CLAIM : World’s Coral Reefs Face New Peril From Beneath Within Decades

Posted: February 24, 2018 | Author: Jamie Spry | Filed under: Alarmism, Alarmism Debunked, Alarmist media, Alarmist Predictions, Australia, Carbon Dioxide, Climate Alarmism, Climatism, Coral Bleaching, Fact Check, Government Grants/Funding, Great Barrier Reef, Green Agenda, Ocean Acidification, Pseudo-Science | Tags: Activist Media, Alarmism, carbon dioxide emissions, Climate Change, Climatism, CO2, Coral Bleaching, Corals, environment, Fake News, Global Warming, Great Barrier Reef, IPCC, Ocean Acidification, Oceans, Peter Hannam, pseudoscience, Royal Society, Science and Environment, SMH, The Age | 3 Comments

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WITH a stubborn atmosphere failing to warm as predicted, another climate threat was needed to sustain the Climate Crisis industry and keep lazy reporters supplied with junk science to feed their catastrophic climate narrative. Enter “ocean acidification”!

FROM the onset, the term “ocean acidification” was deceptive by design. Oceans are alkaline. The correct ‘scientific’ term for any pH change toward zero is “less alkaline”. Obviously not the scariest of descriptors to shock the public into belief.

“Ocean Acidification” was first referenced in a peer-reviewed study in Nature in 2003, resulting in an explosion of journal articles, media reports and alarmist publications from environmental orgs. It has since gone viral, endorsed by scientists from numerous alarmist institutions including the Royal Society, the IPCC and NOAA who coined it “climate change’s evil twin” in a 2016 report.

A 2016 paper published in the ICES Journal of Marine Science put the issue of “ocean acidification” under the microscope, and found Scientists exaggerating the carbon dioxide threat to marine life…

Applying organized scepticism to ocean acidification research

“Ocean acidification” (OA), a change in seawater chemistry driven by increased uptake of atmospheric CO₂ by the oceans, has probably been the most-studied single topic in marine science in recent times. The majority of the literature on OA report negative effects of CO₂ on organisms and conclude that OA will be detrimental to marine ecosystems. As is true across all of science, studies that report no effect of OA are typically more difficult to publish.

Excerpts from the paper:

Scientific or academic scepticism calls for critical scrutiny of research outputs before they are accepted as new knowledge (Merton, 1973).Duarte et al. (2014) stated that “…there is a perception that scientific skepticism has been abandoned or relaxed in many areas…” of marine science. They argue that OA is one such area, and conclude that there is, at best, weak evidence to support an OA-driven decline of calcifiers. Below, I raise some of the aspects of OA research to which I contend an insufficient level of organized scepticism has been applied (in some cases, also to the articles in this theme issue). I arrived at that conclusion after reading hundreds of articles on OA (including, to be fair, some that also raise these issues) and overseeing the peer-review process for the very large number of submissions to this themed issue. Importantly, and as Duarte et al. (2014) make clear, a retrospective application of scientific scepticism such as the one that follows could—and should—be applied to any piece of/body of research.

(Climatism bolds)

Applying organized scepticism to ocean acidification research | ICES Journal of Marine Science | Oxford Academic 

From an article in The Times:

An “inherent bias” in scientific journals in favour of more calamitous predictions has excluded research showing that marine creatures are not damaged by ocean acidification, which is caused by the sea absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

It has been dubbed the “evil twin of climate change” and hundreds of studies have claimed to show that it destroys coral reefs and other marine life by making it harder for them to develop shells or skeletons.

The review found that many studies had used flawed methods, subjecting marine creatures to sudden increases in carbon dioxide that would never be experienced in real life.

Dr Browman, who is also principal research scientist at the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research, found there had been huge increase in articles on ocean acidification in recent years, rising from five in 2005 to 600 last year.

He said that a handful of influential scientific journals and lobbying by international organisations had turned ocean acidification into a major issue.

“Such journals tend to publish doom and gloom stories . . . stated without equivocation,” he said. The bias in favour of doom-laden articles was partly the result of pressure on scientists to produce eye-catching work, he added.

“You won’t get a job unless you publish an article that is viewed as of significant importance to society. People often forget that scientists are people and have the same pressures on them and the same kind of human foibles. Some are driven by different things. They want to be prominent.”

(Climatism bolds)

Scientists‘ are exaggerating carbon threat to marine life | The Times

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ENTER climate alarmist in chief – Peter Hannam – Environment Editor at The Sydney Morning Herald / The Age, with his latest doomsday report peppered with the same old regurgitated buzz lines designed to scare you into belief; “tipping points”, “pressure on governments globally to act”, “catastrophic destruction”, “mass bleaching”…

World’s coral reefs face new peril from beneath within decades

New research, published in the journal Science on Friday, has found the sediments on which many reefs are built are 10 times more sensitive to the acidifying oceans than the living corals themselves. Some reef bases are already dissolving.

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“Coral reef sediments around the world will trend towards dissolving when seawater reaches a tipping point in acidity – which is likely to occur well before the end of the century,” he said.

Not loving it enough: coral reefs face multiple threats from climate change, including as it turns out, from below.

At risk will be coral reef ecosystems that support tourism, fisheries and the many other human activities, he said.

The ocean’s acidity has increased about 30 per cent since the start of the industrial revolution, as seas absorb about one-third of the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

“It is vital that we put pressure on governments globally to act in concert to lower carbon dioxide emissions as this is the only way we can stop the oceans acidifying and dissolving our reefs,” Professor Eyre said.

Full article…

World’s coral reefs face new peril from beneath within decades | The Age

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Notwithstanding the evidence owing to the inherent alarmism, exaggeration and journal bias of the OA scare, it might be useful for Hannam to consider this simple explanation of what goes on “beneath” the ocean surface…

Corals evolved during the Cambrian era with CO2 levels at 6,000-7,000 ppm, around 4,000% or 20 times higher than today’s “CO2-starved” environment of 400 ppm. Atmospheric and ocean temps were also far higher than today. Corals are made of Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3) – and could not exist without substantial amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere.

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A sound explanation of the fallacy of ‘Ocean Acidification’ …

via JoanneNova.com.au

Thirdly, you raise the specter of what you bizarrely call ocean “acidification”.

The last time I looked, the oceans were pronouncedly alkaline, and even the mad IPCC says the acid-base balance has been altered by only 0.1 acid/base units in the direction of slightly reduced alkalinity. However, that estimate, like much else in the IPCC’s mad gospels, is entirely guesswork, because there is no sufficiently well-resolved global measurement program for ocean pH. However, elementary theoretical considerations would lead us to expect homoeostasis in the acid/base balance of the oceans because the buffering influence of the rock basins in which they live and move and have their being is overwhelmingly powerful. Acid/base neutrality is at a pH of 7.0. The oceans are at about 7.8-8.2 (no one knows, so that the IPCC’s alleged dealkalinization of 0.1 acid/base units is well within the measurement error, so that we cannot actually be sure that it has occurred at all; and, on the elementary ground I have described, it is unlikely to have done so). Besides, there is about 50 times as much CO₂ already dissolved in the oceans than there is in the atmosphere, so that even if all of the CO₂ in the atmosphere were to make its way into the oceans the pH would scarcely change even in the absence of the overwhelming buffering effect of the rocks. As for calcifying organisms, they are thriving. The calcite corals first achieved algal symbiosis and came into being 550 million years ago (you are too young to remember) during the Cambrian era, when atmospheric CO₂ concentration was 25 times what it is today. The more delicate aragonite corals came into being 175 million years ago, during the Jurassic, when CO₂ concentration was still 15 times today’s. “Ah,” you may say, “but it is the suddenness of the abrupt increase in CO₂ concentration that the fragile corals will not be able to endure.” However, consider the great floods of the Brisbane River (eight of them from 1840-1900 and three of them since). The rainwater that pours into the ocean and meets the Great Barrier Reef is pronouncedly acid, at a pH of 5.4. Yet the corals do not curl up and die. “Ah,” you may say, “but what about the effect of sudden warming on the puir wee corals?” Well, the Great el Nino of 1997/8 gives us the answer to that one. Sudden increases in ocean temperature cause the corals to bleach. There have been two previous Great el Ninos in the past 300 years, and the corals bleached on both those occasions too. It is a natural defense mechanism against natural change. The corals continue to thrive. My brother and his three sport-mad boys dive on the reef every year and, like many others from whom I have heard, find the corals thriving except where the Crown of Thorns infestation has damaged small parts of the reef. Oh, and the Great Barrier Reef Authority, which has been moaning about the effects of rising sea temperatures on the corals, publish a dataset that shows zero increase in sea temperature in the region of the reef throughout the entire period of record. Don’t hold your breath worrying about ocean “acidification”: it can’t happen, even if all the CO₂ in the air goes into the ocean.

Must See Also : Ocean Acidification is a Misnomer | Hawaii Reporter

OA SCIENCE

The Multiple Impacts of “Ocean Acidification” on a Tropical Coral

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Reference
Takahashi, A. and Kurihara, H. 2013. Ocean acidification does not affect the physiology of the tropical coralAcropora digitifera during a 5-week experiment. Coral Reefs 32: 305-314.

Background
The authors write that “according to the IPCC (2007) models, atmospheric CO2 is predicted to rise to 540-970 ppm by the end of this century and reach a maximum of approximately 1,900 ppm when the world’s fossil fuel reserves are fully exploited,” while noting that “a substantial number of laboratory studies have suggested a decline in coral calcification with a rise in seawater pCO2.” However, they say that recentstudies “have postulated that the sensitivity of corals to elevated levels of CO2 is potentially more diverse than previously considered,” citing the works of Fabricius et al. (2011), Pandolfi et al. (2011) and Rodolfo-Metalpa et al. (2011).

What was done
Intrigued by these new and diverse findings, Takahashi and Kurihara measured the rates of calcification, respiration and photosynthesis of the tropical coral Acropora digitifera – along with the coral’s zooxanthellae density – under near-natural summertime temperature and sunlight conditions for a period of five weeks.

What was learned
The two Japanese researchers found that these “key physiological parameters” were not affected by either predicted mid-range CO2 concentrations (pCO2 = 744 ppm, pH = 7.97, Ωarag = 2.6) or by high CO2concentrations (pCO2 = 2,142 ppm, pH = 7.56, Ωarag = 1.1) over the 35-day period of their experiment. In addition, they state that there was “no significant correlation between calcification rate and seawater aragonite saturation (Ωarag)” and “no evidence of CO2 impact on bleaching.”

What it means
Contrary to what many climate alarmists have long contended, there is mounting evidence that suggests that the negative consequences they predict for the world’s marine life in a future high-CO2 world are by no means assured, nor are they likely to be widespread. Keep Reading »

Source: CO2 Science

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TOP footnote by Dellers

In the last decade or so, the climate change industry has become so vast and all encompassing, employing so many people, it simply cannot be allowed to fail.

According to a report last year by Climate Change Business Journal, it’s now worth an astonishing $1.5 trillion — about the same as the online shopping industry. If the scare goes away, then all bets are off, because the entire global decarbonisation business relies on it. The wind parks, the carbon sequestration projects, the solar farms, the biomass plantations — none of these green schemes make any kind of commercial sense unless you buy into the theory that anthropogenic CO2 is catastrophically warming the planet and that radical green measures, enforced by governmental regulation, must be adopted to avert it.

It’s no coincidence that the ocean acidification narrative began in the early 2000s — just as it was beginning to dawn on the climate alarmists that global temperatures weren’t going to plan. While CO2 levels were continuing to rise, temperatures weren’t. Hence the need for a fallback position — an environmental theory which would justify the massively expensive and disruptive ongoing decarbonisation programme so assiduously championed by politicians, scientists, green campaigners and anyone making money out of the renewables business. Ocean acidification fitted the bill perfectly.

Ocean acidification: yet another wobbly pillar of climate alarmism | The Spectator

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SEE also :

• TOP 10 Climate Change Alarmist Myths Unearthed : #3 OCEAN ACIDIFICATION | Climatism

Related :

• Ocean acidification: yet another wobbly pillar of climate alarmism | The Spectator
• Forget the doom: coral reefs will bloom |The Australian
• Corals survived massive Caribbean climate change – likely to do so again | Climatism
• New publication demonstrates that scientists have routinely exaggerated the “evil twin of climate change” aka ocean acidification | Climatism
• The Ocean Is Not Getting Acidified | Watts Up With That?
• Patrick Moore: Ocean ‘Acidification’ Alarmsim in Perspective – JunkScience.com
• THE Great Global Warming “Pause” | Climatism

 

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