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Antarctic Marine Wildlife Is Under Threat From Ocean Acidification, Study Finds
A study has found that a decreased pH level in the antarctic is damaging the shells of native wildlife. "Marine snails in seas around Antarctica are being affected by ocean acidification, scientists have found.
An international team of researchers found that the snails' shells are being corroded.
Experts says the findings are significant for predicting the future impact of ocean acidification on marine life.
The results of the study are published in the journal Nature Geoscience (abstract).
The marine snails, called "pteropods", are an important link in the oceanic food chain as well as a good indicator of ecosystem health. 'They are a major grazer of phytoplankton and... a key prey item of a number of higher predators - larger plankton, fish, seabirds, whales,' said Dr Geraint Tarling, Head of Ocean Ecosystems at the British Antarctic Survey and co-author of the report."
Remember, this is the BBC, who took a corporate decision in 2006 to pursue an alarmist reporting stance.
The original paper says that this is only a pilot study, and that it cannot definitely point to any disadvantage to the animals - 'they MAY suffer increased predation' is a typical comment. And the /. comment of 'water to vinegar' is frankly rubbish - no ph is given, but it's certainly not dropping to less than 7. 'Less alkali' is not the same as 'acidic'...
Why worry? There won't be any ice left in a few years anyways.
Oh wait, it's just the Arctic that's melting, right?. Right? I should read the article.
- Nec Impar Pluribus, or so I'm told.
The lower the pH gets, the better chlorine will work. Being closer than ever to pool-quality water in the ocean, the Antarctic people should spin this and enjoy a boom in tourism! I bet they can't wait to see more people that those bearded scientists who don't spend a dime on penguin art.
lucm, indeed.
CO2(aq) + H2O(l) H+(aq) + HCO3–(aq) [distilled water reaction]
2NaOH(aq) + CO2(g) Na2CO3(aq) + H2O(l) [sodium hydroxide reaction]
Explanatory:
Carbon dioxide reacts with water at standard temperature and pressure to form a weak acid and hydrogen ions (both in solution), adjusting pH *at saturation* from about 7.6-6.0. That it is known yet underreported that the world's oceans are the carbon sink to beat all others, puts lie to the CO2 problem and a simple classroom experiment with distilled water, a straw, sodium hydroxide solution and phenol indicator proves this.
Incidentally, for the carbon sink to fail would require the oceans to be heated to just below boiling. Not likely to happen yet for around 5 billion years.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
a friend of mine just started at portsmouth university, studying marine biology, and we happened to talk about this subject. the situation's actually much worse than being reported here, because the coral reefs are *also* being corroded. given that coral reefs are where the majority of the ocean's life-forms congregate, if that eco-system collapses we're in real serious trouble. i say trouble: the planet's likely to survive, and to re-generate life over the next hundred millenia or so. it's just that humans really won't be around to enjoy being here, that's all.
Why are we being asked to worry about this when Americans are facing REAL problems, like the War on Christmas, and Michelle Obama wanting to replace our children's cafeteria pizzas and sloppy joes with brocolli and whole wheat bread?
PRIORITIES, PEOPLE, PRIORITIES!
It's not like this problem is going to get worse and worse if we just ignore it, until there is a massive collapse of marine ecosystems leaving nothing but oceans full of algea blooms and teeming hordes of jellyfish.
Study much, do you ??
I can't figure out why some smallish results from marine ecology are "news that matters" to nerds.
Given the inevitably rising CO2 levels and constantly changing ocean conditions, there will be lots of marine extinctions, just like there have been many times before in earth's history.
i wonderif someone wants to do a study on the fossil record to see if a weakening in shell strength of ocean dwelling pteropods is highly corellated to known extinctions
simple solution BSD has always = 1400 Ne9tBSD
Not sure why people tend to get really freaked out by things like minor pH shifts and whatnot. It's a change in environmental conditions, the same as occur all the time, even without our involvement. Those species which can adapt to the new conditions, do so, and thrive. Those which cannot, die off. The view that we should somehow intervene to save species which are being selected against is baffling to me. Extinctions, even mass extinctions, happened before we came along, and they'll continue to happen regardless of what we do.
So, say you're right, and the coral reefs do get wiped out. That's not something that'll happen immediately, for one thing; we'll have plenty of warning to see it happening, and plenty of opportunity to do something about it. And not 'do something about it' in the sense of 'emissions reduction' and similar unfeasible nonsense; whatever we in the First World begrudgingly contribute on that front, wringing our hands over the economic impact of the smallest marginal reductions, China and India, and the rising Third World, will more then make up for as they modernize. I'm talking 'do something about it' in the sense of geoengineering. When the environment becomes a problem to become an actual threat to humans, instead of to some marginal species which was dying off on it's own anyway, then we humans will go out there and fix it. If it comes down to it, and everything really is going to hell in a handbasket, we can design our own replacement ecosystems, to the tolerances needed to survive the conditions at hand, in less time than it'd take for mere warming to wipe us out.
Unpalatable solution, unintended consequences? Most certainly. But climate change is slow, and humans think fast. In 100 years, by the time the more alarmist predictions suggest we'll be dealing with 5 degrees more global heat, we'll be busy terraforming Mars, and long since have mitigated our own climate problems, to whatever degree they happen to need mitigating.
Too bad you apparently stopped at chem 101. In Chem 102 one might learn that reactions are not instantaneous.
Have you ever tried to dissolve atmospheric carbon dioxide in water? If so, you will note that the rate of dissolution is not very high.
As a result, though the ocean is fully capable of dissolving the CO2 produced by burning of fossil fuels, it will do so very slowly -- over a multiple-century timescale. (And it will disrupt marine ecosystems in doing so.) Incidentally, this process is already incorporated into all climate models.
To make the CO2 dissolve faster, you could use a stirring system to incorporate gas into the bulk liquid and to distribute the bicarbonate evenly. Good luck finding one big enough to stir the ocean.
Alternatively, you could use a strong base, like hydroxide, to deprotonate bicarbonate and drive the process to completion. Unfortunately, strong bases are not available as raw materials. Their production results in the release of large amounts of acidic chemicals like chlorine, which must be disposed of or else they will acidify the ocean and cancel out the effect of all the hydroxide.
This is just one of the realistic doomsday scenarios that people need to take seriously- the collapse of food chain in the oceans.
Remember, it doesn't have to be that oceans are completely and totally dead for people to start acting as if they are. It's enough that they no longer provide food or jobs for a lot of people, especially in developing nations. When the oceans are seen to be moving inevitably and inexorably to that condition , then it's as good as real, just like a stock that people understand is going to zero is as good as worthless even when it's price is still positive.
If the really small things that support the fisheries- thing like phytoplankton which support the zooplankton which in turn support start to fail it takes with it the krill, mackerel, sardines, anchovies, tuna then upwards to the fish we eat -and we'll know if it starts to happen- then there will be price-panic food buying with the result that right then, tens of millions start to starve and economies start to collapse.
It doesn't have to be in full effect for the full societal reaction to get going, it just has to be *seen* as going into full effect. That's when the chaos, the insane inflation of food, the rioting, the wars and uncontrollable immigration and nation destabilizing kicks in. That's when the civil wars break out and the uber-terrorism- uniting the entire 3rd and 2nd worlds in a death-lust for the West kicks in.
Do you like your life? Do you like sitting down at your computer and surfing and learning and enjoying life? Would you like to continue in the same vein? Would you like things to generally keep going progressing slowly forward? Would you like your culture and civilization to continue? Are you *conservative* in that large sense of the word? Because right now the "conservatives" in America are the most reactionary, radical literally suicidal and culture-cidal group of cretins ever created.
Perhaps the real conservatives can step forward at this time. The guys who were in the Rod and Gun clubs, the sportsmen who were conservationists, like the WWII vets who started the ski resorts in the Rockies, maybe the people *like that* would like to step forward and reclaim their party and protect the earth from the coke snorter conservatives, the narcissist conservatives, the Aspberger conservatives for whom politics comes down to single issues like taxes or Obamacare or abortion. I'm talking about The Glenn Becks the Sara Palins the Grover Norquists the Ralph Reeds the fucking Christian Right and their one-Jesus-fixes-all-problems fucking form of goddamned mental retardation. I can't even think of one person that fits description of a real conservative in the whole motherfucking Republican Party. Oh, wait. John Huntsmen. OK. One. One motherfucker in the entire fucking party.
The deniers war against reality and taking immediate dramatic action while it still has the chance of being effective and economically viable isn't LIKE WWIII, it IS WWIII. It IS the reason that the next wave of tens of millions of people are going die and worse, it's a foreseable, preventable well-predicted event.
It's go time, Mr. President. It's waaaayyy past time to stop trying to diddle Congress's clit just right on this topic. It's time for the Executive to unilaterally declare global warming to be an urgent matter of national security and Executive Action to initiated unilaterally towards alternative fuels, towards conservation, towards binding treaties and against those voices in our society who have declared themselves to be terrorists determined to set off the global warming bomb and kill billions. There is nothing more to talk about , it's time for action- Executive Action. It's time to silence, disable, undermine, discredit, and dismantle those individuals and organizations who are sewing the seeds of doubt. Their careers need to be ended as ignominiously as possible and failing that their voices need to be silenced as discretely as possible. This is war. This is what war is. This is wha
With this information the UN Secretary General with direction from the IPCC High Command has directive to begin Culling of Human Beings, regardless of nationality for the Saving of Planet Earth.
UN Assignation Teams and ParaTroopers are fanning out World Wide to rid Planet Earth of the Scourge of Homo Sapiens.
At UN High Command Headquarters in New York City, USA, is videoed enjoying a meal of Korean Head Soup, made from the heads of dead Korean Nationals.
Bon Ki Moon, UN Sec. General, "Mmmmmm .... Tastes like General Zuo Zongtang Chicken"! ... with a happy smile on his face for the media reporters.
This is real.
The UN is the enemy of humanity!
Eisenhower's Farewell Address to the Nation comes to mind
"The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite."
Beware of science with to many "may become" and "likely to". This article has the taste of grant application where peer review has been replaced by buddy review.
thinking that it is is and the world should accord your opinion the gravitas and authority of people who have actually EARNED through WORK the right to have that gravitas implies you suffer from narcissistic personality disorder:
If you do indeed hold a PhD in psychology or an MD in psychiatry, then I will retract my accusation.
Otherwise, you do have to recognize the irony & hypocrisy of your rant.
Also, "diagnosing" people via internet posts and via Wikipedia quotes? Really? Are you 12?
What if this is how the earth works? PH levels rise, and the ice caps start melting to balance crap out? What do we really know? The earth has been here for billions of years, and we have knowledge of it's weather and stuff for maybe 100 years?
That like taking 100 days of my life and basing my whole health history on how i was during that time.
Be seeing you...
The BBC reporting on research by NOAA and the University of East Anglia... so clearly going to be a nice balanced article explaining the science involved with no overstatement . OMFG WE'RE ALL DOOMED!
Much of the Earth's CO2 is trapped within shells and rocks. This acidic water degrades both, releasing even more CO2 and continuing the cycle. It won't be long now till Earth looks just like Venus.
What? Still here?
I guess you want OTHER PEOPLE to die, hmm? So much more convenient than you having to be responsible in your actions.
Actually the carbon dioxide does get removed from the system naturally as it gets absorbed by plants to become cellulose - we're just pumping gigatons of additional CO2 into the atmosphere faster than that can happen. If we somehow did manage to completely eliminate emissions (an admittedly... problematic goal), the CO2 concentration in both the atmoosphere and ocean would immediately begin falling again - presuming of course that we managed it before we throw the chemical balance so out of whack that the phytoplankton could no longer flourish.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
OK, so we are facing imminent ecological catastrophe from burning fossil fuels. Stipulated. So, the question is, what can we do about it. Well, I suppose we could stop burning fossil fuels, and live like cave men, but you and I both know there's a snowball's chance in hell of that happening. The only program that has the faintest hope of ever getting traction is one where we replace the energy produced by fossil fuels with energy produced by other means. So, what other means have the capability of *significantly* replacing fossil fuels? Only one - nuclear fission. But almost no one wants to face this inconvenient truth. So, no matter how righteous it makes you feel to explain just how serious the situation is, unless you spend at least as much effort promoting fission, you are worse than the deniers - they at least have the excuse of ignorance...
Social Credit would solve everything...