[ale] Way OT: In case you missed this in the news... Climategate

Wed May 12 10:24:25 EDT 2010

There's not point at which ocean life just flat dies that humans will ever
see as we'll be long dead before then. It's a gradual change in what is
supported. Some things like a more acidic environment than what is currently
available. Those species are currently in very limited supply. They are also
not species that are beneficial to the current ecosystem that supports and
feeds humans. Thus a change that benefits those species will have adverse
effects on humans. I will not be happy without my weekly fish intake.

When discussions of a pH change take place without specifying a particular
region, the location will be the large bulk of ocean water located away from
river estuaries and at a large distance from freshwater melt from ice
locations. As for nearly all climate change discussions, the change being
discussed in not a localized change but a change in the large-scale
aggregate environment. Local effects of change will be varied - some places
will benefit slightly while most places will suffer changes that make food
supply for humans an issue.

Currently, the economics of the US (and the rest of the world for that
matter) are viewed as rather crappy. But my personal economics are doing
pretty OK. Extrapolating from my economics to global economics is an error
in statistical sampling. But to extrapolate from global to local economics
is valid since it is a narrowing focus of sample set sizes. Law firms that
handle debt collection are doing damn well these days. I really don't want
the environment they thrive in to continue anymore than I want the RedTide
environment to dominate.

I did a bit more digging on the RedTide and I was wrong about the pH aspect
(I'm scratching my head on how I made that link). Redtide is more associated
with a temperature rise that any other measured factor. It is also
associated with increased rainfall (which will have an effect on surface pH
and salinity, etc as a dillution process). but the mineral salt content
_should_ act as a pH buffer to some extent. Nonetheless, a temperature rise
in ocean surface _is_ one of those "we are very concerned" data points that
CC scientist discuss often. Sadly, between the politics and economics, the
ability to maintain accurate temperature measurments ofer such a large area
as the ocean surface has dwindled at a time we really need them to increase.
The modeling methods based on spot temperatures, satellite data, airplane
flyover and air movement data have error bars larger than the calulated
changes. They have done extrapolation on the error bar trends and midpoints
but even the most vocal CC champions are loathe to use that data as hard
science. There was a proposal to deploy several thousand solar powered bouys
globally a while back but I've lost track of that process. It seemed like a
good idea. Maybe if it was coupled with something like the tsunami
projects...

I may have made A's in my chemistry but the bulk of that was 20 years ago
(what's the emoticon for "geezer"?). I didn't even get a refresher as my
daughter didn't need help when she took it. Hmphfff.

On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 5:08 PM, Greg Freemyer <greg.freemyer at gmail.com>wrote:

> I decided to look it up.
>
> It appears the ocean's PH has gone from about 8.2 to 8.1 in the last
> 200 years.  ie. a .1 change has already occurred.
>
> I did not see anything that said at what point ocean life dies, but I
> did not look very hard.
>
> As to the arctic ice melt potentially helping, isn't it fresh water?
> ie. Frozen rain?  If so, it's actually got a PH below 7 already, so it
> melting will just make the problem worse.  (See, I don't refuse to use
> my brain! (but I'm still not anywhere near convinced.))
>
> That made me wonder about the current local PH levels in the ocean.
>
> http://www.seafriends.org.nz/issues/global/oceanph.jpg
>
> Looks like it varies from 7.9 to 8.2
>
> Are we seeing a die-off in the current 7.9 areas?  I don't know, but
> if so I expect I would have read about it in this little research
> project.
>
> Greg
>
> On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 8:29 AM, Jeff Hubbs <jhubbslist at att.net> wrote:
> > Recall that pH is a logarithm of a ratio...
> >
> > On 5/10/10 6:05 AM, Paul Cartwright wrote:
> >> On Sun May 9 2010, Jim Kinney wrote:
> >>
> >>> I'm not positive on the total impacts but I pretty sure that a shift of
> 0.1
> >>> in pH will be a huge change in what lives and what dies in the oceans.
> It's
> >>> that level of change that allows the red algae blooms that  spell death
> to
> >>> hundreds of square miles of oceans at a time. That's a localized event.
> >>> Imagine the fishing that will be available if the only place left that
> has
> >>> a pH in the range to not allow red algae blooms is the arctic ice melt
> >>> current.
> >>>
> >> not to pick nits here, but a 0.1 shift in ph?
> >> I could find no reference to ph in any red tide listing, but I did find
> a
> >> reference to massive ph level changes that killed fish here:
> >>
> >>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freshwater_environmental_quality_parameters
> >>
> >> Atmospheric inputs
> >>   <snip>
> >>    In parts of Scandinavia and West Wales and Scotland many rivers
> became so
> >> acidic from oxides of sulphur that most fish life was destroyed and pHs
> as
> >> low as pH4 were recorded during critical weather conditions.[2]
> >>
> >> --------------
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
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>
> --
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-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III
Actively in pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness
Doing pretty well on all 3 pursuits
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