From Rud Istvan
For a long time, WUWT readers have known that some time ago I stopped publishing certain “Whack-a-Moles” here and at Judith’s Climate Etc. My reason was simple. Doesn’t do well The climate struggle is now on a higher non-specific “belief level”.
Recently Charles asked me for more technical input. I wanted to deconstruct GM’s new EV battery “HOPIUM” with the name “Ultium” (you can’t make that up). However, enough information is not yet available for a technical assessment to be made. Yes, they are spending $ 2.3 billion on a new Ultrium pouch cell battery facility. Yes, more nickel and less cobalt should be used in the cathode alloy, which means cheaper. The total critical idle time (energy density, power density, cycle life) is still zero except for the current share price.
But ctm’s most recent post about the “poor” shells of pteropods brought me back to the higher level of general climate science. This possible guest contribution is therefore kept scientifically general and largely covers the argument of ocean acidification and its failures. For those looking for detailed references, please see the ‘Shell Games’ essay in the Blowing Smoke eBook or my recent comments on pteropod clams.
The “ocean acidification” is thus an alleged effect of global warming of the second order according to AR3. Except that it was never From a scientific point of view – let alone that “acidification” is an intentionally alarmist misnomer – a little less alkali has nothing to do with acids (below pH 7). The AR3 estimate of ocean pH from ~ 8.2 to 7.8 with a doubling of atmospheric CO2 ignored the fact that ocean pH is heavily buffered. Taking buffering into account, the maximum pH reduction of a doubling is 0.15 to 0.2 pH per IPCC painstakingly corrected AR4. This becomes a biological problem as calcifying organisms (corals, pteropods, coccoliths) regulate their internal calcifying pH to withstand natural fluctuations in the ocean pH within their natural range. Otherwise they would not have survived. But they did.
Another alarmist problem is that the natural biologically conditioned ocean pH range is larger than even the AR4 claim. The observed area depends on the biological photic zone and the seasonality of this sub-segment of the ocean. In the biologically sterile North Pacific it is about 0.1. In Pacific estuaries, the seasonal range is about 1.0 or more. In the extreme part of Florida Bay from the Everglades Estuary to Key West (maximum 90 miles) it is 5.8 in the mangrove fringes in winter to 9.6 near Key West in summer. These extreme differences are caused by precipitation (less in winter), thallasia seagrass photosynthesis (greater in summer) and increased salinity (greater in summer) due to evaporation. Still, the humble but delicious clam snail in Florida Bay thrives in the bay year-round. Try Farm Raised Florida Keys Clam Donuts. Yum.
This misnomer “ocean acidification” was invented by Warmunists from different parts, all of which were wrong.
- Part one was the creepy term “ocean acidification”. Slightly less alkaline is still nowhere near acidic, as any chemistry class in high school should be teaching.
- Part two was the basic physical chemistry buffer error in AR3.
- Part three was coral bleaching, which implied the wrong result of death, explained by Jim Steele earlier here and through his saga of symbiotic zooxanthellae.
Parts four and five were the Seattle Times-sponsored articles on scientific misconduct related to coral reefs in Papau New Guinea and oyster spawning in the Pacific northwest of Miyagi. Both explained with footnotes in the essay “Shell Games” in the e-book Blowing Smoke. The first wrongdoing was fatal H2S in one of three volcanic seepage, the second wrong was fatally spitting up the pH of the rising water in a breeding bay that was not also managed as a seasonal estuary.
And then there is this new pteropod nonsense that deliberately ignores the huge difference that seawater temperature makes to their metabolism and thus to shell formation. Although the problem was discussed (and then ignored) in the work.
The danger of ocean acidification is a canard that must be combated at the highest level. Oceans will never really acidify. Organisms evolved due to their varying seasonal pH fluctuations continue to thrive everywhere.
As just one final example of the nonsense of “acidification”, coccolithophores (calcium exoskeleton algae (the white cliffs of Dover) have increased almost 30-fold in the past 30 years in the North Atlantic, despite the warming of “acidification”. Coccoliths thrive on alarmists “Acidification” memes don’t.
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