CLEARING UP THE CLIMATE DEBATE: Director of the Melbourne Energy Institute and Professor of Geology Mike Sandiford explores the staggering ways we influence the shape of the globe.
Aren’t we too puny to rival the great forces of nature that shape our planet?
Certainly some prominent Australian geologists sceptical of our ability to impact our climate have said as much.
But the facts show that we are fundamentally impacting planet Earth in unprecedented ways, and we’ve known about it for a century.
Measuring our impact
So what are those measures of our geological impact, and how do they compare to the natural energy and material fluxes that shape our planet?
Geologists estimate that on average about 10 billion tonnes of sediment have been moved from mountain to sea each year over geological time by rivers and glaciers.
Since the onset of agriculture, the river sediment flux has increased about threefold, to about 28 billion tonnes each year.
Let’s compare that to our own direct activities.
We mine about seven billion tonnes of coal and 2.3 billion tonnes of iron ore each year. We shift several times as much in overburden to access these resources.
Add to this the construction aggregate (2.5 billion tonnes in the USA alone), limestone for the three billion tonnes of cement made each year and other excavations for our infrastructure, and we are clearly the dominant geological agent shaping the Earth’s surface today.
While many of our excavations are local in scale, they are not always so.
In Australia natural erosion removes about 100 million tonnes of sediment each year. With our annual exports of coal and iron ore now at about 600 million tonnes, we have increased the geological erosion rate of the continent by many factors.
And in an extraordinary demonstration of our geological power, the proposed Olympic Dam open cut development plans to extract about 14 billion tonnes of rock over a 40-year period.
With peak extraction rates of about 400 million tonnes a year, it would excavate enough rock over its life to cover metropolitan Melbourne four metres deep.
That’s a lot of rock, even by geological standards.
Frustrated fliers in the eastern states will know that volcanoes vent a lot of gas and particulate matter from the interior of the Earth. Over geological time, that material is returned to the Earth through natural mineralization, but we know that it can and does impact climate.
So how do we compare?
Our best estimates place human industrial emissions of sulfur dioxide and CO₂ at five and 100 times natural volcanic emissions, respectively.
A geological litmus test
The geochemical fingerprints of human activity are everywhere.
Since the industrial revolution the added CO₂ now dissolved in the oceans has increased acidity by 25%. And it is changing the geological processes operating at the sea floor.
We can see traces of the lead we have mined from Broken Hill in modern sediments all around the globe – a geochemical fingerprint of Homo sapiens to be preserved for time immemorial, like the iridium anomaly that marked the end of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
We even make earthquakes.
The largest earthquake in Victoria in the last 30 years was the magnitude five Thomson Dam quake, induced as a direct consequence of the filling of the Thomson dam.
Induced quakes are a common occurrence when we first fill large dams, with the largest record being a magnitude six quake in India.
Anyone who has seen film of a volcano erupt or those horrific scenes of devastation from the recent Japanese earthquake and tsunami can intuitively appreciate the immense energy involved in the natural processes that shape our planet as it vents heat stored deep within its interior.
The rate heat is released from the earth – a measure of its natural “metabolic rate” – is well understood. It’s about 44 trillion watts, and reflects the average rate of energy transferred in moving all the continents, making all the mountains, the earthquakes and the volcanoes on our planet in a process we call plate tectonics.
By way of contrast, the International Energy Agency estimates our human “energy system” operates at a rate of some 16 trillion watts.
So we are already operating at one-third the rate of plate tectonics, and with our energy use doubling every 34 years we are on course to surpass plate tectonics by about 2060.
Climate scientists talk about the climate sensitivity in terms of a “radiative forcing” – an obscure term that accounts for the rate of heat energy gain or loss due to a change in a climate parameter.
The radiative forcing of a doubling of CO₂ is about 1300 trillion watts – or 28 times the energy released by plate tectonics.
And we are well on the way to doubling CO₂. In the past hundred years we have added almost 40%, and warming that can only plausibly be attributed to a greenhouse effect is not only heating the atmosphere, but is also pumping heat into the oceans and the crust at a phenomenal rate.
When my students measure the temperature in boreholes across Australia they invariably see that almost as much heat is now going into the upper 30-50 metres of the Earth’s crust as is trying to get out – a result entirely consistent with the surface temperature rises measured by climate scientists.
Recent measurements suggest the oceans have been heating at 300 trillion watts over the last few decades.
The scale of our energy use is truly mind-boggling. In fact, the sheer size of these numbers makes it difficult for most people to grasp and comprehend their significance; few of us have any useful reference frame for comparison.
A new measure of energy use
To put these numbers into a more human context we need a a new measure for our energy use. The “Hiro” is one. It is the equivalent to the energy released by detonating one Hiroshima “Little Boy” bomb every second. One Hiro equals 60 trillion watts.
In these terms, our human energy system operates at a rate of 0.25 Hiros, or one Hiroshima bomb every four seconds. That is the equivalent of more than eight million Hiroshima bombs going off each year.
And we are on a trajectory towards the one Hiro mark by 2100, equivalent to the energy release of one bomb each year for every five-square kilometre patch of land on the planet.
The ocean heating is at 5 Hiros over the last few decades – the energy equivalent of detonating more than a 150 million Hiroshima bombs in our oceans each year.
And the radiative forcing of the CO2 we have already put in the atmosphere in the last century is a staggering 13 Hiros. The equivalent in energy terms to almost half a billion Hiroshima bombs each year.
The world’s human population has grown so much and so fast – trebling in one century and still rising by more than 70 million a year – that it’s perhaps not surprising that the vast scale of our geological impact is yet to sink in.
But it should not be a surprise because the realisation is not new.
Undercover geological agents
“Most interesting of all, perhaps, is the question whether man, by his prodigious combustion of coal … is producing more [carbon dioxide] than can be eliminated by ordinary natural processes. If this production is excessive, the result eventually may be an unwelcome change in his atmospheric surroundings."
One can imagine our shock jocks rolling their eyes at this quote, proclaiming yet more “warmist” propaganda as part of an organised climate science “swindle” hell bent on undermining the modern industrial world, or securing more government largesse.
But it only sounds like it might have been written in recent times because I have altered the wording to fit the modern context.
In reality, the author did not use “carbon dioxide”. Rather he used “carbonic acid”, a term in vogue generations ago, and a dead giveaway as to its ancestry.
And I bet our shock jocks would never guess it originates from one of the most celebrated geologists of his time.
The quote is from Arthur Woodward, “keeper of geology in the British Museum”, Fellow of the Royal Society, President of the Royal Linnean society.
Woodward’s comments appeared as preface to a classic geological text by Robert Sherlock – “Man as a geological agent” – published in 1923.
Intriguingly, Woodward’s quote followed with the suggestion that, “Man … may be approaching a stage when he should pause to consider whether his use and alteration of the crust of the earth itself are for future as well as for present advantage.”
Though he didn’t use the term, Woodward was probing the implication of man’s potential to “geo-engineer” the planet, almost 90 years ago.
An old story retold
Why was a really famous geologist writing this when human population was just one third, and CO₂ emissions from burning fossil fuel just 10%, of today’s rates?
For one thing Woodward was aware of the work of another giant of science – the Swedish chemist and Nobel Laureate Svante Arrhenius whose name is still part of the everyday chemistry vernacular.
Arrhenius demonstrated the greenhouse effect of CO₂ in 1896 estimating that a doubling of atmospheric CO₂ would lead to a temperature rise of 5-6°C. A few years later he settled on a 1.6°C warming, not far off the current consensus of 2-4.5°C.
The scientific basis for the CO₂ greenhouse effect was established over 100 years ago, before Einstein and relativity, before the Curies and radioactivity, and before Fleming and antibiotics, not to mention DNA, quantum mechanics and plate tectonics.
In fact it precedes just about everything we think of as modern science, not to mention Leninism.
In his 1923 book, Sherlock commented “Man’s work is … as worthy of a place in geological text-books as are the actions of the sea or the rivers".
The dawning of a new geological era
It would be no surprise to Sherlock or Woodward that the international geological community is now considering inaugurating a new geological epoch – named the Anthropocene – in recognition of the geological impact of our own species.
While climate sceptics are surely not alone in having a sense of disbelief in the immense scale of human activity, these figures speak for themselves.
We are indeed a geological agent of unprecedented power.
Faced with that stark reality now, it would be folly at best to maintain the fiction that we are too puny to impact the planet – at worst, it is just plain reckless.
Whether we like it or not, for better or for worse, we are already engineering our planet.
This is the fourth part of our series Clearing up the Climate Debate. To read the other instalments, follow the links below:
Part One: Climate change is real: an open letter from the scientific community.
Part Two: The greenhouse effect is real: here’s why.
Part Three: Speaking science to climate policy.
Part Five: Who’s your expert? The difference between peer review and rhetoric
Part Six: Climate change denial and the abuse of peer review
Part Seven: When scientists take to the streets it’s time to listen up
Part Eight: Australia’s contribution matters: why we can’t ignore our climate responsibilities
Part Nine: A journey into the weird and wacky world of climate change denial
Part Eleven: Rogues or respectable? How climate change sceptics spread doubt and denial
Part Twelve: Bob Carter’s climate counter-consensus is an alternate reality
Part Thirteen: The false, the confused and the mendacious: how the media gets it wrong on climate change
Join the conversation
Comments (42)
Andrew Glikson
(Earth and paleo-climate scientist at Australian National University)
Response to Cotton
1. Cotton writes: "If you can show me that this author is erroneous in his assumptions then I stand corrected, but I would still like to see the data plot you were unable to show here - perhaps a link to such?"
Reply: The plot of tropospheric and stratosphric temperature trends is Figure 2 at: http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2010/05/effects-of-co2-on-climate .
Figure 2: Observed surface and upper-air temperature anomalies (°C). (A) Lower stratosphere T4, (B) Troposphere…
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John Brookes
(logged in via Facebook)
Thanks Mike, I had no idea that our impact on the planet was so large.
Here's another one if you want some fun with skeptics. Ask them what the most common bird in the world is. Pigeon, seagull, crow, swallow?
No, its the chicken.
John C
(logged in via email @gmail.com)
Andrew - thanks. John
Douglas Cotton
(B.Sc.(Physics), B.A.(Econ), Dip.Bus.Admin)
1. Please refer to the section "Comparison of Global Data Sets" at http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/GW_Part2_GlobalTempMeasure.htm and note that, whilst some increase is seen at first, there is none between 2002 and 2010. Surely with increasing CO2 one would expect some increase then? What will you say if it actually goes down soon? I was referring to an apparent lack of temperature rise in the free troposphere in the SH. Of course I know the CO2 levels rose - so why not the temperature…
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Justin Peter
(Dr)
Thanks Prof. Sandiford. Some handy numbers to remember when I have my next robust discussion with a denier.
On Cotton re upper tropospheric warming: wrong, another myth being peddled! Straight out of the Monckton textbook and relayed by the likes of Nova and the Bolta. The real fingerprint of GHG-induced warming is, in fact, cooling of the stratosphere. This has been well documented. See Thompson and Solomon, Journal of Climate, 2005.
Also, upper tropospheric warming has been observed (via proxy through thermal wind measurements). See, Allen and Sherwood, Nature, 2008.
Andrew Glikson
(Earth and paleo-climate scientist at Australian National University)
Excellent article.
Unnconsciously agricultural civilization has already modified terrestrial climate through the release of CO2 since about 6000 BP and methane since about 4000 BP, according to Kutzbach et al. 2010* by as much as ~2.7 degrees C, stabilizing the Holocene.
However, the current rise in radiative forcing due to release of greenhouse gases since approximately 1750 is proceeding at a rate of ~2 ppm/year , a rate higher than any unrecorded in geological history, excepting global volcanic…
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John C
(logged in via email @gmail.com)
The Hansen reference is ... ?
Byron Smith
(PhD candidate in Christian Ethics at University of Edinburgh)
Thank you, Professor Sandiford. An excellent article making a very important point not widely known or understood. It sounds quite humble and pious in certain circles to say "it is arrogant to think that puny humans can change a whole planet". It is arrogant to ignore what is going on under our noses, especially when those who will suffer most (and are already suffering) as a result are those with least political influence: the global poor, the young and unborn, and other species.
Douglas Cotton
(B.Sc.(Physics), B.A.(Econ), Dip.Bus.Admin)
There is no doubt the points you make about human influence on the environment are of major concern. The increased acidity of the oceans due to carbon dioxide is well established and, in itself, possibly another reason for attempting to reduce fossil fuel consumption. But what are we to do? We cannot have much effect on population growth, and economic issues will continue to drive the decisions made in most countries, especially in the developing world. In the long run it comes down to how governments…
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Justin Peter
(Dr)
Wrong, another myth being peddled! Straight out of the Monckton textbook and relayed by the likes of Nova and the Bolta. The real fingerprint of GHG-induced warming is, in fact, cooling of the stratosphere. This has been well documented. See Thompson and Solomon, Journal of Climate, 2005.
Also, upper tropospheric warming has been observed (via proxy through thermal wind measurements). See, Allen and Sherwood, Nature, 2008.
Justin Peter
(Dr)
Forgot to say, thanks Prof. Sandiford. Some handy numbers to remember when I have my next robust discussion with a denier.
James Szabadics
Technical Development and R&D Manager, Plantation Timber Industry (logged in via email @technologist.com)
Stratospheric cooling is due partly to significant variations in incident UV from the sun with solar cycle progression.
Oxygen absorbs UV more strongly than nitrogen and over a wider range of wavelenths in the ultraviolet. Oxygen molecules are broken into oxygen atoms in the highest regions of the atmosphere. Hence there is heating of the uppermost atmosphere (fast moving atoms of nitrogen and oxygen). For some distance above and below 80 kilometers there is little absorption of solar UV energy…
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Sean Lamb
(logged in via Facebook)
I would have thought the simplest explanation for stratosphere cooling was the decrease in the levels of ozone.
Good luck with your debates with "deniers". If I judge the increasing levels of coal, gas and oil extraction, CO2 levels are going to be rising for a long time yet. Lets hope the temperature does also.
Andrew Glikson
(Earth and paleo-climate scientist at Australian National University)
Cotton writes "I suggest that many scientists have been perhaps unaware that accurate satellite and balloon measurements in the free troposphere have shown no upward trend - something which should have been observed were the greenhouse theory valid"
Not true.
Mid to upper troposphere tempratures have risen by more than +0.5 degrees C between 1960-2007 and stratosphere tempratures have declined by more than -1.2 degrees C during the same period (I would have enclosed the relevant data plot had it…
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James Szabadics
Technical Development and R&D Manager, Plantation Timber Industry (logged in via email @technologist.com)
Latest mid troposphere satellite timeseries here: Trend is 0.087K / decade or 0.87K per century.
ftp://ftp.ssmi.com/msu/graphics/tmt/plots/rss_ts_channel_tmt_global_land_and_sea_v03_3.png
The latest lower troposhere satellite trend is is 0.143 K/decade or 1.43 K per century
ftp://ftp.ssmi.com/msu/graphics/tlt/plots/rss_ts_channel_tlt_global_land_and_sea_v03_3.png
Latest Upper troposphere trend from Satellites is 0.001K per decade or 0.01K per century
ftp://ftp.ssmi.com/msu/graphics/tts/plots/rss_ts_channel_tts_global_land_and_sea_v03_3.png
Upper troposphere is hardly warming at all - 0.001K per decade is probably as close to zero trend as you can get.
Douglas Cotton
(B.Sc.(Physics), B.A.(Econ), Dip.Bus.Admin)
The three extracts below warrant careful scutiny because this IS ground-breaking stuff. But firstly, let me point out we have a problem for GH exponents in that the mean temperature at sea surface was slightly lower in the 12 months ending yesterday than in the 12 months ending 31 Dec 2003.
See http://earth-climate.com/2003-2011.jpg
This levelling out (actually a decline below the long-term trend) is in keeping with the 62 year cycle which peaked in 2002. So I suggest for a start that this information…
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Douglas Cotton
(B.Sc.(Physics), B.A.(Econ), Dip.Bus.Admin)
The information and graph I have referred to at http://earth-climate.com comes from pp 80 ff of the linked article http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Reference_Docs/satanic5.pdf and, in particular, I would draw your attention to the effect of the El Nino - I quote: "The slight warming trend in Northern Hemisphere and global MSU temperature is purely driven by the heat of the 1998 El Nin˜o working its way out to space. Take that year away and there is no trend." Note that the graph I used on my site…
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James Szabadics
Technical Development and R&D Manager, Plantation Timber Industry (logged in via email @technologist.com)
Aqueous acids have a pH of less than 7, where an acid of lower pH is typically stronger, and turn blue litmus paper red. Chemicals or substances having the property of an acid are said to be acidic
The ocean has a pH > 7 therefore cannot be said to be acidic. It would be better scientific terminology to talk about the pH decreasing, the ocean is becoming less basic. It wont be acidic or acidified until its pH < 7. At the calimed rate of change the oceans will become acidic in several centuries…
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Andrew Glikson
(Earth and paleo-climate scientist at Australian National University)
Use the term "lowered pH".
Despite warming of the ocoeans upper layer, pH has decreased by ~0.1 during 1750-1994, as in the IPCC-AR4 2007 http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch5s5-4-2-3.html
"5.4.2.3 Ocean Acidification by Carbon Dioxide <>The uptake of anthropogenic carbon by the ocean changes the chemical equilibrium of the ocean. Dissolved CO2 forms a weak acid.[1] As CO2 increases, pH decreases, that is, the ocean becomes more acidic. Ocean pH can be computed from measurements…
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Bart Verheggen
(logged in via Twitter)
The term "geo-engineering" does not apply here, as it refers to both
Geo: planetary scale
Engineering: Intentional intervention/"making".
I.e. an unintentional side effect of our actions is not engineering, and the current climate changes as an unintended side effect of fossil fuel and biomass burning are therefore not geoengineering.
Andrew Glikson
(Earth and paleo-climate scientist at Australian National University)
OK, the term "anthropogenic geoengineering" can be used (whether conscious or unconscious)
Andrew Glikson
(Earth and paleo-climate scientist at Australian National University)
The scientific method depends critically on:
1. The peer-reviewed literature, vetted by authorities in respective fields of science.
2. Direct observations and databases communicated by major science organizations and by the peer reviewed literature.
3. The basic laws of physics and chemistry
It appears practicing climate scientists and those who attempt to deny the critical evidence live in separate universes - the former in the peer reviewed literature, the latter in internet and media pieces…
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Douglas Cotton
(B.Sc.(Physics), B.A.(Econ), Dip.Bus.Admin)
Andrew:
1. If you read what I'm actually talking about at http://earth-climate.com (updated and added to today) I was referring to the accurate mid and upper troposphere measurements made by satellites in the last 30 years or so - and I was referring to the Southern Hemisphere where temperature rises appear to have been less than in the NH. I doubt that such measurements in 1880 were very reliable.
2. Much longer cycles than 11 years are involved - see http://www.fpcbloomington.org/earthstewards/essays/co2andtemperature.pdf
3. I didn't say temperatures weren't high since 2002. I was referring to the albeit short-term trend since then. (We have passed a maximum in the 60 to 62 year cycle which was in 2002.)
4. Your response does not address the issue of incorrect analysis of trends by the IPCC - see the final graph and related text on my site.
Peter Sawyer
human (logged in via email @fastmail.fm)
You almost had me almost interested up to:
"Since the industrial revolution the added CO₂ now dissolved in the oceans has increased acidity by 25%"
So now we are even "increasing the acidity" of an alkaline.
"We'll all be rooned" said Hanrahan.
Either that, or fail Chemistry 101.
Scott Van
Mr (logged in via email @hotmail.com)
That's what I first thought, salt is alkaline. But it is possible for the ocean to lose its pH and there is a the term for it : "ocean acidification"; there are many sites that explain this term and there is a detailed explanation on Wikipedia.
This reminds me of eating fish and chips. When it's a bit too salty I'd squeeze some lemon onto it.
John Brookes
(logged in via Facebook)
OK Peter Sawyer the chemist, lets make you happier and say that the pH of the oceans is decreasing. There. Is that better?
Peter Sawyer
human (logged in via email @fastmail.fm)
John Brookes
So a weaker alkaline is an "acid".
I take it you went to the same school of alchemy as Scott Van above?
You people never heard of the basic organic formula:
ACID + BASE = SALT + WATER.
No I suppose not. Why let a bit of basic science get in the way of a good story.
Did you bring your "Plan B" Brookes?
No, I didn't think so.
Tristan Croll
(logged in via Facebook)
Pete - ACID + BASE --> SALT + WATER is what you learn in your very first chemistry lesson. In the *second* lesson, however, you learn that the reality is a bit more complicated. When a weak acid dissolves in water it partially dissociates:
WEAK ACID WEAK BASE + H+
Meanwhile, any other weak acids/bases that are present are constantly associating and dissociating according to the same formula. According to Le Chatelier's principle (a chemical equilibrium will always shift to minimise any…
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Tristan Croll
(logged in via Facebook)
Oops - html FAIL. That should be:
WEAK ACID <----> WEAK BASE + H+
Peter Sawyer
human (logged in via email @fastmail.fm)
" . . . . and no, the 'salt' in the ocean is not what makes it alkaline - in fact it doesn't affect the pH at all . . ."
Perhaps you'd like to enlighten me as to where I said anything remotely like that. Salt (and water) is the RESULT of what happens when you add an acid to an alkaline is what I said.
So much for for strawman arguments. Now back to chemistry:
In our THIRD chemistry lesson we learn that when CO2 dissolves in water it CAN (and does) form the "weak" acid you describe as the basis…
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Tristan Croll
(logged in via Facebook)
Oooh, so near and yet so far. You're missing a key bit in your understanding of carbon dioxide dissolution.
CO2 + H2O <----> H2CO3
H2CO3 <----> HCO3- + H+
HCO3- <----> CO3(2-) + H+
Plus H+. At the pH of the ocean, that last equilibrium (between solid carbonate and soluble bicarbonate) is the dominant one. So every molecule of CO2 that dissolves leads to the liberation of one-and-a-bit hydrogen ions - in other words, an increase in acidity.
You don't seem to realise it, but you're suffering from a very strong case of the arrogance of ignorance (aka the Dunning-Kruger effect). You *think* you know better than the scientists that study this for a living, but what you "know" is flat-out wrong. It's my honest hope that you'll learn enough so that one day you'll look back and realise just how much you've embarrassed yourself here.
Peter Sawyer
human (logged in via email @fastmail.fm)
"HCO3- CO3(2-) + H+"
and that of course is why the oceans are acidic and not alkaline.
Is that right Tristan?
I most certainly don't "think" I know better than "the scientists that study for this for a living".
However, given the number of peer-reviewed papers out there rebutting the "acidification of the oceans" meme, written by actual chemists rather than post-modern "climate scientists", I "think" I express matters far more honestly than many of the people here.
The fact of the matter…
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Tristan Croll
(logged in via Facebook)
"However, given the number of peer-reviewed papers out there rebutting the "acidification of the oceans" meme, written by actual chemists..."
Link to one.
Thuong Nguyen
(logged in via email @gmail.com)
Hi Peter, think Tristan was referring to my comment about salt water not you.
I don't remember much about chemistry which I did in year 11 many years ago although I did very well on the subject.
I am really confused with both the pro and con arguments.
In simplistic term I imagine that if the ocean has been taking in so much of the CO2 its volume would be inflating. While when you talk about Henry's law and I agree that there is so only much the liquid can absorb air at given temperature and pressure…
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Peter Sawyer
human (logged in via email @fastmail.fm)
Hi Thuong
An awful lot cover in one post, so I'll stick with the main points:
The oceans are vast melting pots of chemicals and chemical processes.
Then on top of that there are all the living organisms you refer to.
For now let's just stick to the straight chemical processes.
The amount of CO2 that can be dissolved in the ocean is almost entirely dependent on the temperature of the ocean and NOT to any great degree on the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, assuming the atmosphere remains at a constant…
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Richard Nota
Mr (logged in via email @iinet.net.au)
The comment by Peter Sawyer and the responses it elicited exemplifies the obfuscation that can be generated by in the mind of the public by limited knowledge.
To all intents and purposes a decrease in alkalinity is indeed an increase in acidity.
Peter Sawyer
human (logged in via email @fastmail.fm)
Just maybe, if we were talking about sticking Litmus paper in various test-tubes of different substances.
However, we are talking about MIXING two things: an acid and an alkaline.
That leads to a chemical reaction, namely the production of a salt plus water.
There is neither a "decrease" in alkalinity, nor an "increase" in acidity. There are two whole new products created, and this chemical process continues until either the supply of acid or the supply of alkaline is exhausted.
There is a DECREASE in both the amount of the acid and the amount of the alkaline as BOTH are converted to the production of the salt plus water.
Since dissolving CO2 in seawater actually produces vastly more of the alkaline HCO3 than it does the acid H2CO3, there's no danger of alkaline to react with acid running out any time soon.
Richard Nota
Mr (logged in via email @iinet.net.au)
Context is important. Alkaline is commonly used to mean base. To all intents and purposes a decrease in basicity is indeed an increase in acidity (i.e. a decrease in pH). No ifs, buts or maybes.
If you are going to argue details explain yourself properly. Your explanation is not balanced. HCO3 is an ion. HCO3- is more accurate in the context. H2CO3 is neutral. You are missing the positive ion. H2CO3 dissociates into H+ and HCO3- in water making it an acidic. Where does the 'vast amount of additional HCO3 come from?
Where is your empirical evidence to be found?
I will take my advice from an expert thank you. You are obfuscating.
John C
(logged in via email @gmail.com)
Mike.
Nice one. Thank you. I wish that all good climate scientists were not shrinking violets (unlike you). I mean, in the face of the barrage being directed at the science, it is time for all good scientists to stand up, communicate, and defend, not just the reputation of science ... , but also for the future of our earth.
I include in that comment, the Australian Academy of Sciences, which seems not to really do very much that is effective, in the public arena. (seemingly much less than the US National Academies).
John
Richard Nota
Mr (logged in via email @iinet.net.au)
I also look at it from another angle. It is easy to see that humans and much life can tolerate a few degrees change in temperature. However, when viewed on the absolute temperature scale (degrees Kelvin) those few degrees become relatively small compared to the ranges in which we live. Looking at it this way helps illustrate the sensitivity of the ecosystem and reinforce the significance of scale of the numbers in the article.
Josh Larsen
(University of New South Wales)
Hi Mike, great article
Just wondering where you get the 100 million tonnes of erosion for Australia from? It's a good number to keep in mind but just curious as to the source.
roger mcevilly
manager (logged in via email @hotmail.com)
A couple of points:
Erosion:
The 'geological erosion rate' of the continent is not increasing because of mining. Even though this is not what you may have meant, it is not what you said. Holes in the ground are sometimes infilled, used for rubbish disposal, infilled as lakes, or left untouched, at which point they do not continue to erode. They remain as holes. This is not the same as natural erosion.
Moreover, a larger proportion of the suspended material in rivers does not make it to the…
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