What Do We Think About Climate Change

[Guillermo]

Another point of view from a guy named Russ George:

"I have read some of the many news reports on the ocean acidification and reef crisis that are presently extant. I beg to differ with the position that reducing our global carbon footprint will help save our ocean bathing beauties, the reefs.

It's not that I don't fully support reducing our carbon footprint, I am rather more concerned about the role of the present deadly dose of anthropogenic CO2 already in the air on its way to our surface ocean waters.

Those hundreds of billions of tonnes of anthropogenic CO2, the bulk of which we've prescribed and put en route in the past 75 years, are slowly dissolving into the surface ocean.

By most accounts CO2 in the atmosphere takes on the order of 200 years to equilibrate with the surface ocean. Hence the pH drop we've been recording is just the proverbial tip of the dry-iceberg.

As the surface ocean absorbs the rest of this deadly dose, regardless of whether we emit more which we surely are doing, the acidification process already destined to occur is more than sufficient to change ocean ecology in far wider and disastrous fashion than merely scalding the bathing beauties at the shore.

In fact the devastating effects CO2 has on the ocean is not proceeding only via H2O+CO2=H2CO3 (carbonic acid), there is a secondary reaction wherein CO2 is enhancing the greeness of the planets dry lands. There is is a major benefit our high and rising CO2 delivers to droughty grasses who are losing less water via evapotranspiration, remaining green and growing bushier each spring, and as such are superior ground cover thus reducing topsoil loss in the wind. Tragically that dust in the wind is the major source of vital mineral micronutrients for the open ocean. Prophetically it seems, all we really are is dust in the wind.

So as our reef beauties cry out and dissolve like Dorothy's wicked witch in our acidifying oceans, the acidification will certainly continue for at least another century unabated even if we never emit another molecule of fossil CO2 into the air.

At the same time as the oceans suffer this chemical shock treatment, like those we give our swimming pools, they will continue as well to lose their photosynthetic capacity to counter this onslaught. The loss of net primary productivity, NPP, is reportedly 17% in the North Atlantic, 26% in the North Pacific, and 50% in the sub-tropical tropical oceans.

We can find the fundamental proof of the depth of this problem by considering it from the point of view of basic chemical thermodynamics. Indeed we have expended a hundred terrawatts or so burning fossil carbon to put that deadly dose of CO2 into our atmosphere and ocean. No trivial energy savings will serve to counter its certain first principals chemical effects. We can still trust in what the Second Law of Thermodynamics teaches us in that one must balance equations energetically. If we are to address a problem created by terrawatts of energy we must devote
terrawatts of energy. In this case those curative terrawatts better be emission free or we are lost.

So where is there a source of emission free terrawatts of curative power we can devote to saving the oceans and help restore the balance of Nature?

It is of course ONLY available from photosynthesis and therein lies the course we must chart to restore our oceans as we must surely not simply imagine the damage we've prescribed can simply be ignored and start from the present mortally wounded state. No mere conservation ethic or effort will suffice, we are far to far over the tipping point for that to work.

We must replenish and restore ocean photosynthesis for there in the vast living ocean expanse the terrawatts of power, solar power, can be found and used to compete with the H2O+CO2=H2CO3 reaction. There in lies hope if
we act now to assist the ocean plants, phyto-plankton, to convert CO2 in the ocean to life instead of death.

Without replenished mineral micronutrients, without our determined efforts to administer the antidote, life in the oceans, and on this small blue planet, will surely revert to the cyanobacteroa; state from whence it came.

How do we do that?

We must take on stewardship of the oceans and restore the dust that is missing.

This will be a long challenging task but one ship load at a time it has to happen. Planktos Science has been working on this for about a decade having taken the baton pass from the late great John Martin of Moss Landing Marine Labs here in California.

What Martin showed was that we could take iron, in the natural form of mineral dust, to the oceans where with infinitesimal amounts the imbalance of Nature can be balanced. For each tonne of iron ore dust - you know the red stuff that makes dirt red, hematite - hundreds of thousands of tonnes of phyto-plankton will grow.

For more information about the work of Planktos Science and about their programmes , go to their website"

Russ George is the founder and current President of Planktos Science, a privately held San Francisco-based eco-restoration and ocean eco-technology company, whose mission is the restoration of damaged habitats.

---------------------------------

Now, CO2 acidificates the oceans while increases the greenish of the planet which on its side avoids iron dust reaching the oceans, which inhibits phytoplancton growing, which sustains less superior sealife....so, why are the whales populations improving?

More seriously: how matches this with the ongoing desertification...? do we really know something...? do we know enough about the nature's equilibriums to take such measures as feeding the ocean with iron? what the negative consequences of this? have they been equated? could an increased ocean productivity increase desertification on land...? Again: do we know all terms in Earth's biosphera equilibrium equation (and our share in it) to happily play with it?

In this line of thinking: do we know enough about athmospheric CO2's sources, equilibrium and real impacts, to risk to take what perhaps are dangerous measures to reduce it, some of them rather highly speculative and even ecoimperialist?

Cheers.

[safewalrus]

Can't see what all this stuff about CO2 being bad for you - last time I talked to a tree it told me how much he loved the stuff - couldn't live without it in fact! Lots of bushes (no not that lot! He'd want to burn it) nearby backed him up completely!

[the1much]

co2 and trees are like ants and anteaters,,,,,,we dont like ants,,, so we let the millions of anteaters eat em,,,,well,,, then we start killing anteaters for their fur, to keep our feetsies warm,,,,well,,,20 years pass and we only got 100 anteaters left,,,,,,,,,,,,,what does that do to the ant population that we hate so bad?

[Boston]

hey G
great article
Ive got something I wrote on this a while back
takes a slightly different tack but
its in a similar light
soonest Ill dig it up and drop it in the thread
basically its on the rise of the microbial sea
and the stratification of the oceans
both going to happen in conjunction with the rise in ph
( although the ph issue will not be the triger )
so easily observed today
in a nut shell
the stratification of the oceans is what lead to the permian triasic boundry great extinction
one of the two really huge extinction events
90% of life in the oceans
70% of life on land
100% of life over five kg
died because of an ocean anaerobic event
i.e. stratification

I would cite a lecture by Dr Jeremy Jackson
prof. em. of ocean sciences at scripts

[safewalrus]

I find it positively amazing that a puny creature like a human thinks that it can actually alter anything that will happen in the world - it ain't our fault and anybody who thinks so is either a complete fool or is part of the biggest con to be played in the world since some bloke called God took some bloke called Adam and made a woman out of his rib!!

Now rubbish - there's a different thing - we can and do effect that! Most all of the rubbish is down to that wasteful little creature, man! the more technocally adavanced the greater the output of rubbish! Not just verbally either!

[Jimbo1490]

By most accounts CO2 in the atmosphere takes on the order of 200 years to equilibrate with the surface ocean. Hence the pH drop we've been recording is just the proverbial tip of the dry-iceberg.

Inaccurate. The science on this subject WAS well established that co2 had a very short life in the atmosphere. The idea that it is much longer came along AFTER the AGW alarmism took on political legs and when the lab toys we call "Global Climate Models" could not produce sufficiently scary predictions with the established science, so the postulated new 'science' of 200 year old CO2. Evidence for this: NON-EXISTANT.

Those hundreds of billions of tonnes of anthropogenic CO2, the bulk of which we've prescribed and put en route in the past 75 years, are slowly dissolving into the surface ocean.

Inaccurate. Large scale CO2 releases started after WWII. WWII ended 63 years ago. AGW alarmists have for years tried to stretch the time frame for anthropogenic CO2 releases. There's a simple, (and COMPLETELY scientifically dishonest) reason for doing this; it gets them around explaining why atmospheric CO2 levels were rising BEFORE significant anthropogenic CO2 releases began, meaning those increases were (and still are) due to natural causes. You'll even hear them say that "CO2 has been rising since the start of the industrial revolution, since circa 1850". This is true of course. What is NOT TRUE is that humans were releasing CO2 in any significant amount since circa 1950, and not for circa a hundred years later. Yet CO2 was indeed rising during that century. In fact, the more recent increases fit nicely on that same trend line

We wouldn't put up with such factual sloppiness from politicians. So why should we put up with it from eco/ploitical pressure groups? ******** is ******** no matter who says it.

Jimbo

[safewalrus]

Originally Posted by Jimbo1490

We wouldn't put up with such factual sloppiness from politicians. So why should we put up with it from eco/ploitical pressure groups? ******** is ******** no matter who says it.

Jimbo

Why not? we normally do? I do at least agree with your last paragraph - well put

[Boston]

respectfully my friend
I would suggest you brush up on your atmospheric dynamics

[Butch .H]

My 2c worth: I think we are hastening a natural process. With out our input it would be happening at a slower rate.

[Boston]

a repeat of the Permian Triassic boundary extinction
speak now or forever hold your peace
( ps.
Ive offered other fully noted articles before on this forum and what I found was my detractors were going to ignore the research and believe what they wanted any way; so forgive me if I dont go to the trouble of quoting friends and colleagues, and I just write )

AEROBIC STRATIFICATION

feel free to read and repost the following

pps.
every point I am about to make can and will be corroborated by the research of multiple scientists in published and pear reviewed articles should any questions of the veracity of a claim be made.


IN THE NEXT TEN TO TWENTY YEARS
THE WORLDS OCEANS WILL ESSENTIALLY BE DEAD
( quote by Dr Jeremy Jackson professor emeritus of ocean sciences scripts oceanographic institute )
BASED ON THREE MAJOR FACTORS
FISHING TO EXTINCTION
PLASTICS POLLUTION
AND SIMPLE FLUID DYNAMICS

THIS WILL RESULT IN CIRCUMSTANCES SIMILAR TO THE PERMIAN TRIASSIC EXTINCTION IN WHICH 90% OF ALL OCEAN LIFE DIED
70% OF ALL LAND ANIMALS
100% OF ALL ANIMALS OVER ABOUT TEN POUNDS
IT IS POSSIBLE WE ARE PAST THE POINT OF NO RETURN
BUT I PERSONALLY BELIEVE IF WE WERE TO WAKE UP TODAY
WE COULD TURN IT ALL AROUND
( EXEPT FOR THE PLASTICS POLLUTION )

GLOBAL DIMMING ( the reflection of sun light by atmospheric pollutants )
GLOBAL WARMING ( the reaction of sunlight with invisible pollutants )
FISHING TO EXTINCTION ( we have removed 95 out of 100 fish from out oceans )
POLLUTION ( no accurate records exist but pollution can be estimated in TRILLIONS of tons or multiples of 2,000,000,000,000,000, lbs per year )
ROUGHLY 60,000,000,000 TONS OF PLASTICS HAVE BEEN DUMPED INTO OUR OCEANS

THE AEROBIC STRATIFICATION OF THE WORLDS OCEANS

THERE HAS BEEN A TOTAL FAILURE OF OUR GOVERNMENTS TO REGULATE THE OPEN SEA

THERE HAS BEEN A NEAR TOTAL FAILURE OF OUR SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITIES TO EFFECTIVELY SOUND THE ALARM

FOR INSTANCE
OVER 200,000,000 TONS OF PLASTIC IS PRODUCED EACH YEAR. FOR EVERY TON OF PLASTIC THERE IS FIVE TONS OF MOSTLY TOXIC WAIST PRODUCED.
WORLD WIDE LESS THAN 3% IS RECYCLED
THE AMOUNT OF PLASTIC PRODUCED EACH IS RISING BY ABOUT 10% ANNUALLY

PLASTIC BAGS ALONE KILLED OFF MORE BIOMASS OF GREEN SEA TURTLES IN THE GULF OF MEXICO OVER THE LAST TWENTY YEARS THAN THE MASS OF ALL MAMMALS ALIVE ON THE CONTINENT OF AFRICA TODAY
COMBINED ( I have multiple sources for this figure if you need me to dig it up )

These bags were mistaken for the jelly fish that these marine reptiles love to eat and they choked to death. Of the 150,million or so green sea turtles that once swam in the gulf there are today less than 50 thousand

if we are afraid to face the truth
how will we face the future

on 9/11 tragedy (RIP)
on 9/12-15 some thing extraordinary was discovered
and scientists all over the world shook there heads in disbelief
( frankly, when I read the research, I didnt believe it either )

When air traffic over the usa was halted, due to a lack of jet con trails reflecting sunshine the surface temperature variation between day and night ROSE and average of 1 deg, C. in the usa over a three day period of time
That's huge.
No atmospheric temperature reading in the history of records keeping could compare with this discovery. The world of atmospheric sciences was shocked
and the question of global dimming was answered
Were it not for the reflection of visible atmospheric pollutants we would be seeing an even more dramatic rise in global temperatures today

Since the early seventies the average intensity of the sun as measured at the surface of our planet HAS DROPPED BY AN AVERAGE OF OF OVER TEN PERCENT. This data was presented and ignored by a community that simply couldn't believe the stunning truth and its implications.
Ten percent was simply to shocking to be believed .
The recent catastrophic rise in world temperatures is apparently partly driven by a cleaner atmosphere that coincides with the advent of clean air laws throughout north America and Europe.

We have mandated cleaner air through the controls of VISIBLE pollutants,
but failed to address INVISIBLE pollutants, the green house gas's
as the atmosphere gets even clearer
and the levels of co2 and of other green house gas's rise for whatever reasons
the temperature also rises, fast

but I believe this could also be our finest hour
climatologists and marine scientists around the world are coming to a consensus on our likely near futures
there are two of them
one in which we do little or nothing and face a catastrophic extinction event
the other,
will lead to us having ancestors
who will look back on us and judge what we do now
at the edge of the world

WE ARE FACED WITH THE FOLLOWING

IT IS NOT WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN

THIS IS HAPPENING

ITS HAPPENED BEFORE

ITS HAPPENING AGAIN

AND ITS HAPPENING FAST

I HAVE SEEN THE ENEMY
AND HE IS I


The rapid melting of the ice sheets will overwhelm the oceans ability to mix this influx of fresh water.
The alteration of the density of surface water due to warming and fresh water influx is already beginning to stall the grand oceanic current.
Scientists have seen a drop in current strength in some areas and in some years of 30% in the gulf stream

THAT 30% IS THE EQUIVALENT OF 40 TIMES MORE THAN ALL THE WATER FROM EVERY RIVER THAT DRAINS INTO THE ENTIRE PACIFIC OCEAN, COMBINED.

A complete halt of some up-welling currents on the north west coast of the us,
leading to the deaths of millions of marine organisms and hundreds of thousands of sea birds and marine mammals, has recently been observed.
Now Im not saying this MAY not have happened before, but we dont know that it has, and it certainly seems a dramatic enough event to at least be worthy of notice

The stalling of these vertical currents will lead to the aerobic stratification of the oceans.( predicted by Scripps oceanographic institute AND nearly every oceanic currents model at every major oceanographic institute and every atmospheric research institute around the world )

THIS IS LIKELY TO OCCUR IN THE NEXT TWENTY YEARS

THIS HAS HAPPENED BEFORE AT LEAST TWICE

THE LAST OF THE TWO MAJOR HISTORICAL EVENTS IS KNOWN AS THE PERMIAN TRIASSIC BOUNDARY EXTINCTION

The oceans will become a microbial soup dominated by bacteria, virus and jellyfish and no higher vertebrate forms will survive, there will b no fish, no birds, no whales, no sharks, no tuna, no fishing no shrimp no swimming and no sailing in the ocean or even walking along the beach nothing, even sea shells will dissolve in the now acidic oceans and all of it gone forever unless we DECIDE TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE NOW
the eutrification of the oceans also results in the advent of toxic algae which when driven by coastal winds to shore become airborne making it unsafe to breath the sea air
The oceans oxygen producing potential will be negligible once reduced to a microbial anaerobic soup.
( the oceans presently produce about 70% of our oxygen. )
What they will be able to produce is volatile hydrates, dissolved sulfurs, methane's, ammonia's, and lots of co2.
These will saturate the oceans and erupt in events similar to what occurs in certain stratified lakes today like lake Nyos and Monouor .
our atmosphere will be saturated with these gas's instead of oxygen and will no longer be able to support large life forms

We have subsidized our population levels on the very last fish we took from the oceans and 95/100 of those fish are, as of this writing,
GONE.
At present every major fishery in the world is at the brink of collapse
( except Alaskan polock )
At present every single major fish species in the oceans is already environmentally extinct ( that means they do not exist in numbers sufficient to influence the environment around them i.e. the balance that once existed is lost )

NOT MIGHT BE LOST
OR COULD BE IN THE FUTURE
BUT TODAY
THE ECOSYSTEM OF OUR OCEANS HAS ALREADY BEEN ( for now ) DESTROYED

there are today numerous anoxic dead zones rapidly growing in areas around the world, like the gulf of mexico dead zone, which varies between 6000 and 7000 sqr miles and is for all practical purposes devoid of vertebrate life, or any marine animal over a few grams in ttl mass

We have in our history examples of nearly every step of our present environmental break down and its results. There is no reason to not act . Although many scientists think that we have reached the point of no return. I think we can still turn it around, it may take a few more years for the ignorant to become fully aware of what the scientists now know and what it means for our future, but if we bend our industrial might to a common end,
I think we can save ourselves and this planet.
As a public we have had our successes and our failures.
The coming environmental storm represents what is our greatest challenge
a challenge that will bring all of us to the edge
and back again


I think some day
our decedents will look down on our planet and say of us
that we were the lucky ones
I believe they may envy us this time and this challenge
Ild like them to say of us
that we had the knowledge the courage and the determination
and used it
I want them to look back at our time
and instead of blame us
congratulate us
because what we do now in these next few years
will write a history
no one will forget
or no one will be around to remember
its up to you
BECAUSE WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT
THIS **** IS HAPPENING FAST
ITS HAPPENING NOW
AND IT WILL EFFECT US ALL
WEALTHY, POOR OR IGNORANT

feel free to read and repost the previous
( fix the bad grammar first please )
this isnt pretty
its not a f$#@%&g hype job or politics or dream land
and I dont write this cause any one paid me
nor do I bother to address tripe that spins on the mas media engine
this **** is going down weather you admit it or not
educate yourselves my friends
and speak out
or speak no more

and please
if you chose to disagree
fine but
dont come at me with some sarcastic first year chemistry lesson
or some decades old industry diatribe
ask me were I got my info if you like
I will either refer you to a colleague or direct you to a lecture or paper

[Boston]

ok I just noticed something about that
it should have read 95 out of 100 fish over one foot
the figure does not include fish species under one foot
my bad
its what I get for not sending to my editor first
my bad
B

[Jimbo1490]

Boston,

You've double posted. Kindly please remove the duplicate post; one of you posts is MORE than enough A little terseness would be welcome.

Jimbo

[Boston]

oops
sorry

[Jimbo1490]

the levels of co2 and of other green house gas's rise for whatever reasons
the temperature also rises, fast

Boston,

Dude, calm down. The good news is that this is wrong; dead wrong. If you were actually current with this controversy you would know that temperature increases ALWAYS precede CO2 increases by SEVERAL HUNDRED YEARS. You can't blame CO2 for causing an event (warming) when the cause and effect relationship SIMPLY DOES NOT EXIST. Every ice core and sea floor mud core yet extracted has shown the consistency of this relationship. This is a BIG PROBLEM for AGW alarmists, don't you think?

CO2 is a very minor greenhouse gas; water vapor is the only greenhouse gas of real significance and it is (almost) entirely natural in origin. I suppose the 'Holy Grail' of AGW alarmism would be to find a conclusive link between tiny increases in CO2 and increases in water vapor so that CO2 somehow 'leverages' the global atmospheric temperature though water vapor. No such link has been found; indeed no one has even been able to postulate a credible mechanism for such a link. The water vapor cycle operates quite independently from the CO2 cycle.

If such a link did exist, then the climate system would have gone off the rails millenia ago when atmospheric CO2 level were much higher, and with such a link present, the climate would have been unable to right itself and runaway greenhouse effect would have ensued. Of course we know that didn't happen. The most recent research shows that the climate system is in fact highly stable, not exquisitely sensitive as climate alarmists would have us believe.

Jimbo

[Guillermo]

I align here with Jimbo and Perry. I think enough evidence has been found already to let us doubt about the anthropogenic causes of the (now dissapearing?) GW, and seriously put us to think about the increasingly probable possibility of a coming soon global cooling and its consquences for humankind.

Cheers.