Climate change ???

[doogs]

Sigh, you still don't seem to get it... Those fish aren't producing carbonates from what they eat but from the carbon dioxyde dissolved in the water...

Carbonate precipitates are excreted by fish via the
intestine as a by-product of the osmoregulatory
requirement to continuously drink calcium- and
magnesium-rich seawater, and they are produced
whether or not fish are feeding

They are still $#!+ing it out of their anus = marine snow.
Surely when you were a child you gazed across the Channel, looking at the white cliffs of Dover, dreaming you lived in a civilised country not realising that you were looking at a massive layer of dead plankton!

[Hallu]

So what ? Why are you focused on marine snow all of a sudden ? My point was that it's not only phytoplankton that traps carbon in the ocean and in the way the article is describing those fish DON'T do it by feeding on phytoplankton... which you clearly didn't know.

[doogs]

So what ? Why are you focused on marine snow all of a sudden ? My point was that it's not only phytoplankton that traps carbon in the ocean and in the way the article is describing those fish DON'T do it by feeding on phytoplankton... which you clearly didn't know.

Well the whole point of fixing carbon is to store it somewhere until we can work out how to solve our carbon problem, the way it can be achieved in the ocean is locking it up in marine sediments for many millenia hence my apparent obsession with marine snow
I hadn't heard of fish directly fixing the CO2 in seawater directly to waste products, you are correct. This does come under the broad spectrum of the detritus that is classified as marine snow. As the CO2 in water comes from the atmosphere surely it is better to focus plants such as phytoplankton helping to fix it before it enters the water.
Another question to question this reports importance is; It's great an' all that fish can take CO2 out of water and it could help fight climate change, but as water temperature increases then it's ability to absorb gasses lessens, so what's the relevance to fighting climate change in the findings??

[Hallu]

You should read the article. Smaller fish tend to do this more, hence overfishing and ocean warming (that diminish adult population) actually help carbon fixing in some weird perverse way... And it is a very potent way of fixing carbon too, apparently this way of fixing carbon represent 3 to 40 % of the oceanic carbon sequestration, so their role is comparable to phytoplankton's. Problem is evaluating fish stocks in the oceans is incredibly hard, so nobody knows how much those fish can do (this is why the "between 3 and 40%"), it's a 4 year old study only.

[Swifty]

Well the whole point of fixing carbon is to store it somewhere until we can work out how to solve our carbon problem, the way it can be achieved in the ocean is locking it up in marine sediments for many millenia hence my apparent obsession with marine snow

but as water temperature increases then it's ability to absorb gasses lessens

Limestone stores heaps of CO2. Stuck there more or less forever.

Yes, CO2 has an inverse solubility in sea water. So cold water can hold significantly more than warm water.

So what do you think happens when ocean waters increase in temperature slightly? They exsolve CO2 into the atmosphere. When ocean water temps go up in response to the Milankovitch cycle, so does CO2 content in the atmosphere. At the end of each interglacial (warm period - eight of them) during the last 1 million years, Earth temperatures have dropped despite high CO2 content in the atmosphere. The minor greenhouse effect of the additional CO2 is insufficient to prevent cooling. So CO2 cannot be a major factor behind global warming as it fails to prevent cooling as a greenhouse gas. Instead, the increase in atmospheric CO2 lags and is caused by warming the oceans. As the ocean cool into each glacial, CO2 is more gradually absorbed back into the cooler ocean waters more slowly than it was exsolved. This is consistent with observation from ice core and benthic oxygen isotope data fro the Pleistocene & Holocene (i.e. the last million years)

[Hallu]

So CO2 cannot be a major factor behind global warming as it fails to prevent cooling as a greenhouse gas.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of your "analysis". You're trying to analyse CO2 effects during a glacial period to draw conclusions on current global warming... Your conclusion is that since CO2 didn't prevent glacial periods millions of years ago then it isn't the cause of our current global warming, that makes no sense at all...

[Swifty]

This has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of your "analysis". You're trying to analyse CO2 effects during a glacial period to draw conclusions on current global warming... Your conclusion is that since CO2 didn't prevent glacial periods millions of years ago then it isn't the cause of our current global warming, that makes no sense at all...

It has everything to do with it. And it does make sense. How can you say CO2 is responsible for warming, and then allow for Earth to cool when CO2 levels are high? Elevated CO2 is elevated CO2, be it now or in the past.

[highercountry]

I really like this quote;

"... But like zombies, the deniers keep coming back with the same long-falsified and nonsensical arguments.

The deniers have seemingly endless enthusiasm to post on blogs, write letters to editors, write opinion pieces for newspapers, and even publish books. What they rarely do is write coherent scientific papers on their theories and submit them to scientific journals. The few published papers that have been sceptical about climate change have not withstood the test..."

I suggest reading from reliable, reputable, FACTUAL and QUALIFIED sources. Many of the posts in this thread are based on psuedo-science, in other words, rubbish.
Read this article;

http://theconversation.com/the-false-the-confused-and-the-mendacious-how-the-media-gets-it-wrong-on-climate-change-1558

and check the author's and contributor's credentials. There is no debate, climate change is a fact.

[Swifty]

I really like this quote;

"... But like zombies, the deniers keep coming back with the same long-falsified and nonsensical arguments.

The deniers have seemingly endless enthusiasm to post on blogs, write letters to editors, write opinion pieces for newspapers, and even publish books. What they rarely do is write coherent scientific papers on their theories and submit them to scientific journals. The few published papers that have been sceptical about climate change have not withstood the test..."

I suggest reading from reliable, reputable, FACTUAL and QUALIFIED sources. Many of the posts in this thread are based on psuedo-science, in other words, rubbish.
Read this article;

http://theconversation.com/the-false-the-confused-and-the-mendacious-how-the-media-gets-it-wrong-on-climate-change-1558

and check the author's and contributor's credentials. There is no debate, climate change is a fact.

Well, I agree climate change is real - of course, who can deny it?
I offered a sound explanation of CO2 levels rising due to ocean warming, compared it to real data from ice cores, the data is all certainly reputable. Please argue against that rather than describe me as mendacious etc.

[doogs]

Limestone stores heaps of CO2. Stuck there more or less forever.

Until someone heats it to 900 degrees to turn it into lime, for cement, which releases the CO2 back into the atmosphere!! Great for the atmosphere that stuff is

[Hallu]

This has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of your "analysis". You're trying to analyse CO2 effects during a glacial period to draw conclusions on current global warming... Your conclusion is that since CO2 didn't prevent glacial periods millions of years ago then it isn't the cause of our current global warming, that makes no sense at all...

It has everything to do with it. And it does make sense. How can you say CO2 is responsible for warming, and then allow for Earth to cool when CO2 levels are high? Elevated CO2 is elevated CO2, be it now or in the past.

Because we are NOT in a glacial period, plain and simple... Glaciation occurs because (at least that's what we think) of different orbits of the Earth, the Sun's activity, or continental drift toward the poles. So you say that high CO2 levels at that times failed to prevent glaciation and that it proves that nowadays CO2 can't be the cause of global warming. How can you not see how wrong it is ? Remove the glaciation component, and CO2 CAN and WILL act as a greenhouse gas and participate to global warming... It's like saying because I haven't moved backward when I move 10 m backward in a bus going forward 1000 m, that means when I walk on the pavement 10 m backward then I can't have gone backward, it's ridiculous...

[doogs]

LOL. http://www.globalwarminglies.com/CarbonDioxide.html

[Hallu]

A very professional study indeed...

[Swifty]

Because we are NOT in a glacial period, plain and simple... Glaciation occurs because (at least that's what we think) of different orbits of the Earth, the Sun's activity, or continental drift toward the poles. So you say that high CO2 levels at that times failed to prevent glaciation and that it proves that nowadays CO2 can't be the cause of global warming. How can you not see how wrong it is ? Remove the glaciation component, and CO2 CAN and WILL act as a greenhouse gas and participate to global warming... It's like saying because I haven't moved backward when I move 10 m backward in a bus going forward 1000 m, that means when I walk on the pavement 10 m backward then I can't have gone backward, it's ridiculous...

Thanks for your comments Hallu, I appreciate the discussion

I can also see you are probably familiar with the Milankovitch cycles which are as you mention due to variations in the Earth's orbit, these last for around 100,000 years. Because most of the land masses which absorb and hold incoming solar heat are in the northern hemisphere under the current geographic / tectonic land distribution, then when the northern hemisphere has summer at Earth's closest approach to the sun (our orbit is elliptical, I'm sure you know), then we enter into an interglacial or warm period. Conversely when the northern winter is at the Earth's furthest point from the sun (i.e less solar radiation arriving on the northern landmasses), we get cooling and ice ages. This we can agree on I am sure, and it explains each of the peaks in the diagram below.

Sorry - another graph! - but I can't explain without it! This data from Vostok ice cores, Antarctica. Measurements of temperature taken from oxygen isotope proxy and CO2 levels are shown as the purple line. So the graph covers the period from around 420,000 years ago to the present, which is the Holocene period from around 10,000 years to now at the right end of the graph. We are near the peak Holocene warming, in fact just a few thousand years past it. There is a definite correlation between increasing atmospheric CO2 and the onset of warming at the end of each and every interglacial, we can both see that. That is consistent with CO2 causing the warming. But it is also consistent with CO2 being released from the oceans into the atmosphere, as the oceans warm in response to the Milankovitch cycles. Warming up ocean water will release CO2 because the solubility of CO2 decreases with temperature - that is what chemistry tells us. So there are two contending interpretations of that data. If you like, "warmists" take the first view and "skeptics" take the second (I don't think those labels are appropriate, but that is the common parlance I'm afraid).

But notice how the temperature drops before the CO2 levels drop as we enter into each of the "valleys" which are the glacial periods. (That's exactly where we are now in the Milankovitch cycle - incoming solar radiation in the northern hemisphere is on the fall. Astronomy tells us that.) CO2 levels remain high, but the temperature drops first in each and every case. The effect of decreasing radiation overcomes the greenhouse effect of the CO2, so everything cools down. Otherwise it would never cool down, right?. After the oceans have cooled a bit, the CO2 gets absorbed slowly again by the oceans (as CO2 solubility increases in cooler water). I can't see any other mechanism to explain the CO2 dropping into the glacial period.

So, is the current addition of anthropogenic CO2 over the last 200 years sufficient to overcome the long term cooling that we can expect due to the Milankovitch cycle? You may interpret it that way. Isn't that what all the fuss is about? But if the CO2 levels / cylces shown in the figure are indeed caused by changing the temperature of the oceans (Milankovitch again), the reverse is not true: adding CO2 to the atmosphere won't warm up the oceans (much), the Milankovitch cylce will see to that. Apologies for the long-winded reply

[Hallu]

To me the oceans are already warmed up : coral bleaching in the Great Barrier Reef, polar mammals moving towards new areas to find nutrient rich cool waters. Now, to clarify, the oceans warm up first on the surface. This means that shallow waters and the surface of deep oceans are affected first. Unfortunately, this is precisely where the coral lives, and the 0.5/1° increase in surface temperature they're experiencing is enough to kill them at alarming rates. In polar waters, small changes in temperature affect planktons of all kinds, which is at the bottom of the food chain. To me it's irrelevant to bring to the plate a 100,000 year cycle with an 8° temperature gradient when we're talking about temperature differences of the order of a degree or two each century triggered mostly by human activity.

[north-north-west]

It's April, I should have on my long-johns and a jumper and here I am thinking about turning on the airconditioner.
I'm in Geelong and it is 25C in the middle of April
It is just possible that this may be the first year for a very long time that the High Country doesn't get standing snow.
Bye bye skiing in Australia??

Snow showers since yesterday morning, maybe earlier. Continuing until Saturday arvo. Relax. There will be snow (unless we get a prolonged heatwave after this coming weekend).

[walkinTas]

One of my big fears with all the press around climate change, is that mankind will come to believe that we caused the problem so we can fix it - "playing god" is a term often used. Then various individuals, with or without government support, will invent more radical efforts to "correct" the problem. Ocean 'geoengineering' being one example. Treating the symptoms, not correcting the source of the problem. Messing around with things where there is at best and incomplete understanding, runs the risk of causing more problems, perhaps even catastrophic problems.

The problem with humans "playing god" is we pretend to be omnipotent (able to do anything) when we clearly aren't omniscient (in command of all the facts). And isn't that, by definition, meglomania?

[PeterJ]

One of my big fears with all the press around climate change, is that mankind will come to believe that ........will invent more radical efforts to "correct" the problem.

You might be interested in reading Clive Hamilton's latest book on geo engineering, "Earth Masters".


Peter

[walkinTas]

Thank you for that. I will grab a copy and have a read. For me, it is the most frightening thing proposed yet. I shudder to think governments would entertain deliberately "messing" with nature on such a massive scale. And worse, stupidly believe that they could and should go on polluting while "playing god" with nature.

Edit: The book review.

[doogs]

Thank you for that. I will grab a copy and have a read. For me, it is the most frightening thing proposed yet. I shudder to think governments would entertain deliberately "messing" with nature on such a massive scale. And worse, stupidly believe that they could and should go on polluting while "playing god" with nature.

Edit: The book review.

Thanks PeterJ (for the book suggestion) and WalkinTas (for the link). Definitely a future read for me
I have huge problems with trying to influence nature as with plate tectonics, sea level changes etc. the sediments containing this carbon are not going to be on the sea floor forever and it is going to be a future generation in thousands of years who are going to have to try to clear up our mess. I am even dubious about interfering with natural systems such as when humans cloud seed as I see it as potentially interrupting the water cycle.

[Rob A]

Well the whole point of fixing carbon is to store it somewhere until we can work out how to solve our carbon problem, ...

We dont have a carbon dioxide problem. We have a population and unlocking pavements with landclearing problem.
Everyone is fixated with the increments marked on the side of the thermometer rather than doing anything about the candle set underneath it.

[north-north-west]

Well the whole point of fixing carbon is to store it somewhere until we can work out how to solve our carbon problem, ...

We dont have a carbon dioxide problem. We have a population and unlocking pavements with landclearing problem.
Everyone is fixated with the increments marked on the side of the thermometer rather than doing anything about the candle set underneath it.

If we could 'Like' posts, I would this one.

[walkinTas]

Thanks PeterJ (for the book suggestion) and WalkinTas (for the link). Definitely a future read for me

$9.90 for a kindle copy. One of the scariest books I have read for a long time. Nothing scares me more than the realisation that some people want to / plan to deliberately interfere with the world's climate on a global scale. There really are madmen, &%#$@*& megalomaniacs, who honestly believe they can control the world's climate. And a herd of greedy mongrels (including some of the worlds richest) who hope to make money trying. And a bunch of politicians and deluded individuals who are seemingly eager to be conned into supporting the megalomaniacs to realise their insanity on the basis (amazingly) that it would be easier to control the world's climate than to stop polluting it. And a few soft voices that no one seems to hear.

As will become apparent, I have serious doubts about the wisdom of any attempt by humans to take control of the weather. The reasons will become plain, but at their heart is a conviction that the Earth is unlikely to collaborate in our plans, and we should heed the kind of warning most famously expressed by Robert Burns: The best laid schemes of Mice and Men oft go awry, And leave us nothing but grief and pain, For promised joy! I hope to explain, not least by drawing on Earth system science, an understanding of the Earth that inclines to this conviction.

Hamilton, Clive (2013-03-01). Earthmasters: Playing God with the climate (Kindle Locations 359-364). . Kindle Edition.

[north-north-west]

$9.90 for a kindle copy. One of the scariest books I have read for a long time. Nothing scares me more than the realisation that some people want to / plan to deliberately interfere with the world's climate on a global scale. There really are madmen, &%#$@*& megalomaniacs, who honestly believe they can control the world's climate. And a herd of greedy mongrels (including some of the worlds richest) who hope to make money trying. And a bunch of politicians and deluded individuals who are seemingly eager to be conned into supporting the megalomaniacs to realise their insanity on the basis (amazingly) that it would be easier to control the world's climate than to stop polluting it. And a few soft voices that no one seems to hear.

Icehenge, here we come.

[walkinTas]

I am a bit surprised how easily some people seem accept geo-engineering. Some of the things being discussed amount to massive, world-wide interference with nature. Because the scale is so massive, the potential to miscalculate and cause a disaster seems to be equally massive.

[wayno]

no doubt geo engineering will focus on the developed country, and good luck to all the rest...

[north-north-west]

I am a bit surprised how easily some people seem accept geo-engineering. Some of the things being discussed amount to massive, world-wide interference with nature. Because the scale is so massive, the potential to miscalculate and cause a disaster seems to be equally massive.

You're being a little bit naive and blinkered here.
Humans have been geo-engineering on a massive scale for a very long time: firestick farming, domesticating animals, building dams, irrigation, land-clearing, agriculture, fertilising croplands, deliberate breeding of plant and animal types to exaggerate desirable and remove undesirable traits, building cities, factory fishing, blah, blah blah. And the results have been disastrous for many plant and animal species and that is not just continuing but accelerating.

[walkinTas]

You're being a little bit naive and blinkered here.

Perhaps! Or perhaps the opposite is true, folk have been conditioned over time to accept human ingenuity and human initiated changes to the environment, and therefore can't/don't see any new danger in what is being proposed. With some of the things you mentioned, it is the total sum of human practice over time that amounts to world wide environmental changes (and in some quarters, folk are still arguing over how much change human's have actually caused), rather than a single deliberate act. But now there is a deliberate intention to change the whole earth climate with one act. Besides simply countering your argument with the statement that "two wrongs don't make a right', I will argue the scale of the proposed geo-engineering completely dwarfs anything you've mentioned. Previously it was the unintended consequence of trying to feed ourselves or shelter ourselves, or the collateral damage of human commerce, but now humans are planning to deliberately interfere with nature with the singular aim to subdue and control nature.

For example deliberately setting out to change the chemical balance of the stratosphere right around the globe, with the intention of lowering world temperature by 2°. A deliberate intention of causing a world-wide climate change of unprecedented scale (for a single human action), now there's a whole new chapter for human impact on the earth. And to do it without really knowing the consequences (because it can't be accurately modelled).

The main argument seems to be that geo-engineering is the lesser of two evils. If someone proposed to fell all remaining rain forests in the coming year, there would be a hue and cry, and rightly so. As devastating as it would be, destroying the world's rain forests might not necessarily be a fatal blow to the planet, but destroying the stratosphere potentially is a fatal blow. The difference in magnitude is huge. I was surprised to find that people like Bill Gate and Richard Branson fund and champion these "techno-fix" solutions to global warming (perhaps I don't get out enough).

Am I really being naive when I say this is frightening?

[north-north-west]

Am I really being naive when I say this is frightening?

No, I was just in the mood to poke someone without reading enough to have the full background.
Still, it seems to be human nature to do first and consider the consequences only when they're biting our bums.

[walkinTas]

no doubt geo engineering will focus on the developed country, and good luck to all the rest...

The stakes are much higher wayno, they are not gambling with this or that country, they are betting the whole planet.

Still, it seems to be human nature to do first and consider the consequences only when they're biting our bums.

Which is barely tolerable when the consequence is one less river or one less forest or one less species. It is a whole new dimension when the consequence is potentially one less inhabitable planet. After that, there is no bum to be bitten!

And before anyone says "melodramatic" - read the Clive Hamilton's latest book on geo engineering, "Earth Masters", as suggested by PeterJ.

... without reading enough to have the full background.

(I'll try to summarise) The argument put forward by geo-engineers is that the planet will become uninhabitable if we continue unchecked on our current course. They argue mankind can and should interfere with nature on a global scale to "correct" the damage already done. This would give us more time - i.e. allow mankind to go on polluting and capitalising on non-renewable resources, for at least another fifty years. Geo-engineering is appealing because, at a cost of a few billion, it is cheaper than any attempt to stop the pollution or exploitation of non-renewable fossil fuels. They argue, since the planet will become uninhabitable if we don't stop our current activity, any risk of destroying it through geo-engineering is comparatively small (smaller than the inevitable) - and therefore we should consider geo-engineering a 'viable' solution. Politicians like the idea because they believe getting agreement on geo-engineering will be much easier than getting agreement on stopping the current global-warming, and there is less economic burden. And besides, since they are talking international waters, upper atmosphere and space, there may be no need for world-wide agreement. If it is not prohibited by any national or international law, they can just go ahead and do it.