Blegging re human ability to taste the change in ocean acidity
Ocean acidification has changed pH from about 8.2 to 8.1, so far.
My question - can we taste the difference? Might be an interesting factoid that we've altered the oceans so much that we can taste the difference, so imagine the effect on creatures whose biochemistry is dependent on that system.
I can't find the answer - anyone care to enlighten me? Please comment.
Reading around about acid manipulation in wine-making suggests this level of pH change is detectable to taste, but I'm not certain, and that's also starting at a very different level of acidity.
Posts
642 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 601 – 642 of 642Anon-101a here:
"can you imagine a few days back it was all about the change gfrom 8.2- 8.1"
Yes, then finding that nobody bought your ideas that this wasn't ocean acidification, or that becoming more acid was wrong, you then jumped shark big time.
An average roll of a six sided dice is 3.5.
Even though the numbers can go from 1 to 6.
Yet you find this fact elsewhere so extremely interesting because you're so extremely stupid.
Anon-101a here:
"it was all about the change gfrom 8.2- 8.1"
And now it's all about a change of 0.2 being catastrophic, as you quoted but ignored from the EPA paper you're so "happy" about: "(but not varying more than 0.2 units outside of the normally occurring range).”
Funny how you've changed from thinking a change from 8.2 to 7.0 (a difference of 1.2) is unimportant to being pleased finding out that a change of 0.2 is untenable!
So we have been told that the seas have gone from 8.2- 8.1 and any lower will be dangerous.
Can you show me any documents/papers where the seas have gone 0.2 units below an acidic PH OF 6.5 and it has become "UNTENABLE" after all the EPA regulations state a ph of 6.5 in the area of GUAM where there is coral.
or do you think that the Ph in the are of Guam is at 8.1.
If it is at 8.1 then could you tell me how long it will take for the seas to reach a ph of 6.5 in this area.
or can you tell me what the normally occurring PH range is in the area of Guam
Anon-101a here:
"So we have been told that the seas have gone from 8.2- 8.1 and any lower will be dangerous."
Yup.
Just like your body temperature vary slightly around 98F, but if it goes over 105F it's dangerous.
Can you show me that it has no effect when the average pH of the Ocean drops from 8.2 to 8.1?
Anon-101a here:
Can you tell me what the average pH of the ocean is and how much it's varied over the last 10,000 years?
It's far more relevant than the pH of Guam's ocean to the GLOBAL phenomenon of species extinction.
so you use the blood temp which you give an absolute temp for 98f and you quoted a ph of 8.2.8.1 and anything beyond that is dangerous
but the EPA have quoted a range of between 6 -9.
Anon-101a here:
"so you use the blood temp"
Nope, body temp.
"which you give an absolute temp for 98f and you quoted a ph of 8.2.8.1 and anything beyond that is dangerous"
Yes.
analogy
əˈnalədʒi/
noun
noun: analogy; plural noun: analogies
1.
a comparison between one thing and another, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification.
Lets see if you managed enough education to know what that word means.
Anon-101a here:
but the EPA have quoted a range of 0.2
Anon-101a here:
Water varies naturally in salinity from 0% salt to 35% salt.
Put a freshwater fish in seawater, far from fresh, dick, and expect it to survive.
Anon-101a here:
The sea is called "dead" because its high salinity prevents macroscopic aquatic organisms, such as fish and aquatic plants, from living in it, though minuscule quantities of bacteria and microbial fungi are present.
In times of flood, the salt content of the Dead Sea can drop from its usual 35% to 30% or lower. The Dead Sea temporarily comes to life in the wake of rainy winters.
===
If the dead sea has some marine animals in it when it's 35% salt, why is it that it doesn't have the massive amount of sealife that less saline seas have?
After all, to the morons Willard and Dick here, if marine life can manage 35% saline, then marine life will not be affected if the entire sea is rendered as salty!
Of course, they're morons, and don't want to consider the idiocy of their position, so they "won't understand" this either.
"but the EPA have quoted a range of 0.2"
what a range of 0.2 outside a ph of 6?
so do you think the seas are at a ph of 6 in the areas where the EPA specify the range to be between 6-9.
Anon-101a here:
"what a range of 0.2 outside a ph of 6?"
No, a range of 0.2.
You quoted the EPA, you can't UN-quote it.
richard - the EPA sets limits; this is public policy. These are in turn fashioned by the vagaries of politics as much as the known science.
What the EPA says vis a vis Guam is:
Guam: “For open ocean waters where the depth is substantially greater than the euphotic zone, the pH should not be changed more than 0.2 units from the naturally occurring variation, or in any case outside the range of 6.5 to 8.5.”
There is nothing in this statement that tells us the value of the actual background pH. We can assume it is *somewhere* between 6.5 and 8.5, but that's all we can assume. Even this assumption is only valid "For open ocean waters where the depth is substantially greater than the euphotic zone." If you need to know the specifics of the naturally occurring pH you'll need to read some scientific papers on the subject.
You are confusing relative and absolute limits and at the same time forgetting that the EPA is not publishing a scientific paper, they are setting public policy as determined and approved by *politicians* -- granted scientists will have some input, but they can also be ignored (in part or in total). Because they must be responsive to the public and politicians EPA guidelines are rarely a true reflection of the best science available. The fact you seem not to have considered this is .... in line with our expectations of your thought processes.
Richard.
Were you dropped on your head at birth?
"wow I am sorry it goes lower,
Virginia: pH range is 6.0-9.0 for Open Ocean and Estuarine waters (Class I and II)."
Hang on - according to you the oceans' pH cannot fall below 7. So what's going on here?
Could it be that the bureaucratically-determined ranges are context dependent, and that they don't apply to all parts of the ocean at all times? Do you in fact know how pH changes across space and time in the oceans? Do you understand to what long-term ranges of pH - and most importantly, to what means of pH - particular species and ecosystems are adapted?
Here's a challenge for you. Go to you local aquarium supplier, buy two tanks and heaters and filtration and lighting equipment, some comparable pieces of Acropra, a CO2 injection system, and a pH meter. Set the two tanks up with Acropora in seawater, measure the pH in each, and initiate the CO2 injection system into one so that the pH drops to about 6.6 (it's actually difficult to get it below this using CO2...). Observe what happens to the Acropra over time, and report your results.
Of course, you'll probably bleat about how you can't be bothered to do this, so you could always consider the results of a similar study.
The other thing that you're missing in all of your fatuous cherry picking and confabulation is that stressors on species are synergistic - pulse exersions to the limit of a species' range have a very different manifestation when they become ongoing pressures, and it is over non-instantaneous time scales that other stresses and insults exacerbate the ability of an organism to survive. Temperature increase, pollution (chemical and physical), and over-extraction are all severe assaults to the functioning of marine ecosystems.
Richard, you really need to buy a clue. And a functioning mind in which to harbour it...
...pulse excersions...
"...excursions..."
Sheesh.
Anon-101a here:
" "but the EPA have quoted a range of 0.2"
what a range of 0.2 outside a ph of 6?"
No, you quoted it, you should know it, and it WASN'T what you just said.
Instead of making up what the EPA report means, how about working it out?
Anon-101a here:
""Virginia: pH range is 6.0-9.0 for Open Ocean and Estuarine waters (Class I and II)."
Hang on - according to you the oceans' pH cannot fall below 7. So what's going on here?"
Good catch.
Dick has, however, gleefully leaped on anything that says something other than 8.2 to 8.1 is a problem, and doesn't have the brainpower to keep track of all the bullshit he spouts and therefore many, many times has managed to countermand his own claims here.
This, predictably, is another one.
""Virginia: pH range is 6.0-9.0 for Open Ocean and Estuarine waters (Class I and II)."
Hang on - according to you the oceans' pH cannot fall below 7. So what's going on here?"
DO you mean that I have proved Caldeira and the guy from NOAA wrong!!!!
another feather in my cap after giving John Vernons paper a kicking
Now lets see what the Canadians allow for marine life,
http://lacnotredame.org/water_quality_guidelines.pdf
oooh a neutral ph of 7 to Alkaline Ph 8.7
anon,
do you meant the EPA are wrong about the the pH or I am wrong , i just printed what they printed,
Now then Caldeira quoted the EPA and also said the seas will never become acidic and here is the EPA with guidelines from Acidic to Alkaline,
wow what is going on !!!
who is wrong, Caldeira who quoted the EPA
or the EPA.
so there we have it,
the EPA quoting a ph of between 6-9
the Canadians saying Marine life is fine between 7-8
and even with a doubling of Co2 we are not going to get down to these lower ph levels,
if you are using the ph level of 8.1 as a starting point.
Anon-101a here:
"DO you mean that I have proved Caldeira and the guy from NOAA wrong!!!!"
No, but you wish to misunderstand the English language because comprehension is devastating to you.
Anon-101a here:
"if you are using the ph level of 8.1 as a starting point."
Why not?
Does an average have no meaning to you?
I realise it's maths and you can't manage that, but it does actually have meaning. Just one beyond your grasp.
Anon-101a here:
"so there we have it"
Yes, you don't understand anything.
A very pessimistic report on the Great Barrier Reef is now out: Lights Out for the Reef. Written by Dr Selina Ward for the World Wildlife Foundation - Australia.
Richard.
Can you explain why you maintain that corals can tolerate pH down to 6.0 or lower, when there is a link on this very page that demonstrates otherwise?
Is this a cognitive scotoma, or just a run-of-the-mill symptom of intellectual feebleness?
Of course, if you actually do believe your own guff you should be able to present experimental evidence that not only demonstrates that all species will survive long-term at pH 6.0, but that the Anthony et al paper's results are wrong. After all, you wouldn't just be taking it on faith, would you?
And please give references - we want to know...
oh it is so exciting,
New paper finds no effect of "acidification" on plankton from CO2 levels 8 times higher than today
A paper published today in Biogeosciences finds that prior claims about the effects of ocean "acidification" on calcifying plankton are highly exaggerated because the artificial laboratory conditions utilized do not correctly simulate the effects in natural seawater. The authors find exposure of the plankton to "acidification" from elevated CO2 concentrations of up to 3247 ppm [over 8 times higher than the present] had no effect on the life cycle (population density, growth and reproduction) of calcifying plankton when natural buffering sediment was present in the experiment
Probably best if you all read this,
from DR. JOHN T. EVERETT
who worked for NOAA for 31 years.
http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=db302137-13f6-40cc-8968-3c9aac133b16
if you cannot be bothered to read the report here is part of the conclusion.
“There is no reliable observational evidence of negative trends that can be traced definitively to
lowered pH of the water. If there were, it would be suspect because there is insignificant change
relative to past climates of the Earth. Scientific studies, and papers reviewing science studies,
have similar messages. Papers that herald findings that show negative impacts need to be
dismissed if they used acids rather than CO2 to reduce alkalinity, if they simulated CO2 values
beyond triple those of today, while not reporting results at concentrations of half, present, double
and triple, or as pointed out in several studies, they did not investigate adaptations over many
generations. If there are reports of increases in ocean acidification in a region, the likely causes
are upwelling, pollution, and rainfall (or runoff) and these all need to be addressed”
this just endorses what Everett says,
the majority of tests done in the lab used nitric acid or sulphuric acid without a buffering system to prove their point, it was junk science.
New paper finds no effect of "acidification" on plankton from CO2 levels 8 times higher than today
A paper published today in Biogeosciences finds that prior claims about the effects of ocean "acidification" on calcifying plankton are highly exaggerated because the artificial laboratory conditions utilized do not correctly simulate the effects in natural seawater. The authors find exposure of the plankton to "acidification" from elevated CO2 concentrations of up to 3247 ppm [over 8 times higher than the present] had no effect on the life cycle (population density, growth and reproduction) of calcifying plankton when natural buffering sediment was present in the experiment
you can reach what ever results you want,
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2011.02583.x/abstract
Acclimation to ocean acidification during long-term CO2 exposure in the cold-water coral Lophelia pertusa
"this just endorses what Everett says"
Odin on a stick.
You didn't actually read the links, and especially the series extending on from the third one, did you?
"you can reach what ever results you want"
Indeed.
For example, you're missing much of the material in Form and Riebesell 2011 - either through incompentence in the subject area or through deliberate mendacity - that supports the effect that acidification has on marine calcifers, and you are cherry picking results from that paper that have not been demonstrated to be robust over space or time.
You're also missing the fact that more recent publications from Form (for example this one) clearly show that he does not dispute the effect of acidification on calcifers.
You are covering yourself in glorious humiliation Richard, but I suspect that you don't realise it.
I think that your diploma from that Most Excellent School is running out of puff...
[Recpatcha says "school nearoorr"...]
you are cherry picking results from that paper that have not been demonstrated to be robust over space or time.
dont be silly Bernard, all the papers up to now are debunked if they have used sulphuric or nitric acid or not used a buffering system in the lab experiments or used a long term experiment-
"Here, we present results from the first long-term CO2 perturbation study on the dominant reef-building cold-water coral Lophelia pertusa and relate them to results from a short-term study to compare the effect of exposure time on the coral's responses.......
"the majority of tests done in the lab used nitric acid or sulphuric acid without a buffering system to prove their point, it was junk science."
The ignorance shown by that statement is appalling. A system with carbonate, bicarbonate, carbonic acid IS a buffer, and adding strong acid to a buffer results in ... a buffer!
Rib Smokin' bunny
Richard.
You are in a world of trouble with your insistence that the Form and Riebesell (2011) paper supports your claim that ocean acidification does not harm calcifers.
For a start, their model species - Lophelia pertusa - is a cold-adapted, deepwater species. If you had half a clue about marine chemistry you’d know that pH decreases with pressure – in other words, L. pertusa is already adapted to growing in an environment much closer to the aragonite saturation point. Can you see the problem with using this species to promote your notion?
Further, Form and Riebesell themselves note that other workers (for example Wood et al 2008) indicate that calcification under high pCO2 can occur at the expense of other physiological/metabolic processes necessary for survival. This likely indicates a stress response where an organism enhances the husbanding of a threatened resource in the face of a stressor that compromises it. Given that Form and Riebesell only ran their mesocosms for 6 months (hardly a long-term experiment in any real sense, especially in a system operating at only 7°C where metabolic sequelæ can take a long time to manifest) it is quite possible that this is what they were observing. Had they continued the experiment for several years, and had they exposed their L. pertusa to the other, routine stresses of a natural environment, their results might have been rather different.
In addition, Johnson et al 2014 (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0087678) demonstrated that variability in environmental parameters can provide otherwise-stressed organisms with the opportunity to grow were they don’t under consistent stress, and as anyone who has keep marine aquaria or maintained mesocosms (I’ve done so professionally) can tell you it can be decidedly tricky to ensure that everything is always on the button. I’d be very curious to see Form’s and Riebesell’s work repeated under stringent monitoring conditions, with proof that their CO2 injections didn’t take a break on occasion or that other parameters didn’t have excursions into areas that result in a chance to capture some carbonate.
And on top of that Form and Riebesell themselves demonstrated a short-term depression of growth in response to increased CO2. This in itself indicates a stress response, and must be kept in mind in spite of any potential secondary stress compensation response and on top of the fact that this is an organism better adapted than most calcifers to lving on the aragonite saturation edge. Keep in mind also that cold water is more oxygen-rich, so the confounding effect of hypoxia/anoxia is much less (and likely absent) in this model than it is for most calcifer contexts.
On the matter of your resistance to accepting the corpus of pH studies, have you actually looked at them in detail? There are many that use CO2 aeration to simulate ocean acidification, and they produce the same indications of harm that others do. And regardless of these studies, are you aware of the relative changes in ion species where an acid such as HCl, say, is used to lower pH? If so, would you care to include a specific accounting for these relative changes when you make your un-evidenced pronouncement that “all the papers up to now are debunked” if they don’t use CO2 as a pH adjuster?
Curious readers would like to know the answers to these questions, and the other questions languishing.
Richard.
I'm guessing that with all the intervening reading time you are by now an expert in ocean pH (including carbonate compensation points) so I'm guessing that your quietness stems from a long spell of AFK.
I do hope that you return soon though, because I am intensely curious to know of the progress of your rebuttal to the paper with this Supplementary Information.
I'm sure that I needn't point you to the statements that particularly require your astounding chemistry acumen.
And Richard, I note that you haven't addressed my point in the penultimate paragraph of my post from two weeks ago.
If you can explain where you're experiencing your difficulty in answering the rest of us would be delighted to tutor you...
Aw, come on Richard, you've had another two weeks now to figure out - and communicate to this thread - how your understanding of Form and Riebesell (2011) overturns everything that chemistry and ecophysiology know about ocean pH.
Why so shy?
Post a Comment