Higher CO2 Harming All Marine Life From Corals and Clams to Fish (Researchers)

[Hissyspit]

Source: Bloomberg

Higher CO2 Harms All Marine Life From Corals and Clams to Fish

By Alex Morales
August 25, 2013 1:00 PM EDT

Rising levels of carbon dioxide are harming all forms of marine life because the oceans are acidifying as they absorb the gas, German researchers found.

Mollusks, corals and a class of creatures called echinoderms that includes starfish and sea urchins are the worst affected by the uptake of CO2 by the seas, according to a study today in the journal Nature Climate Change by researchers at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven. The gas forms carbonic acid when it dissolves in the oceans, lowering their pH level.

Creatures that show negative effects from acidification include commercial species such as oysters and cod. Given the pace at which carbon-dioxide emissions are growing, human emissions threaten to trigger extinctions at a faster pace than die-outs millions of years ago, according to the researchers.

“There is a danger that we’re pushing things too fast and too hard toward an evolutionary crisis,” Hans-Otto Poertner, one of the authors, said in a phone interview. “In the past, these crises have taken much longer to develop.”

The research will be fed into the United Nations’ most detailed study into the science of climate change, which is being published in three parts and an overall summary by the end of 2014, and is designed to inform international climate treaty negotiations. Today’s study will be input for the second part of that report, by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, due to be published at the end of March. The first part is scheduled for publication on Sept. 27.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-25/higher-co2-harms-all-marine-life-from-corals-and-clams-to-fish.html

[Berlum]

1. "We'll get right to work cooking up some new, improved lies about this." - Republicons, Inc.

[Dustlawyer]

2. They have no idea what they are doing. If the phytoplankton dies so do we!

Phytoplankton is responsible for most of the oxygen on earth. If they continue to disappear (they have started to already) we are doomed. We have already been experiencing food shortages growing worse while the population continues to grow. All countries are still heavily dependent on oil. Will we last another 100 years?

[AAO]

3. I give us 17 more years until mass human die-offs begin.

[AverageJoe90]

9. Nah, I doubt THAT.

Obviously, I think we can all agree that this *isn't* good news, as many people across the world DO depend on fishing and this will no doubt have a significant long term impact on food supplies.

But I very seriously doubt we'll be seeing mass human die-offs in 2030.....not THAT soon anyhow.

[AAO]

12. Water and food scarcity, caused by Global Warming (great droughts) will cause mass human die-offs

in our lifetimes. I don't doubt that for a nano-second.

[GliderGuider]

14. The whole set of converging crises are starting to lock together now.

Last edited Tue Aug 27, 2013, 01:21 PM - Edit history (1)

The potential for a human dieback beginning by 2030 is rising dramatically as these crises all come together:

• The Arctic Amplification effect of climate change is disrupting the polar jet stream and causing weather destabilization through the Northern Hemisphere. This is already disrupting agricultural output.
  
• Potential for methane bursts in the Arctic is rising as the region warms. This could induce runaway warming;
  
• Ocean acidification will have multiple ecological impacts, from loss of biodiversity to coral and phytoplankton loss; There is a potential for additional warming due to decreased dimethylsulphide release from the oceans;
  
• Fresh water supplies are declining;
  
• Soil fertility is declining;
  
• The oceans are almost fished out;
  
• Terrestrial species are going extinct at a ferocious rate, with a rising possibility that a vital keystone species might join them;
  
• World oil and food prices are high and still rising;
  
• Some oil-exporting nations are already destabilizing politically as their resources run out (e.g. Egypt);
  
• Fossil fuel use is still increasing.

IMO there is little realistic chance that the world will be able to resolve any of these problems, let alone the entire interlocking predicament. This is largely because of the evolutionary bequest of human risk perception, social-conformity bias, and growth orientation, all of which are a result of our evolutionary past - they have been programmed into our neural behavior circuits by natural selection over hundreds of thousands of years in response to distant past, not present, environmental and social conditions.

The main human evolutionary advantage has been our incredible analytical intellect. It has allowed us to become the undisputed, indisputable dominant species on the planet. This was possible because our intelligence operates as a limit-removal mechanism, not a limit-acceptance mechanism. Whenever we run into a roadblock to growth in any domain, out evolved response is to figure out a way around it. We are good at seeing problems and opportunities, and very, very poor at seeing consequences. It is virtually impossible for us to see a problem and not try to find a way to solve it.

These evolutionary traits are not easily circumvented at the species level, individual examples notwithstanding. As a result, I really don't think we're going to get out of this one - matters have long since passed our ability to control them consciously. Indeed, most of our previous problem-solving attempts have either made matters worse by enabling yet more growth, or have merely kicked the can down the road a little.

Perhaps it's time we showed a little humility in the face of Mother Nature, and admit that we've painted ourselves into an evolutionary corner.

[AAO]

21. •Terrestrial species are going extinct at a ferocious rate, with a rising possibility that a vital

keystone species might join them;


Made me think of the bees. I truly feel we are fucked, and I feel for my children, who are smart enough in their early 20's to see the writing on the wall.

[GliderGuider]

22. Bees are the possibility I was thinking of, for sure.

The science on many fronts (not just climate change) is leaving less and less room for long-term optimism for the human race. We've used up or damaged many important components of our planetary support system, and the bill is coming due. I wonder if Mother Nature will accept a post-dated check?

[AAO]

23. And all this Karma has broken in the last 20 years or so...

Maybe, just maybe, the human race isn't the smartest animal on planet Earth. We surely are the dumbest "intelligent being" on the planet.

[GliderGuider]

27. Regarding intelligence...

We need to realize that the evolutionary role of the human brain has been to act as a limit-removal mechanism. We use it to go over, around or through obstacles to growth. That takes cleverness, not wisdom. Recognizing, acknowledging and accepting limits would represent wisdom. We don't have that quality to any great extent. So I would say we're not "intelligent", just really, really clever.

Oops.

[silvershadow]

6. If they are disappearing, they will continue to do so. No reason they wouldn't, that I can think of.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

4. Acidification has already hurt oyster farms in Oregon.

[caseymoz]

5. It mentions extinctions 55 million years ago,

and that's one to look at because that was the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. At that time, there was no ice at the poles. There were crocodiles in Britain. The seas were at maximum height.

Yet, life survived it and actually thrived after the initial extinction.

So, the question is, how? We're facing the same scenario today.

[Supersedeas]

7. one can only imagine the circumstances for those left to pick up the pieces

[caseymoz]

8. We need to know how and why life survived then.

There was an extinction, but it was a mild one, and that was on the heels of the dinosaur extinction 65 million years ago. Life hadn't even recovered from that yet.

They say the Permian-Triassic extinction was caused by greenhouse gases, the release of methane from the glaciers was purportedly the knockout punch. Well, if there were no glaciers 55 million years ago, why didn't it happen then?

[AverageJoe90]

10. And one admittedly rather less severe(if perhaps faster, maybe) than PETM, at that.

Should also mention, too, that the whole Earth, in and of itself was truly fundamentally different: I don't think we'll be seeing alligators in Britain and there definitely won't be palm trees in Alaska(a popular mention from what I've seen), either.

[NickB79]

11. Palms already grow in Scotland and Alaska

Inverewe Gardens, Scotland has a microclimate that supports several species: http://www.flickr.com/photos/babsandneil/7408442036/

There are also introduced plantings along the West Coast up to southern Alaska: http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/1224/

The most cold hardy and common of these species (Trachycarpus fortunei) is grown as far north as Scotland, Alaska, the Netherlands etc. and is one of the most cold tolerant of all palms.

Also, a very interesting discussion here: http://www.cloudforest.com/northwest/forum/22785.html

Apparently there are Trachy's growing in Sitka, Alaska as well!

[AverageJoe90]

17. Okay, but these were NOT the kind of palms I was referring to.

That popular milieu I was referring to involved *tropical* palm trees growing in Alaska.....as in, what you might see in Tahiti.....or Hawaii.....

[caseymoz]

13. I don't know.

Why do you think the whole earth was fundamentally different, and how fundamental are you talking about?

Whether Britain becomes tropical, or something of that sort happens depends on how far Global Warming goes and how long we continue to manufacture greenhouse gases.

I seriously think Antarctica and northern Canada and Siberia might save humankind from complete extinction. That might be some pretty good land once the glaciers are gone, and they'd be far easier than terraforming Mars, IMHO.

[AverageJoe90]

16. It's really hard for ME, personally, to explain.....

As I've never been all that good at explaining complicated subjects without loads of info in front of my face, for the most part, but rest assured, I DID know what I was talking about.

I seriously think Antarctica and northern Canada and Siberia might save humankind from complete extinction.

Not that we were ever at risk from total extinction anyhow, at least not from AGW alone, anyway(no matter how bad it gets), but indeed, perhaps Canada & Siberia might be the new breadbaskets in the worst case scenarios.....but then again, you'd need a temperature rise well above the average forecast(which is about 3*C) if you wanted to even come close to melting all of the Antarctic ice(8-10*C average might do the trick), and probably not for a thousand years, at least, regardless of Co2 ratios.

[caseymoz]

18. But all the average forecasts I've heard

Only go to 2100. And the methane plumes trapped in the permafrost bring a new major factor into this.

[AverageJoe90]

19. True, but the newest projections have gone a lot farther than that, apparently.

In any case, though, methane will probably play *some* role in AGW in the near-term(~100 years) future, but the question is, how much and when. One bit of good news is, apparently, if research from an Alaskan university is correct(can't remember exactly which one, but I think it was circa 2008-09 and I believe they were featured on a GreenMan video), how much gets released depends on how much more Co2 gets pumped out.

[CreekDog]

24. always looking for the good news when it comes to climate change, aren't you?

[AverageJoe90]

26. In all honesty, is that really such a bad thing?

As opposed to always looking for bad news, as doomers & people who associate with them do, even if there's very little or no hard evidence, just conjecture, to actually back up said news(which happens quite a bit)?

[NickB79]

20. Oh yeah, those Canadian and Siberian breadbaskets

Because we all know how well crops grow in the granite outcroppings and thin, nutrient-poor, acidic soils that currently cover much of those two regions

[AverageJoe90]

25. Tell that to the guy who originally brought it up, not me. n/t

(P.S., Canada DOES have the Peace River region, btw. In fact, Sexsmith, Alberta, was once called the "The Grain Capital" of the entire British Empire/Commonwealth at one point.)

[Uncle Joe]

15. "The Perfect Storm" keeps building.

Thanks for the thread, Hissyspit.