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."
I'm still using my will to suppress your evidence that global warming is a problem.
But then I realized the cable was blue, so I only gave it one star. I hate blue.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Why don't they use something to up the alkalinity of the ocean, like, crushed coral? Oh, wait...
Acidic. Volcanic ash is very high in sulfur and results in quite a bit of sulfuric acid.
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.
1000s Warcraft Gold while you sleep
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.
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.
And miss out on the Brazilian ice wine?
The Army reading list
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.
Present day. Present time.
... a few hundred billion metric tons of calcium hydroxide would be a really nice thing to have right about now.
http://image52.webshots.com/152/1/14/3/518111403JQgFmi_ph.jpg
random trolls on slashdot always trump learned academics ;-)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
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.
Prior to the industrial revolution, volcanoes were the main source of acid rain.
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.
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.
not stop it"
which i already knew and doesn't refute anything i said
durrrr
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The amount of material eject by volcanoes is minuscule compared to what we put in the air, year after year.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Prior to the agricultural revolution asteriods were the leading cause of mass extinction.
Humans! The leader in every field of industry!
Virginia is for lovers. EVE is for griefers.
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?
In my other life, I eat cats.
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.
<Complete your profile by adding a signature!>
Couldn't we just then drop a bunch of limestone into the ocean to mitigate the acidification?
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.
Present day. Present time.
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.
Anonymous Luddite: "What do you think of the dehumanizing effects of the Internet?"
Andy Grove: "Not Much."
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.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
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).
Aeroespacio.org
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.
Thank you for so hilariously summing up the deniers in one simple post. ;)
Present day. Present time.
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.
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.
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
But then I realized the cable was blue, so I only gave it one star. I hate blue.
Stop: * Driving * Eating * Breathing * Consuming Water * Consuming anything
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
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
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
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.
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.
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.
Free Martian Whores!
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?"
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
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.
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.
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.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
No, that's an Ad Hominem. The important thing to ask is, "Is the research scientifically sound?"
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
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
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.
Simple Unexpected Concrete Credible Emotional Stories
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?
let nature take it's course!!!
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
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
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.
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.
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.
That will raise the PH level, wouldn't it? What can possibly go wrong?!
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
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.
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.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
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.
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.
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.
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.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
By consuming copious amounts of beef, much to the consternation of my Dr.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
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.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
In the southern hemisphere, a great many. Why do you ask?
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
Woooo! Jelly corals!
mmmm...forbidden donut
s/Carnegie Mellon/Carnegie Institution for Science/
I KNEW Sarbanes Oxley does something good for the environment. Take that, deregulation advocates!
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!
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
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.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
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.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
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?
"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.
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.
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.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
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.
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.
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!
"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!
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
They're obviously acidic, just look at the holes they burn in the Earth's crust. /jk
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
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.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
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.
...
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.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
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
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
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.
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.
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
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.