Tag: ocean

What’s a few tears to the ocean?

coccolith.jpgNew Zealand could be amongst the first places in the world to feel the effects of ocean acidification, according to a new “emerging issues” paper released today by the Royal Society of New Zealand. Surrounded by cold oceans which absorb CO2 faster than warm waters, and with a $300 million shellfish industry based on mussels, oysters, scallops and paua, NZ is vulnerable to disruptions in the carbonate chemistry used by these animals to build their shells, but the risks cannot be quantified at present.

At a briefing to launch the paper, Professor Keith Hunter of the University of Otago pointed to recent work which suggests that for creatures that build their skeletons from a form of calcium carbonate called aragonite, the Southern Ocean could be reaching a critical point as early as the 2030s, as this slide shows:

OAcidRS1.jpg

The magic number is 450 ppm: at that point low pH waters in winter could begin to make it difficult for creatures to build aragonite skeletons or shells. How this might cascade through marine ecosystems is unknown, because the impact on different species can vary through their lifecycle and by season. Some species are also known to be able to adapt. Sydney rock oysters, for example, have been bred to withstand more acid conditions, but it’s not known whether this sort of work would be possible with mussels and other shellfish.

Work on ocean acidification is beginning to provide a valuable and independent line of evidence supporting the need to shoot for stabilisation of atmospheric CO2 at low levels. It may also point to problems with emissions trajectories that are allowed to “overshoot” the desired target: if oceanic CO2 uptake does produce a biologically critical response, exceeding that point might be very bad news for oceanic ecosystems.

The new Royal Society paper gives a very useful overview of what we currently know about ocean acidification and its potential to impact New Zealand ecosystems and marine farming operations. The RS is also organising a workshop in September to discuss the issue.

[Dimmer]

A very public own goal…

Airconcover.jpgIt didn’t take long for my last post to draw a reply from Ian Wishart, and — no surprises — it’s another lengthy diatribe. Unfortunately for Ian, it is also a very public own goal –demonstrating very nicely one of my central contentions: he doesn’t understand the stuff he’s writing about. Here’s the relevant passage (sorry about the lengthy quote, but it takes him a while to get his shot lined up):

…Gareth helpfully directs to a NASA feature on ocean cooling. There’s nothing in it that contradicts my usage of Willis in the book, but what it does say backs up one of my other assertions that Gareth had a problem with in our “anonymous” discussion thread on Tumeke previously about the impact of undersea volcanoes on ocean heat and GHG emissions.

When I pointed out scientists have recently discovered a massive volcanic field under the Arctic that began erupting in a catastrophic, albeit submarine, sense in 1999, Gareth, posting as “Response to Ian”, stated:

“If you are implying that they are influencing Arctic sea ice you are absolutely out in la-la land. The amount of heat released is miniscule compared to the heat capacity of the cold Arctic ocean.”

So if a large volcanic field under a relatively small area of ocean has no impact on warming the water, why does the NASA study on ocean cooling Gareth pointed us to say this:

“They are also exploring how volcanic eruptions influence ocean heating, and whether a better understanding of how volcanoes influence the energy balance of the ocean will help explain short term variability in ocean warming and cooling”

The NASA feature then quoted the CSIRO research team directly:

“One thing we found was that climate models that do not include volcanic forcing tend to overestimate the long term change, and their simulated decadal variability is not in agreement with the observations…this kind of result tells us volcanic forcing is important, but that we don’t totally understand it yet”.

Another example, then, of Trufflehunter shooting from the lip because he isn’t across the latest scientific research. 95% of the world’s active volcanic vents are underwater. I quoted other scientists in the book who thought volcanic and tectonic activity might well be significant in regard to sea levels and thermal expansion, but Gareth’s response was:

“One possibility that Wishart fails to consider is that tectonics and volcanoes weren’t ignored and their effects are trivial.”

Well, Gareth, go back and read the report you referred us to. Apparently other scientists don’t think they’re trivial at all.

And the ball’s in the back of his own net! It’s a mistake that only someone who had no real grasp of the subject could make, and Wishart makes it in a typically aggressive manner. The CSIRO team are (of course) talking about the cooling effects of large, Pinatubo-style volcanic eruptions (you know, the ones that occur above the surface of the sea) as a brief check of their paper would have told him…

Church et al. (2005) show that large volcanic eruptions cool [my emphasis] the global ocean and produce a drop in global sea levels. While this volcanic signal is clear in appropriately forced models and the global tide-gauge record, it is not as clear in the global thermosteric sea level record (the component of sea level change due to the thermal expansion of the ocean and closely related to ocean heat content), and there are several instances where global sea level is rising but steric sea level is falling…

Looks a lot like Ian’s indulging in “half-baked schoolboy science” to me. I believe the internet jargon for this situation is p*wned.

[Update 7/5: Wishart concedes and admits to “winging it”, but then proceeds to enlarge the deep hole he’s already dug for himself. Any readers care to explain for his benefit precisely why undersea volcanism has a trivial impact on oceanic heat budgets? The rest of his post is just wibble.]

Telling porkies to Parliament

NZETS.jpgThe Emissions Trading Scheme Review committee has released the first batch of submissions it has received — those made by organisations and individuals who have already made their presentations to the committee. There are some heavy hitters in there: from New Zealand’s science and policy community there’s the Climate Change Centre (a joint venture between the University of Canterbury and Victoria University of Wellington, plus all the Crown Research Institutes – from NIWA to AgResearch), VUW’s Climate Change Research Institute, and GNS Science, and from the world of commerce, we have the Business Roundtable‘s “evidence”. Why the quote marks? Because the Roundtable’s submission is a fact-free farrago of nonsense.

Continue reading “Telling porkies to Parliament”

Two tribes

Cheatin Heartland On the one hand, in New York, the Heartland Institute‘s climate crank talking shop, where scientists of the immense probity of Richard Lindzen were happy to share a stage with proven fabricators of data like Christopher Monckton, has drawn to a close. Terry Dunleavy, head honcho of NZ’s climate crank coalition has given his presentation, and no doubt Muriel Newman is happy that her NZ Centre for Policy Research sponsorship of the event has been fruitful. The crank blogosphere has loved the attention, and the great communicator himself (step forward Bob Carter) has been positively chortling about the event in his posts at Quadrant Online.

On the other hand, a proper conference, Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions is just getting under way in Copenhagen. Real scientists from all over the world, leaders in their fields, are gathering to present the latest research findings. The objective is to provide a comprehensive update to the findings of the IPCC’s 2007 report, so that policymakers can go into the final phase of negotiations for a post-Kyoto deal with a clear picture of what the science is telling us about the climate system. Conference organiser, Prof Katherine Richardson of the University of Copenhagen provides more background in this interview at Nature Reports: Climate Change.

I’ll be covering news from the conference as it emerges, but the big news from day one: expect sea level rise of at least a metre by the end of the century. BBC coverage here, plus TimesOnline, the Herald reprints an Observer preview, New Scientist, and the conference press release for day one.

Two other interesting stories from day one (which I will return to, at some point): the “tipping point” for complete loss of the Greenland ice sheet may be further off than thought, and a French researcher gave a dire warning about permafrost carbon emissions.

[Frankie]

Goin’ back

FrenchPassVortex.jpg You may have thought I was on holiday, but in reality I was gathering blog-relevant material while eating and drinking too much on a catamaran tootling round D’Urville Island. I took a look at DOC’s new bush regeneration for carbon offsets project in Greville Harbour (from the beach), assessed fish stocks (with a rod and line) marvelling at barracouta chewing blue cod before they could be hauled into the boat, saw a seal tossing an octopus snack, enjoyed the company of Dusky dolphins, and ate rather too much crayfish. I’m a bit late for Seaweek, but given I’ve been on the sea most of the week, it deserves a plug.

Readers may recall I posted about von Karman vortices in clouds last week, and as Jamarh navigated French Pass, I saw another fine example as the tide flowed past the channel marker in the middle of the strait. You can clearly see the vortices forming as whirlpools downstream of the pillar.

And now, after a week without radio, TV or cellphone contact, I have some catching up to do…