Hyperia | Credit Wikimedia
Despite the fuss about CO2 emissions, on a global scale no one is quite sure where a lot of it ends up. Those mystery “sinks” draw in a large proportion of CO2. Here’s a big sink that just got twice as big.
Science Daily Mar. 17, 2013 — Models of carbon dioxide in the world’s oceans need to be revised, according to new work by UC Irvine and other scientists published online Sunday in Nature Geoscience. Trillions of plankton near the surface of warm waters are far more carbon-rich than has long been thought, they found. Global marine temperature fluctuations could mean that tiny Prochlorococcus and other microbes digest double the carbon previously calculated.
The trouble started when someone made an assumption.
In making their findings, the researchers have upended a decades-old core principle of marine science known as the Redfield ratio, named for famed oceanographer Alfred Redfield. He concluded in 1934 that from the top of the world’s oceans to their cool, dark depths, both plankton and the materials they excrete contain the same ratio (106:16:1) of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus.
But as any gardener who has done a soil test knows, amounts of those elements can vary widely. The new study’s authors found dramatically different ratios at a variety of marine locations. What matters more than depth, they concluded, is latitude. In particular, the researchers detected far higher levels of carbon in warm, nutrient-starved areas (195:28:1) near the equator than in cold, nutrient-rich polar zones (78:13:1).
“The Redfield concept remains a central tenet in ocean biology and chemistry. However, we clearly show that the nutrient content ratio in plankton is not constant and thus reject this longstanding central theory for ocean science,” said lead author Adam Martiny, associate professor of Earth system science and ecology & evolutionary biology at UC Irvine. “Instead, we show that plankton follow a strong latitudinal pattern.”
A we farming plankton next? Will we get carbon credits?
World Plankton prevalence | Wikimedia
POST NOTE (late addition):
The point here is that there is a $176 billion dollar annual turnover in a market that depends on carbon accounting models which don’t even have the basic big numbers right. Then there is an assumption that human emitted CO2 will raise global CO2 levels. What if our small extra emissions are mostly swallowed up by plankton (and other as yet unknown sinks). What if CO2 levels are controlled by temperature, not by your SUV?
This is about the folly of thinking we know what is going on.
———————————————————–
REFERENCES
Adam C. Martiny, Chau T. A. Pham, Francois W. Primeau, Jasper A. Vrugt, J. Keith Moore, Simon A. Levin, Michael W. Lomas. Strong latitudinal patterns in the elemental ratios of marine plankton and organic matter. Nature Geoscience, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1757
Image Credit : Wikimedia | Wikipedia: Plankton
1. Changes in pH will not be as drastic or as long-lived as modelled.
2. Changes in pH as measured at Mauna Loa or any other tropical desert (which is why the waters are so clear!) do not represent the pH of oceanic waters elsewhere, and will not be lower that the global average.
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1. You made this conclusion up. The report does not say that the uptake of CO2 by the ocean has changed because of this new finding.
2. I agree that ph levels will not be even, colder water absorbs more carbon than warmer water. Your point? Preferably backed by evidence.
How pathetic. Really Nova you should know better!
We know CO2 levels are higher today than in hundreds of thousands of years, if not millions.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090618143950.htm
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/lawdome.gif
Nowhere in the report does it suggest that the plankton has or will reduce the atmospheric content anymore than currently occurs. Was your purpose only to raise doubt?
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The report clearly shows that even if cold waters absorb more CO2, the content of carbon there is much lower, as cold waters are reach in nutrient: “In particular, the researchers detected far higher levels of carbon in warm, nutrient-starved areas (195:28:1) near the equator than in cold, nutrient-rich polar zones (78:13:1).”
One must be very anti-science to deny the conclusions. Interesting to see, all the labels that CAGW-warmistas try to project on the “deniers” are actually projections of their own twisted thinking. Denying reality, being anti-science, conspiracy theorists (big-oil funded denier movement) and so on. But I digress.
“We know CO2 levels are higher today than in hundreds of thousands of years, if not millions.”
We assume this, based on some data, and excluding some other data. We do produce lots of CO2, it may be that the content now is higher then before, but we do not know for sure and how much. It is certainly less then in the majority of the past (let’s say 97% of Earth history – as this is a warmista number :)). But this is a separate subject and shouldn’t be discussed here being O/T.
Interesting from the link you posted you obviously omitted to read: “This study tells us that CO2 was not the main trigger,” Clearly selective reading as per warmista kosher rule, and you focus only on the caveat: “though our data continues to suggest that greenhouse gases and global climate are intimately linked.” which does not specify how the link is(!).
Coming back to Jo’s point, the report clearly shows that cold waters get depleted of carbon and we do not understand the numbers yet, and suggest we make approximations higher then all our CO2 output.
Interesting that lawdome results show only CO2 below 340 ppm when at the time of the extraction we already had 350 ppm in the atmosphere. Also lawdome has a decrease in CO2 in the 1940’s which cannot be seen there:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/lawdome.html
“Etheridge et al. (1996) determined the sealing depth at DE08 to be 72 m where the age of the ice is 40±1 years;” – which cuts off such variances as we have chemically measured in the 30’s.
Greenland ice-cores have a much better resolution for small variations year to year but are not used as they show these variations.
It is much more in the CO2 as the only human output that the green-religion is focused on, to compel for our sins for burning fossil-fuels and disturbing thus Gaia.
Gaia is very happy so far with our CO2, try to live with it, is one of the few things we did right.
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Where do you get your information? “We know CO2 levels are higher today than in hundreds of thousands of years, if not millions.” Not so! You’ve got to go to better sources of information: http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/2010/03/atmospheri-co2-levels-over-geologic-time/
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This is humor, instead of telling the truth about the ocean absorbing CO2 they look for some other thing other so they do not have to tell they had it wrong all the way.
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if we replaced goldy fish for plankton we’d solve the global problem overnight!!! although something about the way goldfish suck that makes me wonder if they too suck twice as much as previously thought. any studies on that one???
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I wonder what plankton will do with carbon credits. Do you suppose they’ll trade them for other goods, like that new irresistible bikini in those popup ads? After all, ya gotta be dressed in style to go swimming. 😉
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Roy, I think the plankton have been the tiny dark horse the entire time.
1-They created the AGW scare to further their financial position.
2-True socialists, large numbers working together sticking it to capitalism.
3-Gone unnoticed until it’s too late.
Hang on, I’m describing the UN!
Yes there in cahoots and done this on PORPOISE!
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LOL. You are in fine form this morning! Thanks for the chuckle. Today is a good day! 🙂
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That’s funny but I’d like to imagine that these plankton together with the collective of living rocks (see previous post) are actually symbiotic. They have been patiently waiting for the IPCC to get a clue! They have a plan and we are just along for the ride much like the fungi own the dryer parts of the Earth’s crust these other beings own the rest.
Again, we are along for the ride and IPCC still is short of a clue.
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I thought it was the mice.. but it seems even they, are but minions.
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Cockroaches own the world. Everything else bows to them.
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But seriously, what does this change? Some of the carbon may have been going into plankton instead of the water. But so what? It’s still being absorbed at the same rate as before.
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A difference between El Nino and La Nina years perhaps Plankton has a very short life span so changes are rapid.
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I’m not sure exactly how the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is calculated and perhaps more importantly how the projected CO2 figures are calculated.
We know that the more CO2 in the atmosphere, the more plants absorb it (ask anybody with a greenhouse). A doubling like this would certainly influence any proper calculation.
But of course, we do not at all expect proper calculations to be made by the alarmists.
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Didn’t you read what Jo says??? we can start to farm it and extract more carbon!!!
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Sorry I obviously didn’t explain myself properly at 2am. Carbon Farming is a joke. A gold star for Yonniestone 🙂
Added to the post:
The point here is that there is a $176 billion dollar annual turnover in a market that depends on carbon accounting models which don’t even have the basic big numbers right. Then there is an assumption that human emitted CO2 will raise global CO2 levels. What if our small extra emissions are mostly swallowed up by plankton (and other as yet unknown sinks). What if CO2 levels are controlled by temperature, not by your SUV?
This is about the folly of thinking we know what is going on.
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far out!!! that’s a lot of mula!
i found this and think its useful http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/images/indicators/global-temp-and-co2-1880-2009.gif showing carbon levels at 58.5 and has it been considered that maybe the reason its going up is because we have less plankton.
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OK nobody else has asked yet: Who the hell is Quack?
Quacks comments range from 3rd grade level to a hormone driven 16 year old. But why is she here?
She came here about the same time as the new pope……..
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NO… I think it was at about the time the Pope emeritus announced retirement, but i see where you are coming from.
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Not a She, Mark D so let it be or go hump a tree
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Welll Gee, apparently she ain’t a she. That fits with the Papal thing even better……
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Thanks for you reply Jo – the questions you pose here are exactly what I was thinking last night: What happens to the CO2?… what is its life cycle, how does the biomass react to it? (we know that plants love it!!).
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its obvious. The more co2 is produced the more goes into trees and plankton. theres no need to fear such a tiny amount of gas so stop pannakin!!! and take deep breathes!!! 🙂
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“and take deep breathes”
and exhale..
don’t forget to exhale all that earthly CO2 goodness (even after garlic prawns)
By exhaling, you are helping the world (JB, Nonce.. .. not so much)
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Isn’t that what Al gore’s favorite ice core graph already shows us? That’s the conclusion I reached after considering the graph and the various opinions about it.
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Damn! I guess my Charcoal garden is not going to supply me with an endless supply of briquets. 😉
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I’m beginning to regret asking the question. 😉
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I have always wondered if a short lived but worldwide meteor/cosmic dust storm could fertilise the seas for a month or two. If this happens then the planckton could double in population every day and the amount of CO2 they suck up would double every day. 2,4,8,16,32,64,128,254,512,1024….
Best get the CO2 up to a safe 3000ppm or higher just incase.
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Well, increasing the plankton stocks would certainly help in saving the baleen whales — one of the key drivers for Greenpeace. I am sure they are on to it.
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That’s where my mind went too.
What is the impact on plankton productivity due to enrichment of CO2 in the atmosphere?
Could be substantial – and another major positive effect of atmospheric CO2 enrichment on the overall health of the biosphere.
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Perhaps the Jap whalers are onto it too?
Just doing our bit for the planet and sticking up for the little guy whale wimps and leftards!
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As Roy Hogue points out, this changes nothing. Presumably this ratio has always been the case. If there is no change in the amount of phytoplankton, it just means they got the subtotals wrong. However, many of us hobby aquarium keepers have added CO2 to our tanks to enhance aquatic plant growth for decades. The results are phenomenal. The added CO2 seems to give higher plants an advantage over troublesome algae but (unfortunately for most us) does not reduce snail populations. There is vigorous plant growth in shady parts of the tank where even most algae would not grow before. Overgrowth becomes a problem and regular weeding is necessary. In the ocean shallows rooted plants do not depend on dissolved nutrients the way phytoplankton does in the open sea. No doubt increased dissolved CO2 in the ocean shallows has a similar fertilization effect on the rooted aquatic plants as increased concentration of atmospheric CO2 has on land plants. It is going to be great for fishing.
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Sure you do but the fish they die a bloody acidic death right?
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No, the pH is reduced to a level consistent with the natural waters of the plants and fish, but …
Optimum Freshwater pH
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The biosphere LUVS CO2 ! 🙂
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That should be a t-shirt, Andy. Well said. 🙂
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On to 700 !!
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Cyclone activity may be a help here according to research following Cyclone Rusty. Have a look at this and comment.
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forgive me if I am missing something but I am not a scientist. These figures are ratios of the planktonic content based on phosphorus (1). Redford gives carbon as 106/1 or 86.2% of the organic content. This study shows TROPICAL 195/1 87% and POLAR 78/1 84.8%. There is no mention of the total content of planckton (and their excreta) in the specific waters.
How does this relate to available nitrogen and phosphorus and its oceanic distribution?
Outside of planktonic metabolism what does this all mean? This looks like a cut and paste job from an article the writer of which did not know what he was talking about.
The “nutrient rich” carbon content is lower than depleted tropics so the headline appears to be
[What? “I’m not a scientist”? You don’t pass the troll test. Lying in your first post? Tsk tsk.] ED
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actually I am a pharmacist and medicine is still as much an art as science. I am not a mathematician either so cannot see any “doubling” other than the ratio of C to P.That was the point of my post – I am sorry I was not more clear.
As Roy Hogue says – what difference does it make? It may mean something to Marine Biologists. More interesting is the observation of street cred that fish can thrive in acidic conditions. But as Jo said ” the folly of thinking that we know what is going on.”
Please send me your troll test so I can try to qualify.
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An honest man at last!
Put down your light Diogenes (my cousin the cynic) and gaze upon your resurrection courtesy of Jo’s blog.
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Lets keep our eyes on the Marcott saga. This retraction will kill the team and AGW forever LOL
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Hopefully – but unlikely.
The undead meme of CAGW continues to feed on an endless supply of fiat.
It needs a silver bullet, or a funding tourniquet.
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Yup, that’ll do it alright.
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Like all vampires opening them up to the sunshine will kill them, openness and truth in science is letting the sunshine in. The internet is slowly slaying the dragon and real peer review on line is the new truth and sunshine.
MSM and scientific magazines are muzzled and the fight for internet freedom is starting, it is a war that must be won.
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Public Papers of the Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960, p. 1035- 1040
My fellow Americans:
Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor.
This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.
Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.
Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on issues of great moment, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of the Nation.
My own relations with the Congress, which began on a remote and tenuous basis when, long ago, a member of the Senate appointed me to West Point, have since ranged to the intimate during the war and immediate post-war period, and, finally, to the mutually interdependent during these past eight years.
In this final relationship, the Congress and the Administration have, on most vital issues, cooperated well, to serve the national good rather than mere partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the Nation should go forward. So, my official relationship with the Congress ends in a feeling, on my part, of gratitude that we have been able to do so much together.
II.
We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America’s leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.
III.
Throughout America’s adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.
Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology — global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger is poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle — with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.
Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defense; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research — these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.
But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs — balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage — balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.
The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their government have, in the main, understood these truths and have responded to them well, in the face of stress and threat. But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. I mention two only.
IV.
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.
Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present
and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientifictechnological elite.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system — ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.
V.
Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society’s future, we — you and I, and our government — must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.
VI.
Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.
Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.
Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war — as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years — I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.
Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But, so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance along that road.
VII.
So — in this my last good night to you as your President — I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public service in war and peace. I trust that in that service you find some things worthy; as for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the future.
You and I — my fellow citizens — need to be strong in our faith that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nation’s great goals.
To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America’s prayerful and continuing aspiration:
We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.
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Trouble always does …
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True enough.
Sometimes though, trouble starts when someone fails to make any assumption.
Therein lies our struggle.
20
sometimes trouble starts when youve had too much to drink and you say “eyez luv yhou” to the wrong person.
20
…. and he turns around and punches you in the mouth?
20
Ah, the verb, to assume! I’ve seen it dissected this way:
ass-u-me: ass, you, me.
What I get from that is a responsibility to validate my assumptions before acting on them. You can very sensibly include such things as estimates, averages and polling data in that category. Looking at things that way, most of climate science is not validated, therefore it is nonsense. I think that’s about all you can say about it.
BB
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It was a monumental speech regardless of your political leanings. Where did these Statesmen(women)disappear to? We seem to have so few now, if any, who speak in this way and “peer into the future” with clarity and communicate visions with purpose. As a (true) lefty, not associated with the party called labour today, which in no way represents left values or respects left political history I think our last couple were perhaps Keating and Howard, no one today comes close.
A genuine left administration in Australia right now would be building gas turbines like there was no tomorrow, providing cheap power for the people, allowing industry to expand as a result and thus growing employment and improving social welfare. The left has been utterly hijacked by extreme green conservatives with agendas bordering closely on eugenics and certainly not focussing on social solutions to economic problems. They are happy to use the excuse of the environment to impoverish people and suggest a moral obligation to be less than we can be. This is in no way historically consistent left politics.
“Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology — global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger is poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle — with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.”
I feel like this statement pretty much sums up the position of those of us game enough to even debate the polemic right now. But what are the options, see our countrymen driven to unemployment, our resources go unused, our industries ground to extinction, all for the love of an environment not even under genuine threat ?
But to return to topic (sorry Ed.s) Who would have thought a more accurate calculation of something such as this would emerge? The thing I have found most disturbing about AGW dogma is just that, it has become dogma. People with degrees in science have utterly forgotten, abandoned or turned against the most basic scientific principles of establishing hypothesis then testing to disprove. Based on scant data (in the global time scale) and secret, questionable models, they reach unquestionable certainty. Nothing could be further from science.
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Very well said.
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Those degrees in science, seem to have omitted the scientific method.
Post normal science?
I think academia is rotten to the core, those degreed products of the system, are only qualified in regurgitating the correct noises.
That piece of paper, proof they are willing to toe the line for 4 years or more.
30 years ago I worked with electrical engineers who could not think outside the textbook, now I’m in construction were most engineers are regarded as mildly retarded.
Due to government corruption and insurance fear, engineered drawing are becoming demanded for the most basic work.
I assume as a cover for incompetent regulators.
CYA is grinding production to a halt.
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John, you’ve made several really good comments recently, this one is also good but is it possible that the engineers aren’t retarded it’s the legal environment they work in that is retarded?
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Absolutely, insane rules create insane solutions.
But the regulators all worship “qualifications” and the engineers are profiteering from this stupidity, so aiding and abetting the growth of strangulation by regulation.
Plus I am biased, I am in the NWT Canada, those engineers who end up here are mostly either very young or unwelcome in any other jurisdiction.
Do not read this as a slam at engineers.Just an observation from the field.
As Stephen McIntyre pointed out, if an engineering grade case had been demanded by our governments, before they hopped on the CAGW gravy train. It would never have made the station, left alone left it.
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Plankton twice as rich as previously believed? Mr. Crabs is not amused.
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Mr. Crabs is my hero!
30
Wow some killer spacer behavior there by Sonny and SG.
On “plankton”. I hate the word. It is on a par with calling a bacterium a bug or a germ. It does describe the general small fauna and flora that abound in the oceans, and is acceptable jargon in scientific papers, but it simplifies to a huge degree. It includes things that turn the CO2 into living matter and things that eat those things and things that eat the things that eat those things.
So, more CO2 into the ocean will have an effect on the composition as well as abundance of the plankton which feeds (literally) into other parts of the foodchain with follow on affects on feedbacks.
So these findings are interesting as they are observations that require explaining. Science moves on despite the attacks.
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Gee, I know that you have a background in this area (your previous comments) why don’t you get into it and say what is really on your mind?
20
Oh I meant to say: instead of making your own spacer…..
20
Every time I hear the word ‘plankton’, I automatically think of Derek & Clive (Peter Cook & Dudley Moore) and saving the whales……not suitable for children I might add.
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Snafu
I just watched it on you tube, very interesting information on plankton and I didn’t know whales have their own anthem, lets just hope a whale never wins gold at the Olympics!!
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If only it was just one person, making only one assumption…..
To be fair, some assumptions and approximations always have to be made, for valid reasons. Trouble arises when those assumptions get forgotten or hidden, and used in situations where they are no longer valid or reasonable or even visible to the unwary.
One of the best ways to lose sight of critical assumptions being misapplied is to lump them all together in a huge expensive computer program so that they can have sex with other assumptions that are being misapplied.
Then make sure they are not well documented, and kept as far away from aggressive auditors as is possible….
40
Fresh water systems soak up huge amounts of CO2 as well.
This is not in the models either.
30
Not sure if this video of a talk by Matt Ridley has been linked before, but it is well worth watching. It is along the lines of some of what has been discussed here
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/14/a-must-watch-greening-the-planet-dr-matt-ridley/
30
Something like the Amazon forest is not a net remover of CO2 from the atmosphere as the vegetation dies and CO2 is released back into the atmosphere. If the trees were turned into peat when they died this would constitute a CO2 sink.
As far as plankton are concerned the argument is similar. These little guys would be eaten by whales or just die and decay and release the CO2 back into the ocean. Only if they were incorporated into oceanic sediments would they constitute a CO2 sink.
Critters like foraminifera “forams” and diatoms are CO2 and SiO2 sinks respectively. These guys die and are incorporated into sediments which explains why one gets chemically precipitated silica in the rock record (e.g. banded iron) but silica is never saturated in the modern oceans due to diatoms that remove it. Of course, the forams would have to be incorporated into shallow marine sediments to be a sink (which they are) as their CaCO3 based skeletons dissolve in the deep ocean.
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Yep, it is ALL part of the NATURAL CYCLE..
Even the release of buried CO2 is part of the natural cycle.
The buried carbon is mostly carbon that BELONGS in the biosphere.
It is all HIGHLY NECESSARY for the biosphere.
And it is ALL part of Gaia ! 😉
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Very good explanation and oddly, I recall having this supposedly now lost knowledge explained to me in high school science. Well done.
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Is a CO2 rich environment one that hopes to get rich by carbon trading , regardless of the concentration of carbon in the air/water/soil ?
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Plankton and cynaobacteria not only are a vast sink but also effect the isotope ratios of atmospheric CO2. For a long time the marker of human CO2 was the decline in C13 CO2.
But plankton and cynaobacteria preference C13 CO2 and could therefore be responsible for the decline in that isotope form of CO2.
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the green-inclined have been advocating that humanity should become vegan in order to render greenhouse belching farm animals obsolete, thus ‘saving’ the planet.
Can’t help but wonder when they will call for the destruction of plankton predators, namely whales?
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I knew it was dem planktons all along.
As a non-scientist,riddle me this:
I doubt even the engineers of this whole carbon scam ever did more than merely daydream about taxing the air people breathe – too obvious,too old adage – but I’ll bet London to a brick that when a lateral-thinking Lucifer in that same cabal proffered the idea of taxing the air people BREATHE OUT they cheered as one.
30
Sounds like the spinach iron content “supermyth”, described by Mike Sutton here.
The idea that spinach contained exceptional levels of iron originated in 1870 with Dr. E. von Wolf whose figures remained unchallenged until 1937, when it was discovered that the content was 1/10th the claim. The oversight resulted from a misplaced decimal point.
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and then they had to withdraw all those Popeye cartoons in case there was a class action.
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The spinach iron content and the Redfield ratio are scientific errors, and I guess – not made intentionally.
In difference, the AGW is a fake supermyth that is fed by lot of scientists, politics and media.
Just like the soy miracle supermyth, because of media and lobbying, is causing dire damages to the humanity and mother nature.
But, as Monsanto have all the media and corrupt politics behind, it is a very tough battle.
And when “the cost” of non-intentional scientific error is 60-70 years to be fixed, I wonder what will be the cost of an intentional one?
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Some years ago I read a book by a fine Australian
marine biologist, the great Barry Eree. What ever
happened to him? /:)…
Alfred
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