time we fiddle with it but it doesn't mean was give in to our fate and die out without trying. :)

Re:Leave my world alone!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one don't want anyone dumping stuff into the atmosphere for any reason, that can't be a good idea.

Honestly, I don't think we'll every be able to eliminate CO2 emissions.

Re:Leave my world alone!!!

[Evil Pete]

I think the greatest danger is that we will degrade our foodbase and the biodiversity at the same time we run out of cheap energy. And we will have a big population at the same time. A triple whammy. If we don't think way ahead and start acting now I don't think our civilisation will survive. It will go under. Humans will survive. The world will get hot, after a millennium cool, perhaps over shoot into a new glacial period. Eventually, we will come out of it, hopefully smarter but in a resource poor world. We will get to a renaissance level but not much more. Fail again. Lather, rinse, repeat. Maybe eventually we will have evolved to be much smarter, smart enough to create a technical civilisation without the abundant energy and minerals we have. Or else we will just quietly go extinct.

That is what I fear is our fate if we don't plan as we should. It would be an appropriate irony if Homo Sapiens, the wise man, were to fail because of its foolishness.

You're just a dick

[royallthefourth]

Don't be a fool. There are obvious things that everyone can do to reduce pollution at a personal level.

40% of all car trips go less than 2 miles. Get a bike and use it when it makes sense.
Turn up your AC a few degrees. You'll use less energy.
Get a reusable shopping bag and stop using plastic ones.

It's not perfect, but it's much better than doing nothing. If I can do it, so can nearly everyone. If everyone did, we'd be in less trouble than we are now.

Re:You're just a dick

[babblefrog]

This I like:

I never drive less than two miles, because it is more than 2 miles from my house to get to anything.

I don't have AC, you insensitive clod!

The bag, I should do better on. The stupid reusable bag never seems to be in the car when i get to the store.

Re:You're just a dick

[jez9999]

That's nonsense.

This is why your doing a few minor things to slightly reduce your CO2 footprint will make fuck all difference. Also, I seriously question the science behind the notion that non-recyclable shopping bags use significantly less CO2 overall. Care to justify it?

Time to dump alcali metals into the ocean?

[Phizzle]

That will raise the PH level, wouldn't it? What can possibly go wrong?!

Re:Time to dump alcali metals into the ocean?

[Chris Burke]

What could possibly go wrong dumping sodium and potassium into the ocean? Who cares! What could go awesome? Everything about it!

We need to start on this plan now.

Fish tripping their balls off?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Wow, I'm glad I misunderstood that title. I thought that all those fish in the ocean would get spaced out, and then start eating each other at an alarming rate. Then when they had depleted their own reserves, they would evolve and climb out onto land, looking for alternative food sources, like us!

I was also concerned that I'd better not enjoy a FishMac on my way back from work on my bicycle in Basel, Switzerland. The ride might have turned out to look like something out of "Yellow Submarine," being that FishMac ingredients are all acidificated, and all.

It's a computer model, not real world research.

[psnyder]

From the article:

Until the current study, which used a computer model of the Earth's climate system and biosphere to simulate the effect of geoengineering on climate and the ocean's chemistry, the potential impact of such a scheme on ocean acidification had never been calculated.

This is a computer model. The people who wrote it may very well be correct, but they are the ones that wrote the variables and input the numbers. This should not be thought of on the same level as experimentation or direct observations in the real world. This is not evidence, and there are no new concrete findings.


I believe this guy says it pretty well in the beginning of his video:

I have built computer models, dynamic systems, and other complex processes for over 20 years, and I can tell you that it is extraordinarily easy to create computer models that spew out meaningless results. And the more complex the model, the easier it is to get such a mess.

Everything on Earth (and much in space) affects the oceans which cover 70% of it. The complexity is enormous.

Computer models (when done well) can be useful tools to guide us to where we should be doing the actual research. Ocean acidification is a real issue, and I applaud the people at Carnegie Melon's Dept. of Ecology for attempting to tackle this. But we should stop giving computer models the same emphasis as findings in the real world.

Re:It's a computer model, not real world research.

[hmm_slashdot]

s/Carnegie Mellon/Carnegie Institution for Science/

Coral evolved in much higher CO2 levels

[Anonymous Coward]

Coral evolved during the Cambrian period, when CO2 was over 4,000ppm (over ten times the current level).
CO2 didn't drop below 3,000ppm until the Devonian period, didn't get below 1,000ppm until the Carboniferous Period,
went back above 1,000ppm during the mid Permian, didn't get back below 1,000pm until the late Cretaceous. Coral isn't
going to go extinct because the CO2 levels go up a little bit, they've been through much higher. They might very well
do better if the CO2 level wasn't so low.

And the global average temperature outside of ice ages hasn't gotten much above 22 degrees C, regardless of the
CO2 level. Greenhouse runaway is a delusion.

I do My Part

[sycodon]

By consuming copious amounts of beef, much to the consternation of my Dr.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

jiggleitalittleit'llwiggle

[castironpigeon]

Woooo! Jelly corals!

Re:Volcanoes

[selven]

I KNEW Sarbanes Oxley does something good for the environment. Take that, deregulation advocates!

Modern Day Science Fair Projekt!

[jameskojiro]

I say we put a bunch of highly acidic sea water into an old dormant volcano and then fly over it with a thousand helicopters filled to the brim with Baking Soda and then we dump it all into the dormant volcano that was filled with carbonic acid!!!

It would make Krakatoa look like a firecracker and maybe we would win 1st prize in the Intergalactic Middle School science fair!

Re:Volcanoes

[Curunir_wolf]

It's volcanoes fault is a classic rationalize. There have been far worse volcanic episodes in the last flew million years without causing the spike we have seen in CO2. The increase in CO2 mirrors the onset of industrialization. Deal with it. In the short term acidification is probably a far worse problem than actual warming and ironically in the long run it's the most frightening. Also simply blocking sunlight seems like an extreme solution when we depend on the sun for food. The extreme end of that scale is called night. Which is easier in the end, behaving responsibly or spending trillions of dollars on unproven techniques for undoing the damage we are doing? If we'd simply spend the money spent on avoiding the issues on actual solutions we could fix the problem. I recently heard that it will likely cost an additional trillion dollars for carbon sequestering so we can keep burning coal, a trillion dollars! And that's just an estimate since it's also unproven technology. Is it smarter to keep spending trillions of dollars on the status quo or to fix the problem once and for all?

That's a good argument, until you consider the fact that stopping the use of fossil fuels (and insisting that everybody live like serfs in the dark ages - except for the Lords like Al Gore, of course, who need jets) has no guarantee of actually fixing anything. All you're saying is that we should stop putting out CO2 (should we stop breathing, too?), because this might mitigate some possible effects of global climate change in the long run.

Frankly, rather than reducing the output of CO2 (which makes plants grow), I'd rather concentrate on stopping other truly harmful pollution, like agricultural run-off of phosphorous, which we know for sure is harmful and can guarantee to have benefits if we stop it.

What removes carbon from the ocean?

[JSBiff]

It occurs to me that throughout earth's entire life, there's been a process of the ocean absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. Some living thing in the ocean must extract that carbon and fixate it somehow? Is there any reason that whatever is responsible for that process won't continue to do so?

From my high school and college freshman biology classes, I seem to recall a principle of equilibrium - that whenever something, like a particular nutrient or food source becomes more abundant, it will cause whatever 'feeds' off that nutrient or food source to thrive, which will then cause a reduction in the nutrient or food source, and so equilibrium will be maintained.

Is there some reason that won't happen here, where as the carbon in the ocean becomes more abundant, whatever 'feeds' off of it won't become more abundant too?

U.S. Climate Report Assailed

[Anonymous Coward]

http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/18/us-climate-report-assailed/

"The new federal report on climate change gets a withering critique from Roger Pielke Jr., who says that it misrepresents his own research and that it wrongly concludes that climate change is already responsible for an increase in damages from natural disasters."

PHOTOSYNTHESIS

[jn20]

So what they are saying is that more CO2 would be absorbed in the water, oka,y but did they factor in that algea can counteract the reaction? Simply like this 6H2O+6CO2 -> C6H12O6+6O2 the process would only need a source of energy(the sun) to commence.

Isn't this already happening? Look up! chemtrails.

[Anonymous Coward]

They've been spraying the sky with reflective particles for years now. Just look up in the sky and watch the chemtrails. I've been to 25+ states in the last few years and the planes are definitely blanketing the sky with a sun obscuring material. If you watch for long enough you can see it completely cover an entire city within a few hours effectively blocking out lots of sunshine. Spray days make me feel bad inside even when I haven't looked up.

Re:Volcanoes

[Lars T.]

While the GPs post answers what effect volcanos have on acidity, yours doesn't actually answer that for asteroids. Please come back to us after you found out, and do a report, or a show and tell if you want.

Study conclusion is hardly surprising

[Protoslo]

This study is neither surprising nor controversial. They refer to "geoengineering" multiple times in the article, but it is clear that the study refers only to the specific geoengineering in which the albedo of the earth is changed with atmospheric particulates. They concluded that it would stop global warming, but not stop CO2 accumulation/acidification of the oceans. Well, that hardly makes it a bad idea--it just isn't a complete solution.

It only means that we need to have a separate project to counter the acidification of the oceans--perhaps genetically engineered algae or something.

Re:Study conclusion is hardly surprising

[grege1]

You are correct, this article is about one limited form of Geoengineering. The best form of Geoegineering is one that pulls CO2 from the atmosphere directly. A few hundred million "Artificial Trees" working day and night. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_air_capture Given the trillions of dollars just pissed away in the global financial crises I am sue they can come up with a few more trillion. We would still need CO2 emission reductions as well, but it is too late for reductions alone to save us. A term being bandied around is "Thermageddon", a very descriptive word for what is happening.

Geotech

[Anonymous Coward]

Geotech is slang for Geotechnical Engineering, having to do with soil mechanics and such things as foundation bearing capacity and settlement parameters, not reversing global warming. Stop taking our words!

Re:Volcanoes

[kjllmn]

Ash and other dark matters do not reflect sunlight. They block it from entering the earth, but the warmth is kept in the atmosphere (in the heated matter first, and by diffusion in the atmosphere), making this kind of pollution a part of the warming.

Now they tell us

[Anonymous Coward]

I was getting tired of explaining to hotel guards why I was spending my weekends on the roof with caseloads of Lysol and Raid.

I kept getting "Why don't you go home and save the world?", like that. Stupid people.

Re:Volcanoes

[TapeCutter]

"Do these climate models take into account the fact that Volcanoes erupt from time to time"

YES. Look carefully and you will find that models usually assume one large eruption per decade. The predicted cooling from the models assumptions was remarkably acurate in the case of observations from Mt Pinatubo, furthermore those predictions came from a model created 20yrs ago!

Re:Volcanoes

[TapeCutter]

They're obviously acidic, just look at the holes they burn in the Earth's crust. /jk

Bullshit argument

[TapeCutter]

No wonder you posted AC, the funding argument is the biggest lie of all. The scientists who write the IPCC reports do not get paid for their work wich is basically agonisingly tedious peer-reviews of the previous 4yrs of publications. The annual budget for the IPCC is a piddling $5-6 million which is sourced from ~300 politically diverse nations, most of which is spent transporting "greedy scientists" to their workplace.

Unlike the heartland institute and other eternal fountains of this type of bullshit the IPCC post their financial reports on the web.

Just like Exalted

[Anonymous Coward]

Bottomless Depths Defense still costs you 1 aggrivated health level

Ocean Acidification.

[GargamelSpaceman]

It doesn't seem nearly as surprising that the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are being raised significantly as a result of man made emmissions of the gas, as that the carbolic acid levels of the ocean would be significantly changed.

The atmosphere seems so light and airy compared with the dense and vast oceans. A gallon of air weighs almost nothing, whereas a gallon of water is frikken heavy!

What would the atmospheric pressure be at what is now sea level if the oceans were boiled into steam? It's probably many many times 14 lbs/sq inch. ( Actually I have no idea but that's the feeling my intuition gives me. )

I guess the numbers have been run, and the CO2 in the air is enough to account for the acidification, ( gotta give em the benefit of the doubt unless you're willing to do better ) but wow man.

Come and see the violence inherent in the system!

[Anonymous Coward]

Come and see the violence inherent in the system!

As predicted, the dissenting option was modded -1, Troll, Flamebait!

Except that Venus' temperature is caused by ~92 at

[coopex]

Except that Venus' temperature is caused by ~92 atmosphere of pressure.

Derivation:
The adiabatic lapse rate = dT/dz = -Mg/R*(y-1)/y = ~7.82K/km (I was lazy and used 100% CO2 for this, also y = gamma) which isn't too far off from the ALR calculated from measurements using least squares = ~7.74K/km.

T(z) = Tsurface - ALR*z, by definition (~= 735 - 7.82z).
The barometric equation is P = Psurface*e^(-Mgz/RT).
Solving for z = -RT/Mg*ln(P/Psurface),
  and plugging into T(z), we get T(P) = Tsurface - (y-1)/y*Mg/R*RT/Mg*ln(Psurface/P)
  = T = Tsurface - (y-1)/y*T*ln(Psurface/P),
  rearranging, T(P)*(1+(y-1)/y*(ln(Psurface)-ln(P))) = Tsurface
  Thereforce T(P) = Tsurface/(1+(y-1)/y*(ln(Psurface)-ln(P)))

So the only things that cause the Greenhouse Effect (on Venus, water makes the calculation more complex for Earth) are specific heat capacity, and pressure. By the time CO2 reaches levels enough to affect the climate, we'd be dead from poisoning.

Cquestrate is a Geotech solution for that

[sam_vilain]

Which seems to me to be the first easy retort to this ... as there are geoengineering solutions which are all about taking limestone, baking it using "stranded" energy to slaked lime, then dumping it into the ocean. See Cquestrate.com. Fixing acidification is the mechanism for those geotech solutions - how can they not help with it? Very strange.

Oceans are akaline and will never be acidic,

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey does anyone know what the ocean PH actually is? Well it's 8.1 and with 7 bieng nuetral that means the oceans are getting less alkaline, that's right you heard it LESS ALKALINE.

Since the industrial revolution happened ocean PHs have dropped by an estimated 0.075, since 1700. Even by 2100 it is predicted that they will drop by another 0.28. leaving ph at around 7.8.

Now if you fools keep on insisting to come up with imaginative new theories that make out that "the world is ending and it's all our fault," your all going to be left with less credibility at then end of this as compared to when you entered it (after you are all proven wrong)