Oceans choking on CO2, face deadly changes: study

[one...two...tree 2,762]

SYDNEY (Reuters) - The world's oceans are virtually choking on rising greenhouse gases, destroying marine ecosystems and breaking down the food chain -- irreversible changes that have not occurred for several million years, a new study says.

The changes could have dire consequences for hundreds of millions of people around the globe who rely on oceans for their livelihoods.

"It's as if the Earth has been smoking two packs of cigarettes a day", said the report's lead-author Australian marine scientist Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg.

The Australia-U.S. report published in Science magazine on Friday, studied 10 years of marine research and found that climate change was causing major declines in marine ecosystems.

Oceans were rapidly warming and acidifying, water circulation was being altered and dead zones within the ocean depths were expanding, said the report.

There has also been a decline in major ocean ecosystems like kelp forests and coral reefs and the marine food chain was breaking down, with fewer and smaller fish and more frequent diseases and pests among marine organisms.

"If we continue down this pathway we get into conditions which have no analog to anything we've experienced," said Hoegh-Guldberg, director of the Global Change Institute at The University of Queensland.

Hoegh-Guldberg said oceans were the Earth's "heart and lungs", producing half of the world's oxygen and absorbing 30 percent of man-made carbon dioxide.

"We are entering a period in which the very ocean services upon which humanity depends are undergoing massive change and in some cases beginning to fail," said Hoegh-Guldberg.

"Quite plainly, the Earth cannot do without its ocean. This is further evidence that we are well on the way to the next great extinction event."

(Reporting by Michael Perry; Editing by David Fogarty)

http://www.scientifi...-carbon-dioxide

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Obama 2012 1,714]

oh man. the alarmist loons are out again.

These people used to be locked up back in the day.... damn shame they aren't anymore.

[Heracles 417]

oh man. the alarmist loons are out again.

These people used to be locked up back in the day.... damn shame they aren't anymore.

Yes, why would anyone want to know whether we are screwing up our oceans. Then again, your switch on Obama versus the actual private culprits of the gulf oil spill is a good tactic.

Realistically, what gain do the scientists have in advising us of this? Have you seen the trash piles the size of Texas, quite fitting actually, floating in the oceans? Or is that made up too?

Edited June 20, 2010 by Booyah!

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

Yes, why would anyone want to know whether we are screwing up our oceans. Then again, your switch on Obama versus the actual private culprits of the gulf oil spill is a good tactic.

Realistically, what gain do the scientists have in advising us of this? Have you seen the trash piles the size of Texas, quite fitting actually, floating in the oceans? Or is that made up too?

Perspective?

There's about 660 quadrillion gallons in the Gulf of Mexico. That's sea water. Quadrillion is a one followed by 15 zeros.

Assuming 210,000 gallons per day for 30 days gets 6,300,000 gallons to date. Subtracting for evaporation and recovery there's probably about 4M gallons of oil from Maconda in the Gulf.

That comes out to 1 gallon of oil per 165,000,000,000 gallons of sea water. Trace amounts are often measured in ppm. We're at about 1 part per 165 billion so far.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Ocean acidification isn't a new concept, nor did it arise spontaneously from the current oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

Ocean acidification isn't a new concept, nor did it arise spontaneously from the current oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Dissolving CO2 in seawater increases the hydrogen ion (H+) concentration in the ocean, and thus decreases ocean pH. Caldeira and Wickett (2003)[1] placed the rate and magnitude of modern ocean acidification changes in the context of probable historical changes during the last 300 million years.\

Probable? does all this come down to guessing? :rofl:

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I don't know Marc, do some reading if you're interested.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

oh man. the alarmist loons are out again.

These people used to be locked up back in the day.... damn shame they aren't anymore.

I recommend they hold their arms out...... to make it harder to throw a net over 'em.

[Heracles 417]

As an engineer, it's not the hard to comprehend how we can be screwing up our oceans. We are dumping waste after waste into the ocean.

As humans, we just don't have the luxury of an oh opps with the ocean. Doesn't matter if there is a 1000 quintillion gallons of ocean water; if we screw it up, it's almost impossible to fix.

What do you guys think you are achieving by this 'lets just do the opposite of what the other party says and believe'?

Edited June 20, 2010 by Booyah!

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

oh man. the alarmist loons are out again.

These people used to be locked up back in the day.... damn shame they aren't anymore.

Is it not alarming that there are dead zones in the ocean? One off the Northwest Coast?

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Translation...

OH NO! The problem is worse than we thought and needs more study. Send money. Raise taxes if necessary, just send money.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Is it not alarming that there are dead zones in the ocean? One off the Northwest Coast?

There are dead zones on land, why not in the ocean? How long have they been there? Do we know what causes them? Have they come and gone. like ice ages? More study...like i said. Send money, it is alarmig, don't ask questions...it is a crisis. Just send money. Oh...did I mention, preferably American dollars.

You think our congress can fix a dead zone in the ocean? Get real.

Edited June 21, 2010 by Gary and Alla

[lostinblue 1,989]

http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/carboncycle.htm

Increasing the Oceanic Absorption of CO2: The Iron Hypothesis

If the carbon cycle in the ocean processes so much more carbon than does the atmospheric part, can the oceanic part be increased to cause the ocean to store more carbon? After all, a small change in the storage rate could absorb all the carbon dioxide released by the burning of fossil fuels. John Martin proposed a way to do this.

“Give me a half tanker of iron, and I will give you an ice age.”–John Martin.

Martin noticed that large areas of the ocean (30% to 40%) have sufficient nutrients to support the growth of large populations of phytoplankton, yet these areas have small populations of phytoplankton. He called these areas high-nutrient, low-chlorophyll zones (HNLCs). On further investigation, Martin determined the HNLC zones were deficient in iron, a micro-nutrient essential for life. Johnson then proposed that adding small amounts of iron to these regions would greatly increase productivity. This is the iron hypothesis.

Several recent experiments, including the Southern Ocean Iron Release Experiment, show the hypothesis is correct. Small amounts of iron in the right regions lead to larges increases in phytoplankton. One kilogram of iron leads to the production of 5,000 to 20,000 kilograms of phytoplankton.

Read about John Martin and his iron hypothesis, including all the information in links to his work shown on the right side of the web page. For a more controversial look at this solution to the CO2 problem, read the Wired Magazine article on Dumping Iron.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Translation...

OH NO! The problem is worse than we thought and needs more study. Send money. Raise taxes if necessary, just send money.

We must impose a crippling CARBON tax at a minimum!!!!