tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post8491495137760136565..comments2024-03-18T03:27:18.777-04:00Comments on Rabett Run: A cornucopia of chocolateEliRabetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07957002964638398767noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-59652873842001110132009-03-31T02:32:00.000-04:002009-03-31T02:32:00.000-04:00Thanks for the nice post.Thanks for the nice post.Rajuhttp://www.rayhosting.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-30610103558282481102008-03-09T21:33:00.000-04:002008-03-09T21:33:00.000-04:00By the way, does it seem to you that these folks h...By the way, does it seem to you that these folks have invented a whole new form of debate?<BR/><BR/>Aside from the familiar strawman (no brain) argument, I'm seeing a lot of the tinman (no heart) argument.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-79098199557745744472008-03-08T10:28:00.000-05:002008-03-08T10:28:00.000-05:00Thanks for focusing on this issue, Eli.Thanks for focusing on this issue, Eli.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-46302369795368254192008-03-07T16:14:00.000-05:002008-03-07T16:14:00.000-05:00Gareth- no, historical fencing is not Irish.Gareth- no, historical fencing is not Irish.guthriehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17992984293423290387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-69148107741441715352008-03-07T02:38:00.000-05:002008-03-07T02:38:00.000-05:00While the human body is far from a perfect analogy...While the human body is far from a perfect analogy for the oceans, I think it's worth pointing out that seemingly very small changes in the pH of your blood can have huge impacts on your health. The normal pH of human blood is 7.4, and anything below 7.35 of above 7.45 will begin to cause problems (yes, even though 7.35 is still "alkaline," the technical term is "blood acidosis"). A blood pH below 6.8 or above 7.8 could result in death. <BR/><BR/>Like I said, this analogy's imperfect, but I'm going to run with it anyway. It's interesting to consider that the pH of both the <A HREF="http://realclimate.org/index.php?p=169" REL="nofollow">oceans</A> and your <A HREF="http://www.chemistry.wustl.edu/~courses/genchem/Tutorials/Buffers/carbonic.htm" REL="nofollow">blood</A> is maintained by carbonate (and/or bicarbonate) buffers that keep the system from getting too far out of whack. The problem for the oceans is that the pH compensating mechanism involves slowing the rate of limestone deposition, which takes thousands of years, and we're adding CO2 over hundreds of years, so the "buffer" is overwhelmed. <BR/><BR/>The body has two handy ways of regulating pH when its buffers aren't enough to do the job: by shuffling off extra H+ ions into the urine, or by removing more CO2 via the lungs (one of the reasons that you breathe more rapidly when you exercise is to remove excess CO2 from your blood). If the oceans had lungs of kidneys, carbonate-dependent organisms would be able to survive the sudden injection of acid that we've given them, but in spite of whatever Gaia-like wishful thinking we might invoke, the oceans have proven sadly deficient in the respiratory and renal departments, which is really too bad. Perhaps we'd be making CO2 reductions a higher priority if the oceans were able to piss that extra acidity back onto the land.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-56279734717796670512008-03-07T02:26:00.000-05:002008-03-07T02:26:00.000-05:00guthrie: Historical fencing? Isn't that beyond the...guthrie: Historical fencing? Isn't that beyond the pale?Garethhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01344889228458095563noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-23710121025412143062008-03-06T23:17:00.000-05:002008-03-06T23:17:00.000-05:00Brian, I don;t think so. For attribution (if you ...Brian, I don;t think so. For attribution (if you want to look at the pCO2), isotope studies would be best. Singer just makes no sense, it is just a red herring.EliRabetthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07957002964638398767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-30562840450215722282008-03-06T23:14:00.000-05:002008-03-06T23:14:00.000-05:00EliRabett2003 then the usual sign followed by yaho...EliRabett2003 then the usual sign followed by yahoo.com. This message will self destruct in a day or so Mr. Phipps.EliRabetthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07957002964638398767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-74278140422808431442008-03-06T15:58:00.000-05:002008-03-06T15:58:00.000-05:00"Measurement of atmospheric mixing ratios, decline..."Measurement of atmospheric mixing ratios, decline of O2 mixing ratios, pCO2 in the ocean, and the isotopic carbon composition and other stuff tells us about the source of CO2 increases. Ocean acidity is a RESULT of increasing atmospheric CO2 mixing ratios. So, dear mice, why did old S. Fred slip that irrelevancy in Eli asks..."<BR/><BR/>Ethon could answer that, but if the bird's away, try an Annan:<BR/><BR/>"... is essentially posing the question as initially one of detection - can we show that the AGW has had an effect, and that the observations are not just the result of climate variability? - before moving on to attribution - how much of a change can we describe as being due to this particular cause?<BR/><BR/>There is, however, an entirely different but equally valid approach that could also be used from the outset, which is: what is our estimate of the magnitude of the effect? The critical distinction is that the null hypothesis has no particularly priviledged position in this approach.<BR/><BR/>....But by placing the null hypothesis in a priviledged position from which it can only be dislodged by a mountain of observational evidence, this approach provides a strong inbuilt bias for the status quo which cannot be justified on any rational decision-theoretic grounds."<BR/><BR/>http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2006/02/detection-attribution-and-estimation.html<BR/><BR/>Off topic, but could the Rabett send me an email? I've been trying to get through.Brianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09301230860904555513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-36879542476333511282008-03-06T15:02:00.000-05:002008-03-06T15:02:00.000-05:00Fingernails across a blackboard. Matt Nisbet has i...Fingernails across a blackboard. Matt Nisbet has it right when he compares this effort by the Heartland Institute to the Discovery Institute's's ongoing effort to rebrand the non-science of creationism to the more science-y sounding intelligent design. I'm reluctant to even engage in discussion about the particulars in the "NIPCC" report, aka the Skeptics Greatest Hits. What's amazing is the silly arguments about ocean pCO2 and pH in the report are actually seem mild compared to the truly inane discussion in the report about changes in ocean heat content.Simon Donnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01844831377442275615noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-12891430679170869542008-03-05T20:42:00.000-05:002008-03-05T20:42:00.000-05:00If it were a male milk chocolate gun, no. OTOH it...If it were a male milk chocolate gun, no. OTOH it would be quite messy.EliRabetthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07957002964638398767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-32456175008289685762008-03-05T18:21:00.000-05:002008-03-05T18:21:00.000-05:00I mentioned chocolate as a riff on the Chocolate t...I mentioned chocolate as a riff on the Chocolate teapot idea, probably because I spent the weekend in Leeds at a historical fencing conference, where I did some fencing and also got to handle a bronze sword and a medieval poleaxe. So imagine someone pulls a chocolate gun on you. You'll be scared, right?guthriehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17992984293423290387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-72149811656781697452008-03-05T12:20:00.000-05:002008-03-05T12:20:00.000-05:00Here is another post I did on this topichttp://chr...Here is another post I did on this topic<BR/><BR/>http://chriscolose.wordpress.com/2007/12/22/corals-in-peril/<BR/><BR/>Increasing H3O^+ obviously does raise the acidity, as the anonymous poster mentioned...the slight change in pH can have a remarkable effect on the change in Hydrogen ion concentration. You can also express that as 10^(- pH) = [H30^+] where [] denotes concentration. This is rather basic chemistry and should not be in question. More importantly, is the narrow range of tolerance that a lot of marine biomass has to relatively large changes in pH (the small numbers may not be impressive, but I suppose neither is 1 degree over 100 years). What's more, is that the pH changes very fast after additional CO2 interacts with water, but could take millennia to come back to the original levels.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-70239331403655497632008-03-05T12:10:00.000-05:002008-03-05T12:10:00.000-05:00Prof. Rabett,Not sure how chocolates relate to cor...Prof. Rabett,<BR/><BR/>Not sure how chocolates relate to corals... But since the innards of, say, M&M's are similar to the innards of corals, then I can clearly see why they both oughta wear coats! And as your bunnies are gathering chocolate eggs this spring, I'm sure they'll only gather the ones with a coating -- candy or otherwise...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-89032122767125177762008-03-05T11:58:00.000-05:002008-03-05T11:58:00.000-05:00Flavius ColliumIf your remark was meant towards th...Flavius Collium<BR/><BR/>If your remark was meant towards this little Welsh mouse, then yes I know what "He (Arthur)" said.<BR/><BR/>My comment was in answer to "Anonymous 3:36 AM", which I should perhaps have made clear (though I thought it was from the content) not to Arthur.<BR/><BR/>If your comment was not meant for me, then no matter as this message will self-destruct in 5 seconds . . . . <B>POOOOF!</B> :-)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-88994349329141791392008-03-05T10:37:00.000-05:002008-03-05T10:37:00.000-05:00He (Arthur) actually said increasing H+ ions *is* ...He (Arthur) actually said increasing H+ ions *is* increasing acidity. :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-28247931384753641402008-03-05T10:13:00.000-05:002008-03-05T10:13:00.000-05:00I was waiting for such a comment. It has been rais...I was waiting for such a comment. It has been raised a few times before. I have a very slight sympathy with it on a practical level (see the "proviso" below). However, in common parlance, even among (electro)chemists, the two terms increasing acidity/decreasing alkalinity are synonymous. Moving toward the acid regime/moving out of the alkaline range are similarly synonymous, or however else you may wish to phrase it, is an exercise in semantics. It is, or should be, a non-issue. <BR/><BR/>On your "Increasing H+ ions is not increasing acidity" comment, this is not true, which may be appreciated simply by looking at the theoretical definition for pH:<BR/><BR/> pH = -log[H^{+}]<BR/><BR/>or perhaps more properly:<BR/><BR/> pH = -log[H_{3}O^{+}]<BR/><BR/>i.e. pH is defined in terms of acidity.<BR/><BR/>Now (and here comes the proviso), the glass electrodes and meter used to monitor pH (properly calibrated against known-pH solutions close to the range of pH you are interested in measuring, and at the temperature you will be doing the measuring) nominally measure [H^{+}] up to pH 7, i.e. they really are pH sensors measuring [H^{+}]. Above pH 7, however, they do actually become pOH sensors, measuring [OH^{-}], since it is proven (IIRC) that it is the build up of OH^{-} rather than specifically a reduction in H^{+} that leads to the change in PD that is output to the meter and read as pH.<BR/><BR/>But to recap: it is, or should be, a non-issue.<BR/><BR/><I>Cymraeg llygoden</I>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-19421137657994101182008-03-05T09:15:00.000-05:002008-03-05T09:15:00.000-05:00Cooling from a hot temperature is still cooling. T...Cooling from a hot temperature is still cooling. This is no different.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-52662913270404176182008-03-05T09:05:00.000-05:002008-03-05T09:05:00.000-05:00Increasing H+ ions is the chemical definition of i...Increasing H+ ions is the chemical definition of increasing acidity. Should scientific terms be modified for public discourse? That would be yet another avenue for attack. The issue of logic is obviously not one of great concern to the "disinformers".Arthurhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06249922708053689717noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-83366520214853196872008-03-05T06:36:00.000-05:002008-03-05T06:36:00.000-05:00Why not use the phrase "reducing alkalinity" rathe...Why not use the phrase "reducing alkalinity" rather than "acidification"? If sea creatures need a pH of at least 8.1 then any lowering should be prevented if possible, but calling a reduction in pH that will never take the level below 7 "acidification" is not logical. Anything above 7 is not acid - so the sea is not becoming more acidic. Increasing H+ ions is not increasing acidity, just reducing alkalinity - until you get below 7 there is no acidity. <BR/><BR/>The shells need an alkaline environment - so why not say it? Calling the risk to coral "acidification" is giving sceptics an easy target to attack.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-70376467617760382232008-03-05T02:48:00.000-05:002008-03-05T02:48:00.000-05:00And it's not just corals threatened by acidificati...And it's not just corals threatened by acidification. Many other shell-forming sea creatures will be adversely affected. Also squid, ISTR.<BR/><BR/><I>it still remains slightly alkaline</I><BR/><BR/>ROFL! So it's OK if I piss in your vinegar, because it will remain slightly acidic?Nick Barneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00057838251997644583noreply@blogger.com