Increase in acidity may not be harmful to coral reefs after all

Phys.org http://phys.org/news/2015-11-acidity-coral-reefs.html

November 10, 2015 by Bob Yirka

A combined team of researchers affiliated with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences has found, via a five year study, that increased ocean acidification may not pose the threat to coral reefs that scientists have thought. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team describes their study and why they now believe that an increase in green house gas emissions many not have the devastating impact on coral reefs that most in the field have assumed would occur.

To better understand what might happen with coral reefs if more carbon dioxide makes its way into the oceans due to an increase of the gas in the atmosphere caused by human emissions, the researchers set up monitoring devices along a coral reef offshore from Bermuda—information from the sensors was monitored for five years (2007 to 2012). The team also had access to data from an ocean chemistry monitoring station approximately 80 kilometers from their study site.

The combined data offered a unique perspective on coral activity.
In studying the data, the researchers noticed that spikes of phytoplankton blooms occurred during 2010 and again in 2011—those blooms made their way to the coral reef offering more food than normal for the coral. The coral responded by growing which caused them to pull more alkaline carbonate from the surrounding water, making it more acidic. Eating more also resulted in the corals emitting more carbon dioxide into the water. The result was a big increase in acidity—to levels higher than have been predicted for the future due to human emissions—yet, the coral continued to flourish.

These observations contrast sharply with the prevailing view that an increase in acidity is harmful to coral—leading to death if it goes too far. But the levels seen by the researchers with this new effort suggest that is not the case at all, and therefore muddles theories regarding the impact on the oceans of higher levels of carbon dioxide and warmer temperatures.

Another team with Western Australia noted that the results found by this new team appeared to agree with those of a small study they conducted where they put boxes around some coral and piped in carbon dioxide, to no detrimental effect.

The_observer said:

Increase in acidity may not be harmful to coral reefs after all

Phys.org http://phys.org/news/2015-11-acidity-coral-reefs.html

November 10, 2015 by Bob Yirka

A combined team of researchers affiliated with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences has found, via a five year study, that increased ocean acidification may not pose the threat to coral reefs that scientists have thought. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team describes their study and why they now believe that an increase in green house gas emissions many not have the devastating impact on coral reefs that most in the field have assumed would occur.

To better understand what might happen with coral reefs if more carbon dioxide makes its way into the oceans due to an increase of the gas in the atmosphere caused by human emissions, the researchers set up monitoring devices along a coral reef offshore from Bermuda—information from the sensors was monitored for five years (2007 to 2012). The team also had access to data from an ocean chemistry monitoring station approximately 80 kilometers from their study site.

The combined data offered a unique perspective on coral activity.
In studying the data, the researchers noticed that spikes of phytoplankton blooms occurred during 2010 and again in 2011—those blooms made their way to the coral reef offering more food than normal for the coral. The coral responded by growing which caused them to pull more alkaline carbonate from the surrounding water, making it more acidic. Eating more also resulted in the corals emitting more carbon dioxide into the water. The result was a big increase in acidity—to levels higher than have been predicted for the future due to human emissions—yet, the coral continued to flourish.

These observations contrast sharply with the prevailing view that an increase in acidity is harmful to coral—leading to death if it goes too far. But the levels seen by the researchers with this new effort suggest that is not the case at all, and therefore muddles theories regarding the impact on the oceans of higher levels of carbon dioxide and warmer temperatures.

Another team with Western Australia noted that the results found by this new team appeared to agree with those of a small study they conducted where they put boxes around some coral and piped in carbon dioxide, to no detrimental effect.

Let’s see the history of the climate change denier.
1. It’s not happening.
2. It is happening, but we have nothing to do with it.
3. It is happening, but it is quite natural.
4. It is happening and we have something to do with it, but extra CO2 is good for the environment.
5. It is NOT happening, as we are now heading into a new Ice Age. (claimed only over winter),
6. It IS happening again, but it causes no harm.

There are other experiments concerning higher levels of CO2 and temperatures over several years in enclosed tanks, which prove beyond doubt that these conditions increase algae growth and cause most corals to die.

It may well be possible that many corals will tolerate short-term exposure to higher CO2 levels, but clearly long-term exposure has proved it is harmful in a variety of ways. If on the otherhand they can withstand higher CO2 combined with higher temperatures without ill affect, then that would be excellent, but longer research under these conditions suggest otherwise.

PermeateFree said:

Let’s see the history of the climate change denier.
1. It’s not happening.
2. It is happening, but we have nothing to do with it.
3. It is happening, but it is quite natural.
4. It is happening and we have something to do with it, but extra CO2 is good for the environment.
5. It is NOT happening, as we are now heading into a new Ice Age. (claimed only over winter),
6. It IS happening again, but it causes no harm.

There are other experiments concerning higher levels of CO2 and temperatures over several years in enclosed tanks, which prove beyond doubt that these conditions increase algae growth and cause most corals to die.

It may well be possible that many corals will tolerate short-term exposure to higher CO2 levels, but clearly long-term exposure has proved it is harmful in a variety of ways. If on the otherhand they can withstand higher CO2 combined with higher temperatures without ill affect, then that would be excellent, but longer research under these conditions suggest otherwise.

Oh dear, somebody seems upset with the science.

Let me take the assertions one by one.

starting with your #1 – at this time both the satellite data sets (UAH & RSS) the most accurate temp data there is, show that there has been no trend for around 18 years despite the fact that a third of humans emissions of co2 have been added to the atmosphere during that time.
No trend = no global warming! Or “ It’s not happening”!

2. co2 emissions may have added somewhat to the warming during the 80’s 90s, but it was mostly natural, not outside natural variation parameters, and warming at the begining of the 20th century up to the 1940s cannot be explained by rising co2. Nor can the IPCC’s paleo data showing that the earth has been warming for the last 400 years.

3. Yes, the warming during the 80s to 90s was natural maintaining the status quo for the entire period of the earths history

4. As stated by the australian scientist who recently won the PMs prize (and many others), the increase in co2 has resulted in an increase in global crop production of 15%. It’s also a fact that the globe has become greener & slightly wetter. I’d say that is good for the environment and humanity.

5. As far as heading into an iceage, I simply stated that was the view of a number of scientists who work in the field.

6. no comment, just nonsense.

Let me just state what I do believe based on the data just for you Perm.

the hypothesised positive water vapour feed back, as a ressponse to increasing co2 levels is wrong & has been proven wrong by the data.
The water vapour emission layer has decended, not assended, due to increaded co2. Negative water vapour feedback.
This leaves net feedback in the negative value, not the positive value, which means ECS is far lower than estimated by models & warming from a doubling of co2 will be less than 1 C.

Now

>>> There are other experiments concerning higher levels of CO2 and temperatures over several years in enclosed tanks, which prove beyond doubt that these conditions increase algae growth and cause most corals to die.<<<

A paper by Cornwall and Hurd is a masterful piece of science of a type rarely seen in academia today . It investigated the experimental design of the current crop of papers in a scientific field and evaluated whether or not the study designs and results analyses used were appropriate to return scientifically meaningful results.

This paper was published in International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) – Journal of Marine Science. Here’s the abstract:

“Ocean acidification has been identified as a risk to marine ecosystems, and substantial scientific effort has been expended on investigating its effects, mostly in laboratory manipulation experiments. However, performing these manipulations correctly can be logistically difficult, and correctly designing experiments is complex, in part because of the rigorous requirements for manipulating and monitoring seawater carbonate chemistry.

To assess the use of appropriate experimental design in ocean acidification research, 465 studies published between 1993 and 2014 were surveyed, focusing on the methods used to replicate experimental units. The proportion of studies that had interdependent or non-randomly interspersed treatment replicates, or did not report sufficient methodological details was 95%. Furthermore, 21% of studies did not provide any details of experimental design, 17% of studies otherwise segregated all the replicates for one treatment in one space, 15% of studies replicated CO2 treatments in a way that made replicates more interdependent within treatments than between treatments, and 13% of studies did not report if replicates of all treatments were randomly interspersed. As a consequence, the number of experimental units used per treatment in studies was low (mean = 2.0).

In a comparable analysis, there was a singnificant decrease in the number of published studies that employed inappropriate chemical methods of manipulating seawater (i.e. acid–base only additions) from 21 to 3%, following the release of the “Guide to best practices for ocean acidification research and data reporting” in 2010; however, no such increase in the use of appropriate replication and experimental design was observed after 2010.

We provide guidelines on how to design ocean acidification laboratory experiments that incorporate the rigorous requirements for monitoring and measuring carbonate chemistry with a level of replication that increases the chances of accurate detection of biological responses to ocean acidification. “

So Perm, your assertion is bulldust, according to the science.

And

>>>It may well be possible that many corals will tolerate short-term exposure to higher CO2 levels, but clearly long-term exposure has proved it is harmful in a variety of ways.
<<<

Sorry again Perm. You have nothing to back up that statement & the findings of he paper quoted in the OP refute for beliefs.

>>starting with your #1 – at this time both the satellite data sets (UAH & RSS) the most accurate temp data there is, show that there has been no trend for around 18 years despite the fact that a third of humans emissions of co2 have been added to the atmosphere during that time.
No trend = no global warming! Or “ It’s not happening”!<<

I refer you to a statement in the paper you have presented and of which you support:

>>To better understand what might happen with coral reefs if more carbon dioxide makes its way into the oceans due to an increase of the gas in the atmosphere caused by human emissions,<<

So apparently you agree that greenhouse gases are increasing due to human emissions.

The trouble with you and other deniers is you cherry-pick information and present only part of the story in a deceptive and misleading way, other words you behave like a charlatan.

I have long wondered why you persist in such a dogmatic fashion to muddy and confuse the science of global warming. Are you mad? No I don’t think so. So are you ideologically against the concept of global warming? Possibly, but then you also deny the science by your misrepresentation of it.

What I think is more likely, is you are being paid to muddy the water, which due to the consequences of our non-action and the devastation to life on this planet, is worse than anything that can me imagined. It makes you a Judas of the lowest kind and as you probably don’t give a damn for the opinion of others, it also makes you a psychopath. In other words Observer, you are very, very sick!

PermeateFree said:

>>starting with your #1 – at this time both the satellite data sets (UAH & RSS) the most accurate temp data there is, show that there has been no trend for around 18 years despite the fact that a third of humans emissions of co2 have been added to the atmosphere during that time.
No trend = no global warming! Or “ It’s not happening”!<<

I refer you to a statement in the paper you have presented and of which you support:

>>To better understand what might happen with coral reefs if more carbon dioxide makes its way into the oceans due to an increase of the gas in the atmosphere caused by human emissions,<<

So apparently you agree that greenhouse gases are increasing due to human emissions.

The trouble with you and other deniers is you cherry-pick information and present only part of the story in a deceptive and misleading way, other words you behave like a charlatan.

I have long wondered why you persist in such a dogmatic fashion to muddy and confuse the science of global warming. Are you mad? No I don’t think so. So are you ideologically against the concept of global warming? Possibly, but then you also deny the science by your misrepresentation of it.

What I think is more likely, is you are being paid to muddy the water, which due to the consequences of our non-action and the devastation to life on this planet, is worse than anything that can me imagined. It makes you a Judas of the lowest kind and as you probably don’t give a damn for the opinion of others, it also makes you a psychopath. In other words Observer, you are very, very sick!

really PF you’re pathetic; I have posted science on this thread. Not cherry picked & in no misleading way.

>>>So apparently you agree that greenhouse gases are increasing due to human emissions
<<<

I’ve never stated that they weren’t; another straw man of your’s.

one of your many problems, PF, is, you don’t like science that is presentd when it opposes your faith in catastrophy & you can’t refute it.

This paper was published in International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) – Journal of Marine Science. Here’s the abstract:

“Ocean acidification has been identified as a risk to marine ecosystems, and substantial scientific effort has been expended on investigating its effects, mostly in laboratory manipulation experiments. However, performing these manipulations correctly can be logistically difficult, and correctly designing experiments is complex, in part because of the rigorous requirements for manipulating and monitoring seawater carbonate chemistry.

To assess the use of appropriate experimental design in ocean acidification research, 465 studies published between 1993 and 2014 were surveyed, focusing on the methods used to replicate experimental units. The proportion of studies that had interdependent or non-randomly interspersed treatment replicates, or did not report sufficient methodological details was 95%. Furthermore, 21% of studies did not provide any details of experimental design, 17% of studies otherwise segregated all the replicates for one treatment in one space, 15% of studies replicated CO2 treatments in a way that made replicates more interdependent within treatments than between treatments, and 13% of studies did not report if replicates of all treatments were randomly interspersed. As a consequence, the number of experimental units used per treatment in studies was low (mean = 2.0).

In a comparable analysis, there was a singnificant decrease in the number of published studies that employed inappropriate chemical methods of manipulating seawater (i.e. acid–base only additions) from 21 to 3%, following the release of the “Guide to best practices for ocean acidification research and data reporting” in 2010; however, no such increase in the use of appropriate replication and experimental design was observed after 2010.

We provide guidelines on how to design ocean acidification laboratory experiments that incorporate the rigorous requirements for monitoring and measuring carbonate chemistry with a level of replication that increases the chances of accurate detection of biological responses to ocean acidification. “

——

Yes, a paper looking at problems in experimental design.

The_observer said:

PermeateFree said:

>>starting with your #1 – at this time both the satellite data sets (UAH & RSS) the most accurate temp data there is, show that there has been no trend for around 18 years despite the fact that a third of humans emissions of co2 have been added to the atmosphere during that time.
No trend = no global warming! Or “ It’s not happening”!<<

I refer you to a statement in the paper you have presented and of which you support:

>>To better understand what might happen with coral reefs if more carbon dioxide makes its way into the oceans due to an increase of the gas in the atmosphere caused by human emissions,<<

So apparently you agree that greenhouse gases are increasing due to human emissions.

The trouble with you and other deniers is you cherry-pick information and present only part of the story in a deceptive and misleading way, other words you behave like a charlatan.

I have long wondered why you persist in such a dogmatic fashion to muddy and confuse the science of global warming. Are you mad? No I don’t think so. So are you ideologically against the concept of global warming? Possibly, but then you also deny the science by your misrepresentation of it.

What I think is more likely, is you are being paid to muddy the water, which due to the consequences of our non-action and the devastation to life on this planet, is worse than anything that can me imagined. It makes you a Judas of the lowest kind and as you probably don’t give a damn for the opinion of others, it also makes you a psychopath. In other words Observer, you are very, very sick!

really PF you’re pathetic; I have posted science on this thread. Not cherry picked & in no misleading way.

>>>So apparently you agree that greenhouse gases are increasing due to human emissions
<<<

I’ve never stated that they weren’t; another straw man of your’s.

one of your many problems, PF, is, you don’t like science that is presentd when it opposes your faith in catastrophy & you can’t refute it.

Perhaps if you knew or even listened to the people on the ground, who are actually working on environmental matters and of which climate change is already having an impact, you might learn of what is really happening and how dire the situation is. Something you and the fossil fuel industry doesn’t give a stuff.

PermeateFree said:

Perhaps if you knew or even listened to the people on the ground, who are actually working on environmental matters and of which climate change is already having an impact, you might learn of what is really happening and how dire the situation is. Something you and the fossil fuel industry doesn’t give a stuff.

Yes, I’m listening; here’s what they said -

“The combined data offered a unique perspective on coral activity.
In studying the data, the researchers noticed that spikes of phytoplankton blooms occurred during 2010 and again in 2011—those blooms made their way to the coral reef offering more food than normal for the coral. The coral responded by growing which caused them to pull more alkaline carbonate from the surrounding water, making it more acidic. Eating more also resulted in the corals emitting more carbon dioxide into the water. The result was a big increase in acidity—to levels higher than have been predicted for the future due to human emissions—+yet, the coral continued to flourish.+

:)

It’s always good to have a look at what the researchers publish.

I take it that your phys.org article refers to the Scripps Institute of Oceanography article published on their website in November 2013, Mr Observer? Have you had a look at this article?

ruby said:

It’s always good to have a look at what the researchers publish.

I take it that your phys.org article refers to the Scripps Institute of Oceanography article published on their website in November 2013, Mr Observer? Have you had a look at this article?

Don’t know?

Does it refer by any chance to how CO2 levels were 20 times higher than present for most of the last 500 million years, Mrs Ruby?

The_observer said:

PermeateFree said:

Perhaps if you knew or even listened to the people on the ground, who are actually working on environmental matters and of which climate change is already having an impact, you might learn of what is really happening and how dire the situation is. Something you and the fossil fuel industry doesn’t give a stuff.

Yes, I’m listening; here’s what they said -

“The combined data offered a unique perspective on coral activity.
In studying the data, the researchers noticed that spikes of phytoplankton blooms occurred during 2010 and again in 2011—those blooms made their way to the coral reef offering more food than normal for the coral. The coral responded by growing which caused them to pull more alkaline carbonate from the surrounding water, making it more acidic. Eating more also resulted in the corals emitting more carbon dioxide into the water. The result was a big increase in acidity—to levels higher than have been predicted for the future due to human emissions—+yet, the coral continued to flourish.+

:)

>>In conclusion, coral cover on the GBR is consistently declining, and without intervention, it will likely fall to 5–10% within the next 10 y. Mitigation of global warming and ocean acidification is essential for the future of the GBR. Given that such mitigation is unlikely in the short term, there is a strong case for direct action to reduce COTS populations and further loss of corals. Without intervention, the GBR may lose the biodiversity and ecological integrity for which it was listed as a World Heritage Area. <<

http://www.pnas.org/content/109/44/17995.full

You should try researching Australian Science, rather than what is sent to you by your American collaborators.

PermeateFree said:

The_observer said:

PermeateFree said:

Perhaps if you knew or even listened to the people on the ground, who are actually working on environmental matters and of which climate change is already having an impact, you might learn of what is really happening and how dire the situation is. Something you and the fossil fuel industry doesn’t give a stuff.

Yes, I’m listening; here’s what they said -

“The combined data offered a unique perspective on coral activity.
In studying the data, the researchers noticed that spikes of phytoplankton blooms occurred during 2010 and again in 2011—those blooms made their way to the coral reef offering more food than normal for the coral. The coral responded by growing which caused them to pull more alkaline carbonate from the surrounding water, making it more acidic. Eating more also resulted in the corals emitting more carbon dioxide into the water. The result was a big increase in acidity—to levels higher than have been predicted for the future due to human emissions—+yet, the coral continued to flourish.+

:)

>>In conclusion, coral cover on the GBR is consistently declining, and without intervention, it will likely fall to 5–10% within the next 10 y. Mitigation of global warming and ocean acidification is essential for the future of the GBR. Given that such mitigation is unlikely in the short term, there is a strong case for direct action to reduce COTS populations and further loss of corals. Without intervention, the GBR may lose the biodiversity and ecological integrity for which it was listed as a World Heritage Area. <<

http://www.pnas.org/content/109/44/17995.full

You should try researching Australian Science, rather than what is sent to you by your American collaborators.

look you idiot; the GBR coral decline, as shown in research, has been due to natural factors eg the 98 el nino, caused some areas to bleach. These areas have recovered, as is natural, cyclones and run off of nutrients from shore.

Neither surface warming & especially a lowering of PH has had any effect (other than in suspect modelling)

The_observer said:

PermeateFree said:

The_observer said:

Yes, I’m listening; here’s what they said -

“The combined data offered a unique perspective on coral activity.
In studying the data, the researchers noticed that spikes of phytoplankton blooms occurred during 2010 and again in 2011—those blooms made their way to the coral reef offering more food than normal for the coral. The coral responded by growing which caused them to pull more alkaline carbonate from the surrounding water, making it more acidic. Eating more also resulted in the corals emitting more carbon dioxide into the water. The result was a big increase in acidity—to levels higher than have been predicted for the future due to human emissions—+yet, the coral continued to flourish.+

:)

>>In conclusion, coral cover on the GBR is consistently declining, and without intervention, it will likely fall to 5–10% within the next 10 y. Mitigation of global warming and ocean acidification is essential for the future of the GBR. Given that such mitigation is unlikely in the short term, there is a strong case for direct action to reduce COTS populations and further loss of corals. Without intervention, the GBR may lose the biodiversity and ecological integrity for which it was listed as a World Heritage Area. <<

http://www.pnas.org/content/109/44/17995.full

You should try researching Australian Science, rather than what is sent to you by your American collaborators.

look you idiot; the GBR coral decline, as shown in research, has been due to natural factors eg the 98 el nino, caused some areas to bleach. These areas have recovered, as is natural, cyclones and run off of nutrients from shore.

Neither surface warming & especially a lowering of PH has had any effect (other than in suspect modelling)

Want some more?

>>The main components of the system are 4 × 7,500L custom built air-tight and insulated fibre-glass tanks or sumps, which provide the necessary residence time of the water for the fine control of CO2 and temperature.

The research is simulating preindustrial ocean conditions of -100 ppm CO2 and minus 1°C; a control treatment of current reef CO2 and temperature; the ‘B1’ IPCC scenario of + 220ppm CO2 and +2°C, and an extreme ‘A1FI’ scenario of +640 ppm CO2, +4.5 °C.

“In the eight months the FOCE system has been on the reef flat we have noticed the corals exposed to the higher CO2 levels look quite different. The types of algae are different and the growth rate of the coral appears to have slowed,” Dr Kline said.

“We expect to see similar results from the CCM experiments where reefal organisms respond to the dual influences of acidification and temperature.”<<

https://www.uq.edu.au/news/article/2010/12/conditioning-reefs-future

Something the University of Queensland is working on.

Disturbance and the Dynamics of Coral Cover on the Great Barrier Reef (1995–2009)

Kate Osborne,* Andrew M. Dolman,¤a Scott C. Burgess,¤b and Kerryn A. Johns

Brian Gratwicke, Editor

Abstract

Coral reef ecosystems worldwide are under pressure from chronic and acute stressors that threaten their continued existence. Most obvious among changes to reefs is loss of hard coral cover, but a precise multi-scale estimate of coral cover dynamics for the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is currently lacking. Monitoring data collected annually from fixed sites at 47 reefs across 1300 km of the GBR indicate that overall regional coral cover was stable (averaging 29% and ranging from 23% to 33% cover across years) with no net decline between 1995 and 2009. Subregional trends (10–100 km) in hard coral were diverse with some being very dynamic and others changing little.

Coral cover increased in six subregions and decreased in seven subregions. Persistent decline of corals occurred in one subregion for hard coral and Acroporidae and in four subregions in non-Acroporidae families. Change in Acroporidae accounted for 68% of change in hard coral. Crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci) outbreaks and storm damage were responsible for more coral loss during this period than either bleaching or disease despite two mass bleaching events and an increase in the incidence of coral disease. While the limited data for the GBR prior to the 1980’s suggests that coral cover was higher than in our survey, we found no evidence of consistent, system-wide decline in coral cover since 1995. Instead, fluctuations in coral cover at subregional scales (10–100 km), driven mostly by changes in fast-growing Acroporidae, occurred as a result of localized disturbance events and subsequent recovery.

The_observer said:

Disturbance and the Dynamics of Coral Cover on the Great Barrier Reef (1995–2009)

Kate Osborne,* Andrew M. Dolman,¤a Scott C. Burgess,¤b and Kerryn A. Johns

Brian Gratwicke, Editor

Abstract

Coral reef ecosystems worldwide are under pressure from chronic and acute stressors that threaten their continued existence. Most obvious among changes to reefs is loss of hard coral cover, but a precise multi-scale estimate of coral cover dynamics for the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is currently lacking. Monitoring data collected annually from fixed sites at 47 reefs across 1300 km of the GBR indicate that overall regional coral cover was stable (averaging 29% and ranging from 23% to 33% cover across years) with no net decline between 1995 and 2009. Subregional trends (10–100 km) in hard coral were diverse with some being very dynamic and others changing little.

Coral cover increased in six subregions and decreased in seven subregions. Persistent decline of corals occurred in one subregion for hard coral and Acroporidae and in four subregions in non-Acroporidae families. Change in Acroporidae accounted for 68% of change in hard coral. Crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci) outbreaks and storm damage were responsible for more coral loss during this period than either bleaching or disease despite two mass bleaching events and an increase in the incidence of coral disease. While the limited data for the GBR prior to the 1980’s suggests that coral cover was higher than in our survey, we found no evidence of consistent, system-wide decline in coral cover since 1995. Instead, fluctuations in coral cover at subregional scales (10–100 km), driven mostly by changes in fast-growing Acroporidae, occurred as a result of localized disturbance events and subsequent recovery.

This is an interesting experiment too. And by the way, the environment is highly complex and almost never is its decline related to a SINGLE event, but to several and additional ones just speed its demise.

>>A study led by the Australian Institute for Marine Sciences found that since 1985 the reef has lost more than half its coral cover, with two thirds of that loss occurring since 1998.<<

http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2013/04/15/3730941.htm

PermeateFree said:

Want some more?

>>The main components of the system are 4 × 7,500L custom built air-tight and insulated fibre-glass tanks or sumps, which provide the necessary residence time of the water for the fine control of CO2 and temperature.

The research is simulating preindustrial ocean conditions of -100 ppm CO2 and minus 1°C; a control treatment of current reef CO2 and temperature; the ‘B1’ IPCC scenario of + 220ppm CO2 and +2°C, and an extreme ‘A1FI’ scenario of +640 ppm CO2, +4.5 °C.

“In the eight months the FOCE system has been on the reef flat we have noticed the corals exposed to the higher CO2 levels look quite different. The types of algae are different and the growth rate of the coral appears to have slowed,” Dr Kline said.

“We expect to see similar results from the CCM experiments where reefal organisms respond to the dual influences of acidification and temperature.”<<

https://www.uq.edu.au/news/article/2010/12/conditioning-reefs-future

Something the University of Queensland is working on.

The past decade has seen accelerated attempts to predict what these changes in pH will mean for the oceans’ denizens — in particular, through experiments that place organisms in water tanks that mimic future ocean-chemistry scenarios.

Yet according to a survey published last month by marine scientist Christopher Cornwall, who studies ocean acidification at the University of Western Australia in Crawley, and ecologist Catriona Hurd of the University of Tasmania in Hobart, Australia, most reports of such laboratory experiments either used inappropriate methods or did not report their methods properly.”

want more PF ?

C&H report (at the head of the discussion section):

“This analysis identified that the most laboratory manipulation experiments in ocean acidification research used either an inappropriate experimental design and/or data analysis, or did not report these details effectively. Many studies did not report important methods, such as how treatments were created and the number of replicates of each treatment. The tendency for the use of inappropriate experimental design also undermines our confidence in accurately predicting the effects of ocean acidification on the biological responses of marine organisms.”

The authors maintain nonetheless that even poorly designed studies contain useful information, even if getting at it requires a full re-analysis of reported results. Some experiments however are hopelessly compromised by poor study design.

Having determined the biggest problem to be:

“Confusion regarding what constitutes an experimental unit is evident in ocean acidification research. This is demonstrated by a large proportion of studies that either treated the responses of individuals …. to treatments as experimental units, when multiple individuals were in each tank, or used tank designs where all experimental tanks of one treatment are more interconnected to each other than experimental tanks of other treatments (181 studies total).”

But PF, why are you ignoring the results of the study in the OP???

A study actually in the ocean, not in a fish tank???

I keep a reef tank PF, with real corals. I can tell you the results of my study PF.

The_observer said:

But PF, why are you ignoring the results of the study in the OP???

A study actually in the ocean, not in a fish tank???

I keep a reef tank PF, with real corals. I can tell you the results of my study PF.

Readers might like to see where the Observer is getting much of his information.

https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/

PermeateFree said:

The_observer said:

But PF, why are you ignoring the results of the study in the OP???

A study actually in the ocean, not in a fish tank???

I keep a reef tank PF, with real corals. I can tell you the results of my study PF.

Readers might like to see where the Observer is getting much of his information.

https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/

PF, I have never been to that website in my knowledge, but if I had I would be happy to admit it!

So whats you r point.

I know that when real science is posted here, that you are incensed by because it doesn’t agree with your environmental religeous beliefs, you get most upset, as you have proven in two cases this afternoon.

I bid you goodday cur

The Observer, your opening post did not refer to a study, it had someone’s story about some research from 2013. You might want to have a look at the page on Scripps Institution of Oceanography site about the research on coral from 2013 and get back to us about what it says.

And thanks, without your post I would not have delved into the wealth of information on the Scripps site. Oodles of science there for the reading.

The_observer said:

PermeateFree said:

The_observer said:

But PF, why are you ignoring the results of the study in the OP???

A study actually in the ocean, not in a fish tank???

I keep a reef tank PF, with real corals. I can tell you the results of my study PF.

Readers might like to see where the Observer is getting much of his information.

https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/

PF, I have never been to that website in my knowledge, but if I had I would be happy to admit it!

So whats you r point.

I know that when real science is posted here, that you are incensed by because it doesn’t agree with your environmental religeous beliefs, you get most upset, as you have proven in two cases this afternoon.

I bid you goodday cur

Remarkable that stuff you have posted here at various times are very similar to what is on that site. Perhaps you both get your information from the same non-Real Science source.

Observer, no amount of money could compensate for what you do.

>>Rather than finding slowed growth, such as has been seen with the Great Barrier Reef on the eastern part of the country, the growth in some areas of the southern sections had actually been growing at a faster rate than prior to the start of global warming.

After more thought, the team has come to the conclusion that what they’ve found makes sense. The increased growth rates were found only in the more southern corals where water temperatures are generally cooler than in the north, thus, an increase in temperature would be more conducive to coral growth. But only up to a point. They believe once temperatures reach those of the north, the same slowed growth patterns seen elsewhere will appear.

Interestingly, the team did not sample the ocean water at the sites where the coral samples were taken, and because of that, it’s not known if acidity levels in those areas that saw high growth rates had higher acidity levels or not.<<

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-02-coral-growth-western-australia-warmer.html#jCp

Please read the above in detail as it will give you an better understanding of the wider issues. The above is a related reference in the one you gave.

When it comes to biological growth in water, to misquote a famous advertisement,

Acids ain’t acids.

I noticed this when studying the growth of algae for CSIRO. Carbonic acid (H2CO3) has to be treated separately from all other acids in studying the growth of marine organisms.

When CO2 is dissolved in water, it can exist in one of three states. One of these three states is carbonic acid, a second is a bicarbonate, and the third is essentially just CO2 in water. The three states can be freely interconverted from one to another but this doesn’t happen much, because one or at most two states tend to dominate at any location at any specific time.

Different microorganisms get their dissolved carbon dioxide from different states. Some of them have evolved to get most of their carbon dioxide from carbonic acid. These microorganisms grow fastest in an oceanic environment rich in carbonic acid.

Corals need to grow. For hard corals to grow they need CaCO3 for their skeletons, and the carbon for that has to come from dissolved carbon dioxide in one of the three forms. More atmospheric CO2 means more dissolved CO2 which means faster growth of hard corals because they need this CO2 to grow.

In fact, from my own studies, the concentration of dissolved CO2 is the rate-limiting step in the growth of micro-algae. It’s not iron or phosphorus or dissolved oxygen or temperature or acidity or light intensity that is the rate-limiting step for the growth of most domestic micro-algae, it’s the amount of dissolved CO2.

PermeateFree said:

Let’s see the history of the climate change denier.
1. It’s not happening.
2. It is happening, but we have nothing to do with it.
3. It is happening, but it is quite natural.
4. It is happening and we have something to do with it, but extra CO2 is good for the environment.
5. It is NOT happening, as we are now heading into a new Ice Age. (claimed only over winter),
6. It IS happening again, but it causes no harm.

LOL, compare that with the history of believers in a coming apocalypse.

1. There’s an apocalypse happening very soon.
2. It doesn’t occur.
3. Go back to step 1.

I can only marvel at those who believe in “The rapture”. Their history is as follows:

1. There’s an apocalypse happening very soon.
(It doesn’t occur)
2. The apocalypse happened but everybody missed it.

mollwollfumble said:

PermeateFree said:

Let’s see the history of the climate change denier.
1. It’s not happening.
2. It is happening, but we have nothing to do with it.
3. It is happening, but it is quite natural.
4. It is happening and we have something to do with it, but extra CO2 is good for the environment.
5. It is NOT happening, as we are now heading into a new Ice Age. (claimed only over winter),
6. It IS happening again, but it causes no harm.

LOL, compare that with the history of believers in a coming apocalypse.

1. There’s an apocalypse happening very soon.
2. It doesn’t occur.
3. Go back to step 1.

I can only marvel at those who believe in “The rapture”. Their history is as follows:

1. There’s an apocalypse happening very soon.
(It doesn’t occur)
2. The apocalypse happened but everybody missed it.

For a scientist Moll, you are remarkably ignorant,

mollwollfumble said:

When it comes to biological growth in water, to misquote a famous advertisement,

Acids ain’t acids.

I noticed this when studying the growth of algae for CSIRO. Carbonic acid (H2CO3) has to be treated separately from all other acids in studying the growth of marine organisms.

When CO2 is dissolved in water, it can exist in one of three states. One of these three states is carbonic acid, a second is a bicarbonate, and the third is essentially just CO2 in water. The three states can be freely interconverted from one to another but this doesn’t happen much, because one or at most two states tend to dominate at any location at any specific time.

Different microorganisms get their dissolved carbon dioxide from different states. Some of them have evolved to get most of their carbon dioxide from carbonic acid. These microorganisms grow fastest in an oceanic environment rich in carbonic acid.

Corals need to grow. For hard corals to grow they need CaCO3 for their skeletons, and the carbon for that has to come from dissolved carbon dioxide in one of the three forms. More atmospheric CO2 means more dissolved CO2 which means faster growth of hard corals because they need this CO2 to grow.

In fact, from my own studies, the concentration of dissolved CO2 is the rate-limiting step in the growth of micro-algae. It’s not iron or phosphorus or dissolved oxygen or temperature or acidity or light intensity that is the rate-limiting step for the growth of most domestic micro-algae, it’s the amount of dissolved CO2.

For a scientist, permeate free, I ain’t.

Though I have to admit that my knowledge of environmentalism is limited.

mollwollfumble said:

mollwollfumble said:

When it comes to biological growth in water, to misquote a famous advertisement,

Acids ain’t acids.

I noticed this when studying the growth of algae for CSIRO. Carbonic acid (H2CO3) has to be treated separately from all other acids in studying the growth of marine organisms.

When CO2 is dissolved in water, it can exist in one of three states. One of these three states is carbonic acid, a second is a bicarbonate, and the third is essentially just CO2 in water. The three states can be freely interconverted from one to another but this doesn’t happen much, because one or at most two states tend to dominate at any location at any specific time.

Different microorganisms get their dissolved carbon dioxide from different states. Some of them have evolved to get most of their carbon dioxide from carbonic acid. These microorganisms grow fastest in an oceanic environment rich in carbonic acid.

Corals need to grow. For hard corals to grow they need CaCO3 for their skeletons, and the carbon for that has to come from dissolved carbon dioxide in one of the three forms. More atmospheric CO2 means more dissolved CO2 which means faster growth of hard corals because they need this CO2 to grow.

In fact, from my own studies, the concentration of dissolved CO2 is the rate-limiting step in the growth of micro-algae. It’s not iron or phosphorus or dissolved oxygen or temperature or acidity or light intensity that is the rate-limiting step for the growth of most domestic micro-algae, it’s the amount of dissolved CO2.

For a scientist, permeate free, I ain’t.

Though I have to admit that my knowledge of environmentalism is limited.

You are the only scientist that makes statements about things he knows absolutely nothing about. Of the things you claim to know, you could just look stuff on the internet, rearrange it and call it your own.

ruby said:

The Observer, your opening post did not refer to a study, it had someone’s story about some research from 2013. You might want to have a look at the page on Scripps Institution of Oceanography site about the research on coral from 2013 and get back to us about what it says.

Ruby, perhaps you would like to borrow my glasses? The OP clearly refered to a study, and nowhere in the OP is the year 2013 mentioned.

take another look dear -

From: The_observer
ID: 799816
Subject: Increase in acidity may not be harmful to coral reefs after all
Increase in acidity may not be harmful to coral reefs after all

Phys.org http://phys.org/news/2015-11-acidity-coral-reefs.html

November 10, 2015 by Bob Yirka

A combined team of researchers affiliated with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences has found, via a five year study, that increased ocean acidification may not pose the threat to coral reefs that scientists have thought. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team describes their study and why they now believe that an increase in green house gas emissions many not have the devastating impact on coral reefs that most in the field have assumed would occur.

To better understand what might happen with coral reefs if more carbon dioxide makes its way into the oceans due to an increase of the gas in the atmosphere caused by human emissions, the researchers set up monitoring devices along a coral reef offshore from Bermuda—information from the sensors was monitored for five years (2007 to 2012). The team also had access to data from an ocean chemistry monitoring station approximately 80 kilometers from their study site.

The combined data offered a unique perspective on coral activity.
In studying the data, the researchers noticed that spikes of phytoplankton blooms occurred during 2010 and again in 2011—those blooms made their way to the coral reef offering more food than normal for the coral. The coral responded by growing which caused them to pull more alkaline carbonate from the surrounding water, making it more acidic. Eating more also resulted in the corals emitting more carbon dioxide into the water. The result was a big increase in acidity—+to levels higher than have been predicted for the future due to human emissions+—yet, the coral continued to flourish.

These observations contrast sharply with the prevailing view that an increase in acidity is harmful to coral—leading to death if it goes too far. But the levels seen by the researchers with this new effort suggest that is not the case at all, and therefore muddles theories regarding the impact on the oceans of higher levels of carbon dioxide and warmer temperatures.

Now the study (Shifts in coral reef biogeochemistry and resulting acidification linked to offshore productivity, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2015) is paywalled, but here’s an extract from the abstract that clearly states that the reefs undergo rapid, but natural fluxuations in pH.

“Here, in a 5-y study of the Bermuda coral reef, we show evidence that variations in reef biogeochemical processes drive interannual changes in seawater pH and Ωaragonite that are partly controlled by offshore processes. Rapid acidification events driven by shifts toward increasing net calcification and net heterotrophy were observed during the summers of 2010 and 2011, with the frequency and extent of such events corresponding to increased offshore productivity. These events also coincided with a negative winter North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) index, which historically has been associated with extensive offshore mixing and greater primary productivity at the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) site. Our results reveal that coral reefs undergo natural interannual events of rapid acidification due to shifts in reef biogeochemical processes that may be linked to offshore productivity and ultimately controlled by larger-scale climatic and oceanographic processes.

Now, Ruby, forget fish tank experiments and model forcast & consider real evidence gathered on real reefs; reefs undergo daily extremes of changes in pH which are natural and equal to, if not greater than, any expected change in pH by the year 2100

eg

High-Frequency Dynamics of Ocean pH: A Multi-Ecosystem Comparison
Hofmann et al

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0028983

some extracts from the study

The effect of Ocean Acidification (OA) on marine biota is quasi-predictable at best. While perturbation studies, in the form of incubations under elevated pCO2, reveal sensitivities and responses of individual species, one missing link in the OA story results from a chronic lack of pH data specific to a given species’ natural habitat.

Here, we present a compilation of continuous, high-resolution time series of upper ocean pH, collected using autonomous sensors, over a variety of ecosystems. These observations reveal a continuum of month-long pH variability with standard deviations from 0.004 to 0.277 and ranges spanning 0.024 to 1.430 pH units.

These biome-specific pH signatures disclose current levels of exposure to both high and low dissolved CO2, often demonstrating that resident organisms are already experiencing pH regimes that are not predicted until 2100.

the drive to forecast the effects of anthropogenic ocean acidification (OA) on marine ecosystems and their resident calcifying marine organisms has resulted in a growing body of research. However, the emerging picture of biological consequences of OA – from data gathered largely from laboratory experiments – is not currently matched by equally available environmental data that describe present-day pH exposures or the natural variation in the carbonate system experienced by most marine organisms. Although researchers have documented variability in seawater carbonate chemistry on several occasions in different marine ecosystems, this variation has been under-appreciated in these early stages of OA research.

Specifically, laboratory experiments to test tolerances are often not designed to encompass the actual habitat exposure of the organisms under study, a critical design criterion in organismal physiology that also applies to global change biology

The salient conclusions from this comparative dataset are two-fold: (1) most non-open ocean sites are indeed characterized by natural variation in seawater chemistry that can now be revealed through continuous monitoring by autonomous instrumentation, and (2) in some cases, seawater in these sites reaches extremes in pH, sometimes daily, that are often considered to only occur in open ocean systems well into the future

Now relax Mrs Ruby & enjoy the interglacial.

bump

JudgeMental said:

bump

So?