New X Prize Quest: Sensors To Probe Oceanic Acid Levels

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

New X Prize Quest: Sensors To Probe Oceanic Acid Levels

Posted by timothy on Tuesday September 10, 2013 @04:51AM from the deeper-and-deeper dept.

cold fjord notes that the X Prize Foundation has opened up a new mission: to quantify the acidification of the world's oceans, excerpting from a description on Nature's blog of the project's focus: "Scientists who study ocean acidification must confront a fundamental problem: It is hard to measure exactly how much the ocean's pH is changing. Today's sensors don't work well at depth or over long periods of time, and they are too expensive to deploy widely. That is where the US$2 million Wendy Schmidt Ocean Health X Prize comes in. The 22-month competition will award two $1 million prizes, one to the best low-cost sensor and one to the most accurate. The competition's organizers decided to award two prizes because the two goals present different engineering challenges. ... As carbon dioxide levels rise in the atmosphere, ocean water takes up some of the gas and becomes more acidic. This can harm shell-building marine life like coral, whose calcium carbonate skeletons dissolve in the increasingly acidic water. All of this research is bedeviled by the simple lack of technology to monitor ocean pH in real time across the world."

69 of 91 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Whey do they need real-time results? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-10 05:04 · Score: 2, Insightful

Why do they need real-time results? If you can get clean samples and ship them back to the lab, what's wrong with that?
1. Re:Whey do they need real-time results? by presidenteloco · 2013-09-10 05:12 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  The real issue is not real-time but automated data collection and gathering.
  For this to be helpful there would need to be many many of these operating (at a range of depths) worldwide.
  The logistics and costs of gathering the data manually from each would probably be prohibitive.
  
  --
  
  Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
2. Re:Whey do they need real-time results? by PPH · 2013-09-10 05:28 · Score: 2
  
  So set up an autonomous buoy with standard instrumentation and a sampling tube/pump system suspended to the depths of interest. One could either use a series of tubes set to fixed depths or one with inlet valves at various points. Solar powered on the surface with a satellite uplink.
  Send my $2 mill. to the local pub. I'll be running a tab.
  
  --
  Have gnu, will travel.
3. Re:Whey do they need real-time results? by interkin3tic · 2013-09-10 05:59 · Score: 1
  
  The reaction of carbon dioxide plus H2O is reversible. When you ship them back to the lab, the pH would change.
  
  You might want real-time monitoring of large areas to see how or if currents and tides are changing to fit into the model, they're unlikely to be linear changes in most areas. Plus, you compare changes in pH to observations of organisms and you can have better graphs to show to politicians who are just going to fucking ignore it anyway and leave future generations without seafood if it means a thousand dollars in their pockets now.
4. Re:Whey do they need real-time results? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2013-09-10 06:29 · Score: 1
  
  Why do they need real-time results? If you can get clean samples and ship them back to the lab, what's wrong with that?
  Compared to data transmission, shipping is expensive:
  
  For peanuts, relatively speaking, you can build a little underwater glider style robot (or just a buoy or something) that will autonomously putter about as the currents take it for months to years, depending on how you power it and how lucky you get in terms of system failure.
  
  If you can put the suitable sensor on such a vehicle, it becomes possible to measure pH at zillions of locations throughout the oceans with relatively cheap and expendable swarm robots. If you need to ship the sample back to the lab, you suddenly need a system complex enough to handle both going forth into the world and to send the sample in for recovery. Much more challenging.
5. Re:Whey do they need real-time results? by mspohr · 2013-09-10 09:09 · Score: 1
  
  The problem is the "suitable sensor".
  This X Prize is to develop the sensor.
  Current sensors are not sensitive enough or durable enough.
  
  --
  I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
6. Re:Whey do they need real-time results? by interkin3tic · 2013-09-10 10:46 · Score: 1
  
  you can have better graphs to show to politicians
  Thanks for acknowledging that the real purpose of these observations isn't science, but rather to generate a pretext for massive governmental action.
  Oh, darn, I accidentally revealed that it's a massive economic conspiracy rather than real science. Shoot. Well, the shadowy board of nefarious figures I work for isn't going to be happy about this...
7. Re:Whey do they need real-time results? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2013-09-10 13:33 · Score: 1
  
  Indeed. I was answering the question "If you can get clean samples and ship them back to the lab, what's wrong with that?".
  
  In short, all the cheap-enough-to-actually-be-useful sampling mechanisms can't ship the sample back to the lab, so you are stuck with either getting accurate pH numbers (for a ridiculously tiny number of samples, mostly taken by humans on research ships, which cost considerable money to field) or worthlessly imprecise pH numbers(for the much larger number of chunks of ocean that you could have comparatively cheap autonomous systems flitting through).
  
  They want a sensor that can do lab-grade results when built into a little gliderbot that putzes around autonomously for a few years and occasionally chirps back data over a satellite link(which is all doable, except for the pH sensing bit).
8. Re:Whey do they need real-time results? by interkin3tic · 2013-09-10 15:27 · Score: 2
  
  I'd be fine with free market economics if they showed any sign of solving such a huge externalized cost or self-regulating, but they never have and never will.
Your Global Warming Conspiracy by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-10 05:08 · Score: 2, Funny

Argh, stop trying to measure global warming and climate change, us faithful aren't going to let you fix these problems. The world has to die so that Jesus comes faster, stop trying to screw it up!
1. Re:Your Global Warming Conspiracy by presidenteloco · 2013-09-10 05:15 · Score: 2
  
  Seriously how much do you get paid to be nearly first in with asinine comments like that to pollute this sort of conversation?
  
  --
  
  Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
2. Re:Your Global Warming Conspiracy by PPH · 2013-09-10 05:21 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  And are they hiring?
  
  --
  Have gnu, will travel.
3. Re:Your Global Warming Conspiracy by Urkki · 2013-09-10 05:30 · Score: 2
  
  Argh, stop trying to measure global warming and climate change, us faithful aren't going to let you fix these problems. The world has to die so that Jesus comes faster, stop trying to screw it up!
  That unfairly portrays people of a flavor of Christian faith as evil. Let me try a more reasonable and agnostic version:
  Argh, stop trying to measure global warming and climate change. It is inevitable that oceans absorb carbon and increase in acidity, but this has nothing what so ever to do with our negligible carbon emissions or global cooling trend of past decade. Results will only be used as alarmist propaganda, in an attempt to destroy our way of life, and let the communists like Al Gore and EU take over the world.
4. Re:Your Global Warming Conspiracy by GameboyRMH · 2013-09-10 05:50 · Score: 1
  
  More agnostic but not more reasonable...the original didn't fly in the face of half the scientific fields out there like yours did. It was actually in-line with our best scientific knowledge, it just had a heaping helping of religious extremism on top of it.
  
  --
  "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
5. Re:Your Global Warming Conspiracy by Alsee · 2013-09-10 06:04 · Score: 1
  
  Global Warming is a Hoax, and the ocean's pH isn't changing. The Bible says it's 30. Always has been, always will be. (Until Judgement Day anyhow.)
  Where does the Bible say it's 30? I forget the exact verse, but I know it's in the same chapter that says the Earth is 6000 years old.
  -
  
  --
  - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
6. Re:Your Global Warming Conspiracy by GameboyRMH · 2013-09-10 08:00 · Score: 1
  
  Whoa warn me before you set up a straw man in front of me and then wipe him out. I almost got hurt.
  
  --
  "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
7. Re:Your Global Warming Conspiracy by presidenteloco · 2013-09-10 09:29 · Score: 1
  
  How about we leave it to those with at least a Master's degree in a directly relevant field of science to do the thinking for us on whether there is a possible/probable problem here and how serious it is, rather than relying on some basement-dwelling personal website author whose motto is something along the lines of "You can pry the steering wheel of my SUV/manly-oversized pickup truck out of my COLD dead hands ! "
  
  --
  
  Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
8. Re:Your Global Warming Conspiracy by dave420 · 2013-09-10 19:10 · Score: 1
  
  1. Our CO2 output is not "negligible" - the raw numbers demonstrate that rather well
  2. The cooling trend of the last decade is not true - it has been heating, but at a level which is just under being statistically significant.
  It doesn't help your point to make a couple of nonsensical statements which have been shown to be false time and time again.
9. Re:Your Global Warming Conspiracy by Urkki · 2013-09-11 07:02 · Score: 1
  
  Hmph. I was aiming at "funny" by trying to go well over the top. I see I failed...
Paelo History by Pino+Grigio · 2013-09-10 05:22 · Score: 2, Interesting

I think animals with shells survived well enough in the past when atmospheric CO2 levels were far, far higher. They'll adapt.
1. Re:Paelo History by Urkki · 2013-09-10 05:38 · Score: 1
  
  I think animals with shells survived well enough in the past when atmospheric CO2 levels were far, far higher. They'll adapt.
  Do you know what is another way to say "they'll adapt"?
  It is "there will be a mass extinction, and survivors will inherit the Earth after hundreds of millenia of adapting to the changed biosphere."
2. Re:Paelo History by GonzoPhysicist · 2013-09-10 05:45 · Score: 1
  
  But the CO2 levels have never changed this fast before, there's a good chance evolution is too slow to keep up.
  
  --
  horror vacui
3. Re:Paelo History by edibobb · 2013-09-10 05:48 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  The object is to learn what's happening in the ocean, not to change it. Whether something can adapt to changes is a completely different issue. Even if everything can adapt to pH changes in the ocean, it's no reason not to study whether the ocean is changing and why or why not. In addition, developing low cost, accurate remote sensors will undoubtedly have applications several other fields.
4. Re:Paelo History by Pino+Grigio · 2013-09-10 05:51 · Score: 1
  
  It is "there will be a mass extinction, and survivors will inherit the Earth after hundreds of millenia of adapting to the changed biosphere."
  I think that's pretty unlikely. Life is constantly adapting to change. That's the whole point.
5. Re:Paelo History by DiamondGeezer · 2013-09-10 05:58 · Score: 1
  
  [citation needed]
  
  --
  Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
6. Re:Paelo History by GameboyRMH · 2013-09-10 06:02 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  No he's trying to point you to a previous mass extinction caused by ocean acidification. Technically life did "adapt" but it took a length of time to recover that I wouldn't say is tolerable for a human civilization.
  Open up for spoon feeding! Here comes the choo-choo!
  http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/april/prehistoric-mass-extinction-042710.html
  
  --
  "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
7. Re:Paelo History by interkin3tic · 2013-09-10 06:03 · Score: 1
  
  Show me evidence that CO2 levels changed as rapidly as we are changing them and I'll conclude we have nothing to worry about. Evolution takes time, longer than we're giving it. Even punctuated equilibrium models, the rate of change is still measured in centuries, not years.
8. Re:Paelo History by GameboyRMH · 2013-09-10 06:03 · Score: 2
  
  Climate change 10x faster than evolution:
  http://news.stanford.edu/pr/2013/pr-climate-change-speed-080113.html
  
  --
  "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
9. Re:Paelo History by GameboyRMH · 2013-09-10 06:26 · Score: 1
  
  Sorry, that link is only tangentially relevant to the issue of climate vs. evolution speed (haste makes waste, D'oh!)
  I should really link to this...
  http://uanews.org/story/ua-study-evolution-too-slow-to-keep-up-with-climate-change
  Climate change is 10,000 times faster than evolution. That's OVER NINE THOUSAAAND! I knew it was ten-something...
  
  --
  "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
10. Re:Paelo History by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-10 08:37 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  I think animals with shells survived well enough in the past when atmospheric CO2 levels were far, far higher. They'll adapt.
  Oh, the irony.
  The actual paleobiological literature suggests this statement is wrong in every particular. Not only is ocean acidification implicated in the worst mass extinction in the history of mulitcellular life (see here [PDF] or here)-- although it may not have been the main kill mechanism-- it may actually be a general cause of mass extinctions (see here). If it is, that would be very interesting; it would be the only general mechanism for mass extinctions that I am aware of.
  Moreover, natural selection operates differently during a mass extinction. Selective pressures are wildly different from those operating "normally." The usual rules do not apply-- traits that were previously advantageous no longer matter, or may even be detrimental. One of the very few qualities which seems to enhance the odds of survival is species-level geographic range, and in a really bad mass extinction, even that can stop being important, giving way to clade-level geographical range. I'm astonished that you could make a blithe statement like "they'll adapt" without consulting the relevant literature; in particular, we have strong evidence that animals with calcium carbonate shells fared very poorly in the past when atmospheric CO2 levels were far, far higher, and did not "survive well enough."
11. Re:Paelo History by Eunuchswear · 2013-09-10 23:51 · Score: 1, Informative
  
  It is "there will be a mass extinction, and survivors will inherit the Earth after hundreds of millenia of adapting to the changed biosphere."
  I think that's pretty unlikely. Life is constantly adapting to change. That's the whole point.
  Mass extinction is unlikely?
  You do know we're already in a mass extinction event?
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
  
  --
  Watch this Heartland Institute video
12. Re:Paelo History by Pino+Grigio · 2013-09-11 19:07 · Score: 1
  
  Of course there's an extinction event going on at the moment. So what? Either Humans will end up covering the entire Earth in grey goo, or we'll die out and the animal kingdom will once again diversify.
Never has so much been spent for hype by DiamondGeezer · 2013-09-10 05:22 · Score: 1

The oceans aren't acidifying - they are alkaline and there are massive buffers in the oceans chemistry that prevent it changing very much.

--
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
1. Re:Never has so much been spent for hype by DiamondGeezer · 2013-09-10 05:41 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Quite so. Even if all of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were to get absorbed into the oceans it would barely register as a change in pH. For all of that money, why not train some environmentalists in basic chemistry?
  
  --
  Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
2. Re:Never has so much been spent for hype by Urkki · 2013-09-10 05:46 · Score: 1
  
  The oceans aren't acidifying - they are alkaline and there are massive buffers in the oceans chemistry that prevent it changing very much.
  So... We know this as a fact? No point in measuring actual pH change, or lack of it?
  If only people would take "pumping and digging buried carbon up and turning it into a greenhouse gas will strengthen greenhouse effect directly, and also increase other greenhouse gasses like dihydrogen monoxide as a positive feedback side effect" with that conviction...
3. Re:Never has so much been spent for hype by HornWumpus · 2013-09-10 05:52 · Score: 1
  
  If you had passed general chem you would have studied buffered solutions. We know how they work, as a fact.
  
  --
  John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
4. Re:Never has so much been spent for hype by GameboyRMH · 2013-09-10 05:53 · Score: 1
  
  Well then you'll have to explain how the oceans are becoming more acidic (or less alkaline, if you prefer) according to our best measurement methods. Sounds like you have the X-prize here in the bag, I can't wait to see what massive breakthrough in the field of chemistry you'll pioneer next!
  
  --
  "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
5. Re:Never has so much been spent for hype by DiamondGeezer · 2013-09-10 05:59 · Score: 1
  
  First they must pass remedial math
  
  --
  Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
6. Re:Never has so much been spent for hype by DiamondGeezer · 2013-09-10 06:03 · Score: 2
  
  That's easy - the claimed acidification was between a guesstimate between what it might have been in the 17th Century and today.
  Since the change in pH claimed is nowhere near the range of variation in the oceans, we can safely call bullshit. There are shelled organisms that live right next to carbon dioxide seeps in the tropical oceans that thrive in these supposedly acidified waters.
  As Walter White would say "Always respect the chemistry"
  
  --
  Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
7. Re:Never has so much been spent for hype by interkin3tic · 2013-09-10 06:04 · Score: 1
  
  Compared to how much CO2 we're adding? Citation needed.
8. Re:Never has so much been spent for hype by GameboyRMH · 2013-09-10 06:17 · Score: 2
  
  Huh so you didn't even hit up the Wikipedia page on the topic. You're ballsy, I'll give you that.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification#Acidification
  How about a measured increase between when Mega Man 3 came out and today?
  And why should a shelled creature be harmed by living near a natural CO2 seep? I don't think just bubbling CO2 through water will create a large, concentrated change in the immediate vicinity. You know how diffusion works right?
  
  --
  "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
9. Re:Never has so much been spent for hype by Urkki · 2013-09-10 06:51 · Score: 1
  
  If you had passed general chem you would have studied buffered solutions. We know how they work, as a fact.
  It's funny how some people think how we have totally insufficient knowledge about atmosphere to make any kind of climate predictions, yet as soon as someone suggests measuring ocean acidity, potentially linked to atmospheric CO2, they happily say that oceans are a buffered solution comparable to stuff in labs, no reason for any research...
  I guess it's understandable. After all we can't see the atmosphere, it's transparent and unfathomable, while we can see all the oceans from satellite photos, plain as day... Nothing unknown about them...
10. Re:Never has so much been spent for hype by HornWumpus · 2013-09-10 07:38 · Score: 1
  
  Buffered solutions are well understood science. We know what's in sea water.
  When they pull the CO2/H2O vapor positive feedback coefficient from anywhere other then a dark place then climate models will approach science. Right now that coefficient is back calculated from the amount of global warming the modelers want their model to produce.
  
  --
  John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
11. Re:Never has so much been spent for hype by Urkki · 2013-09-13 03:24 · Score: 1
  
  Wikipedia article on Ocean acidification seems to put some estimated numbers on pH change, with source. Your source is your school chemistry book, which probably predates that particular source anyway. Even if that wikipedia source is wrong, that seems to be enough basis for thinking, that actually measuring this with latest technology seems like a good idea.
  Anyway, the only reason one might not want to measure this is being in some kind of denial, not wanting to hear the result in case it is not the one you want to hear... I mean, if measuring shows no change in acidification, wouldn't that be great? And if it shows some acidification rate, wouldn't that be a good thing to know, too?
Doing this sort of thing for years... by Frosty+Piss · 2013-09-10 05:27 · Score: 3, Informative

These people have been doing this sort of thing for years.
http://cmdac.oce.orst.edu/osu/history.html
http://kepler.oce.orst.edu/

--
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
1. Re:Doing this sort of thing for years... by DrData99 · 2013-09-10 05:36 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  You do realize that current meters measure water speed, not pH. Right?
2. Re:Doing this sort of thing for years... by Frosty+Piss · 2013-09-10 09:10 · Score: 1
  
  You do realize that current meters measure water speed, not pH. Right?
  You do realize that the instrumentation is independent of the package, right?
  
  --
  If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
3. Re:Doing this sort of thing for years... by Frosty+Piss · 2013-09-11 08:40 · Score: 1
  
  You do realize that current meters measure water speed, not pH. Right?
  "Cuyrrent meter" is a generalized term. These meters - if you had taken the time to look you would know this - measure many parameters INCLUDING PH.
  
  --
  If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
That's the name of my new punk rock band by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-10 05:30 · Score: 1

Tonite only:
Oceanic Acid Level
2 drink minimum
What? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-10 05:37 · Score: 1

Send a cylindrical vessel down, close it at depth on both ends, then bring it up. Then measure the pH. Why is this hard.
/degree chemist
//dnrtfa
Oceans are basic... by hsthompson69 · 2013-09-10 05:46 · Score: 3, Insightful

...any sensors will be measuring ocean *neutralization* as pH moves down towards 7.
1. Re:Oceans are basic... by GameboyRMH · 2013-09-10 06:05 · Score: 2
  
  You're arguing semantics.
  
  --
  "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
2. Re:Oceans are basic... by DiamondGeezer · 2013-09-10 06:05 · Score: 2
  
  But that doesn't sound scary - who will fund a study of ocean neutralization?
  
  --
  Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
3. Re:Oceans are basic... by hsthompson69 · 2013-09-10 06:18 · Score: 1
  
  Of course I am, they're important. While both "braking" and "accelerating in reverse" are changing a car in the same direction, there's a *huge* real difference between going from forward speed to zero, and going from zero to some reverse speed.
  Whatever tiny pH change one asserts is going on in the ocean, it doesn't become "acidification" until you're at pH 7.
4. Re:Oceans are basic... by GameboyRMH · 2013-09-10 06:37 · Score: 2
  
  Actually after doing a little research, it looks like you're wrong:
  http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/lsuatoni/can_we_keep_discussions_about.html
  
  For instance, he plays unproductive semantic games, arguing that because ocean pH is not predicted to fall below the ‘neutral point’ of 7.0, the term ‘ocean acidification’ is a misnomer. This ignores the fact that scientists refer to a drop in pH as ‘acidification’, regardless of where you are on the scale. The term is simply used to describe the direction of change.
  
  --
  "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
5. Re:Oceans are basic... by hsthompson69 · 2013-09-10 07:03 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, and "braking" is officially "acceleration" in "scientific" terms. However, the difference between hitting the brake to lower your speed, and pushing the gas while the gears are in reverse is important in real terms :)
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutralization_(chemistry)
6. Re:Oceans are basic... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-10 07:57 · Score: 1
  
  According to Wikipedia: Seawater pH is limited to the range 7.5 to 8.4
  According to my friend the professor of Fish-ology (I don't know his actual field, but he is a professor at a big-10 university and he studies fish and we have beers together about once a year), the fish can live at a much lower ph in the lab than in the wild. The fish survive down to ph of 3 in a lab, but in the wild, ph 5 kills them. He thinks the reason for this difference is that in the wild metals leech out of rocks into the water and kill the fish. (disclaimer: I might have been a bit tipsy when he told me this).
7. Re:Oceans are basic... by KeensMustard · 2013-09-10 23:53 · Score: 1
  
  Or it could be, that, like an amateur, you are confusing the pH resistance of fresh water fish versus the resistance of salt water dwelling marine life in general, including invertrbates, crustaceans and the like. Probably worth you pondering where you went wrong before posting on the subject again.
8. Re:Oceans are basic... by KeensMustard · 2013-09-10 23:58 · Score: 1
  
  As the OP points out above, the euphemistic term 'neutralisation' is really just another PR attempt by the fossil industry funded denialist machine to make acidification seem like it isn't an issue. The issue is the effect of acidification on marine organisms, which obviously don't care that the pH drop might bottom out at neutral. And neither to the things that eat them. When you are hungry the distinction seems unimportant.
9. Re:Oceans are basic... by KeensMustard · 2013-09-11 00:06 · Score: 1
  
  How was your holiday?
10. Re:Oceans are basic... by Pav · 2013-09-11 02:32 · Score: 1
  
  Perhaps you should look into anoxic environments and hydrogen sulphide... that'll definitely get you an unambiguously acidic environment rather quickly. It gets locked up in swamp muds even under "normal" conditions - in my home town there have been fish kills after eroded runoff has turned sulphuric. During the Permian Extinction parts of the sea started becoming anoxic... probably at least partly to do with atmospheric carbon dioxide stressing phytoplankton. The theory is this caused a feedback loop where hydrogen sulphide got produced by anaerobic bacteria, which reacted with iron sulfides in the seawater. This is VERY VERY BAD. When these sulfides flow out to an oxygenated area they oxidise producing sulphuric acid which kills the phytoplankton in the new place and pulls more oxygen out of the water making a nice home for more anaerobic bacteria. It's theorised that for large portions of the earths history the oceans would have looked red from space for this reason. Fun fact : hydrogen sulphide is extremely poisonous, but it puts most animals into a hibernation death-like state where they hardly breathe - bears and other hibernating animals purposely trigger this very mechanism. It's theorised that this mechanism is an adaption evolved turing the Permian Extinction which helped in surviving hydrogen sulphide gas plumes. We also sense it as being extremely unpleasant (like rotten eggs) certainly helps to motivate escape.
11. Re:Oceans are basic... by Pav · 2013-09-11 02:51 · Score: 1
  
  Unless the sea water turns anoxic... which will happen more if phytoplankton is stressed beyond a certain point. Then you'll get suphur dioxide being produced by anaerobic bacteria, which will react with iron in seawater to produce sulphides. These are fine until they flow into a more oxygenated area when they react with the oxygen to produce sulphuric acid - this kills more phytoplankton and creates an anoxic environment for more anaerobic bacteria. That's what's called a feedback loop my friend.
12. Re:Oceans are basic... by Gavagai80 · 2013-09-11 03:30 · Score: 1
  
  Ocean neutralization sounds a lot scarier to me -- like a [somewhat apt] euphemism for assassinating the ocean.
  
  --
  This space intentionally left blank
13. Re:Oceans are basic... by hsthompson69 · 2013-09-11 03:56 · Score: 1
  
  Look up the pH variation within the ocean.
  Now compare it to the proposed pH effect of atmospheric CO2 levels.
  Enjoy :)
14. Re:Oceans are basic... by hsthompson69 · 2013-09-11 03:59 · Score: 1
  
  You've got a massive misunderstanding as to the orders of magnitude here. There simply is *zero* possibility that atmospheric CO2, at any projected level, is going to turn the oceans acidic, even if *every* CO2 molecule in the atmosphere was used up.
  The fact that you have local fish kills due to runoff is perfectly understandable. The thought that such local fish kills could become global in scale completely ignores the massive size of the oceans.
Really? by TheSkepticalOptimist · 2013-09-10 08:15 · Score: 1

This is one of humanity's greatest challenges?
I mean for christ's sake this is retarded.
What is the point of monitoring the ocean acidity. Is there anything you are going to do about it while it rises? Does it really make a difference to see global warming in action.
Where is the X-Prize to create clean energy? Or the X-Prize to close the carbon cycle by having a process to pull CO2 back out of the atmosphere and turn it back into fuel? If they exist why are they not making news?
Why is humanity obsessed with proving the obvious? All this X-Prize will do is create a tool that will be used by smug people to say "See, I told you so, the oceans are slightly more acidic now then they were 10 years ago.", but it won't SOLVE A freaking thing.
I wish people would move away from trying to "prove" global warming to finding was to adapt to it, or find ACTUAL solutions to improve the quality of life on the planet. I mean what a waste of 2 million dollars.
I am going to start an X-Prize for the world's largest Arm & Hammer box to put into the fucking oceans, at least that would solve the problem of their acidity.

--
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
1. Re:Really? by presidenteloco · 2013-09-10 09:54 · Score: 1
  
  Yes. Why would we want more accurate and specific knowledge?
  Why not just follow our usual procedure: Ready! Fire! Aim!
  Why would we want any knowledge at all? It makes it so much harder to make up convenient facts.
  "You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.”
  Daniel Patrick Moynihan
  
  --
  
  Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Vé máy bay by yrinknul · 2013-09-10 21:45 · Score: 1

Vé máy bay | Vé máy bay | Vé máy bay giá r | Vé may bay gia re
Re:i hereby predict by KeensMustard · 2013-09-10 23:49 · Score: 1

Yes, filthy science, how dare it describe facts to us! Better to live on in ignorant bliss.