Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years • Hacker News Board

Re: Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years

#21

Post by kintamanimatt » Thu, Oct 03, 2013, 10:24 PM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #14

kintamanimatt wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a proposed geoengineering approach, but the authors of this page don't recommend it: https://web.duke.edu/nicholas/bio217/spring2010/chang/GeoEng... http://www.cquestrate.com/the-idea

Are the authors against all geo-engineering or just this plan?

They seem very in favor reducing over-fishing, switching to clean energy sources, etc. They're only in favor of geoengineering if politicians can't get their shit together and we end up on the brink of a disaster.

"We do not promote the use of the [geoengineering] method highlighted in this section. We merely present it here as an interesting solution proposed by the field of geoengineering, a popularly growing discipline which seeks to provide technical solutions which manipulate the earth’s climate in order to counteract the effects of global climate change."

"Any solution proposed by the field of geoengineering is akin to addressing the symptoms and not the source of the problem."

-- https://web.duke.edu/nicholas/bio217/spring2010/chang/Soluti...

Re: Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years

#22

Post by AlexMuir » Thu, Oct 03, 2013, 10:25 PM UTC

Smudge wrote: post #13

"This story has broken an embargo and will shortly be taken down. It will be relaunched to the site at 6.00am BST. Apologies" Interesting.

That comment was written yesterday. The embargo ended THIS morning at 6am BST.

Re: Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years

#23

Post by colmvp » Thu, Oct 03, 2013, 10:26 PM UTC

The Seattle Times did an interactive article about this very subject last month:

http://apps.seattletimes.com/reports/sea-change/2013/sep/11/...

Re: Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years

#24

Post by jonnathanson » Thu, Oct 03, 2013, 10:26 PM UTC

rubyalex wrote: post #6

What does 300m years mean? Is that 300 or 300 Million?

I was confused by this, as well. Given the scale of geologic time, I'd assume they meant 300 million. But a single "M" often means thousand, especially if it's lowercase. So it's confusingly worded.

Re: Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years

#25

Post by wismer » Thu, Oct 03, 2013, 10:30 PM UTC

Smudge wrote: post #13

"This story has broken an embargo and will shortly be taken down. It will be relaunched to the site at 6.00am BST. Apologies" Interesting.

There's nothing to this. It's customary for news outlets to wait until they get the go ahead from an organization/company/govt releasing a report (usually done simultaneously). So as to not play favorites, I guess.

Re: Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years

#26

Post by wiredfool » Thu, Oct 03, 2013, 10:33 PM UTC

colmvp wrote: post #23

The Seattle Times did an interactive article about this very subject last month: http://apps.seattletimes.com/reports/sea-change/2013/sep/11/...

I read that just after reading Kim Stanley Robinson's Capitol trilogy. (40 days of rain, 50 degrees below, 60 days...) Yeah, it's science fiction, but it's plausible hard sf, not space opera. And the Time article sounded way too close to some of what was happening in the books.

Ocean acidification was mentioned somewhat in passing in the last book as something that's very hard to reverse, partially because of the chemistry and partially because of the sheer amount of chemicals that would be required. That was in contrast to a multi hundred billion dollar salt transport to restart the thermo haline circulation.

Re: Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years

#27

Post by gtani » Thu, Oct 03, 2013, 10:36 PM UTC

colmvp wrote: post #23

The Seattle Times did an interactive article about this very subject last month: http://apps.seattletimes.com/reports/sea-change/2013/sep/11/...

that was a really good series, including coverage of Puget Sound, which I thought was carefully protected, but you can only do so much

Oyster breeders forced to move:

http://apps.seattletimes.com/reports/sea-change/2013/sep/11/...

rising levels of caffeine, PCBs and antibiotics in the Sound's waters: (I can't google for recent articles, but STimes has written about it last 6 months

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2002918517_pollution0...

Re: Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years

#28

Post by moultano » Thu, Oct 03, 2013, 10:37 PM UTC

In a bit of cosmic irony, most fossil fuel was created from mass extinctions that accompanied changes in ocean chemistry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoxic_event

Re: Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years

#29

Post by drucken » Thu, Oct 03, 2013, 10:45 PM UTC

rubyalex wrote: post #6

What does 300m years mean? Is that 300 or 300 Million?

The Guardian is a UK newspaper. "m" always means Million in the UK, unlike continental Europe.

I agree that the continued use of the abbreviation in the article itself is bad journalism.

Re: Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years

#30

Post by hcarvalhoalves » Thu, Oct 03, 2013, 10:47 PM UTC

The short-term scenario is not good, but from the little I know about aquatic biology/chemistry, it might not be as catastrophical as the article pictures it.

Increased CO2 levels should just cause algae/cyanobacteria blooms, which will balance CO2/O2 levels back again and foster primary consumers (solving over-fishing as a bonus). Also, H2CO3 gets buffered by all the Ca/Mg content in the ocean, so I don't think it's even possible for the pH to just drop forever (as in the graph someone posted in one of the comments here).