|
Post by speakertoanimals on Jun 7, 2011 15:35:27 GMT 1
NOTHING! don't be daft! Put an ocean under vacuum, then you'll see what effect atmospheric partial pressures of CO2 have on the situation! Apart from the ocean boiling that is, which would be rather inconvenient for everyone! andrew.ucsd.edu/co2qc/handbook/chapter2.pdf
|
|
|
Post by speakertoanimals on Jun 7, 2011 15:57:58 GMT 1
Because there are (at least) TWO things that effect CO2 levels in sea-water, atmospheric concentration AND temperature, before we start looking at what happens to that carbon once its in the ocean.
This royal society report agrees with me -- more cO2 in atmosphere means more in oceans. Alhtough takes 69m pages for their full report on the effects of increasing atmospheric CO2 on oceans.
|
|
|
Post by rsmith7 on Jun 8, 2011 7:24:13 GMT 1
But if ocean "acidification" is a real "problem", why would a leading IPCC contributing university (OSU), on the subject, feel the need to manufacture scare stories and evidence? That's the problem with the co2 fetish; too many lies.
|
|
|
Post by marchesarosa on Jun 8, 2011 8:16:29 GMT 1
I'm sorry but "teeny steps" just won't work in understanding climate. And most certainly the "teeny FIRST step" about CO2 absorbing IR at certain wavelengths leads into a cul de sac. You cannot isolate one aspect of climate without changing everything else. Don't get hung up on isotopes. It does not clarify the understanding the big picture.
Ocean and atmosphere, dog and tail.
|
|
|
Post by speakertoanimals on Jun 8, 2011 15:41:12 GMT 1
What utter rubbish! When trying to LEARN, you have to start from simple things and work up.
O look, you started with a post that mentioned them, I pointed out the chap had got his facts wrong, and suddenly these fiddly details don't MATTER!
Exactly HOW MANY ERRORS are you prepared to accept from those you support?
Anyway, isotopes are VITAL in that they enable us (Casey got it wrong here, so please don't post that crap again!):
1) To distinguish between carbon from fossil fuel and carbon from volcanic sources. Rather important since you keep claiming that we can blame it all on the volcanos.....................
2) Deuterium in ice cores gives the temperature link, so we can do CO2, methane and temperature from ice-cores. Another independant line of evidence.
And your evidence for this oneliner is?
Wrong. The Royal Society says its wrong.
Take your choice folks, the Royal society and a proper look at the actual science and methods, or M, her favourite and factually incorrect bloggers, and one-liners. Which do YOU prefer?
|
|
|
Post by marchesarosa on Jun 8, 2011 18:11:43 GMT 1
Evidence for the oceanic dog wagging the atmospheric tail? The ocean contains much more CO2 than the atmosphere - orders of magnitude more*. The ocean is a huge reservoir of the sun's warmth and the earth's internal heat accumulated over centuries if not millenia - orders of magnitude greater than in the atmosphere. The ocean is like the storage heater warming up my basement flat and no amount of CO2 exhaled by my lodger down there noticeably affects it. * The total mass of atmospheric carbon dioxide is about 3,000 gigatonnes....There is about fifty times as much carbon dissolved in the sea water of the oceans in the form of CO2 and carbonic acid, bicarbonate and carbonate ions as exists in the atmosphere.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide#In_the_Earth.27s_atmosphereTake the above wiki ref with a pinch of salt. I do.
|
|
|
Post by speakertoanimals on Jun 8, 2011 18:52:40 GMT 1
Except this is ignoring the basic physics of gas exchange. First off, the OCEAN can't be treated as one homogenous mass. The surface waters (which is the bit that exchanges gases with the atmosphere) is only one part of the whole ocean. And unless basic physics is wrong, altering the CO2 content of the atmosphere WILL alter the CO2 content of the surface waters. The relative sizes of the two 'compartments' and the exact details of the transfer, effect of temperature are in the models for the process. As are the other compartments, all those other fiddly stages of the carbon cycle....................
You can't just skip all that, and HOPE by saying -- the ocean is VERY, VERY big, we and our efforts aren't, so it will all be okay.
And thankfully scientists didn't -- they could do the sums for the amount of CO2 produced since the industrial revolution, measure ocean CO2 levels etc, and see that about 48% of that had ended up in the ocean, making it more acidic.
As I said before, the total amount of CO2 in the oceans isn't really the issue, it's the CHANGE in the oceans produced by increasing CO2 in the atmosphere that counts.
Plus 50 times more ISN'T ORDERS of magnitude more, it's one order of magnitude more.
I dunno why you assume that scientists can't do simple sums.
I'll have to think of a new name for this repeated 'appeal to orders of magnitude'............................
|
|
|
Post by marchesarosa on Jun 9, 2011 9:41:51 GMT 1
OK, I'll buy that oceans contain 50 times more CO2 than the air.
Most of the sun's rays end up on the ocean not in the air, so which domain has the greater influence on the other and which has the greater heat storage capacity?
Does my lodger's breath affect the storage heater output?
|
|
|
Post by speakertoanimals on Jun 27, 2011 18:58:25 GMT 1
Except all the suns rays, whether they hit the ocean or the land, have to pass through the same atmosphere, and have to try and pass through the same atmosphere on the way out. Hence what effect that atmosphere has applies to both.
As to your lodger, probably depends on what legal and illegal substances they find they need to take to put up with being your lodger...............................
|
|
|
Post by marchesarosa on Jun 27, 2011 19:12:58 GMT 1
Poor, very poor response, STA.
Which element, air or water, has the greater heat capacity and therefore the greater influence on the other? Ever tried heating your bath water with a hair drier, STA? Ever noticed steamed up mirrors when you run your bath?
You'd like my house, STA, it's a bit of gay ghetto, except for me, of course, and a very happy home.
And, no, the exhalation of CO2 has negligible effect on the temperature of the basement flat although animal heat (joanne's and the guineapig's) might fractionally raise it.
|
|
|
Post by louise on Jul 1, 2011 21:33:15 GMT 1
|
|
|
Post by speakertoanimals on Jul 5, 2011 14:49:38 GMT 1
WRONG! When it comes to the equilibrium temperature of the earth, heat capacity doesn't alter the equilibrium, just the TIME it would take to get there (albedo aside).
So, an earth covered purely in a high heat capacity sea of custard, say, would take LONGER to warm up to a new equilibrium if we shoved in an extra massive greenhouse effect, whereas a low heat capacity earth (with same albedo) would reach the SAME temperature, just get there quicker.
As I said before, the equilibrium that matters is incident radiation versus out-going radiation, heat capacity will just effect the timescale.
|
|
|
Post by StuartG on Jul 5, 2011 16:17:48 GMT 1
Louise, in Your absence I took the liberty of posting part 2 of the post... Thermodynamic duo Posted on 5 July 2011 by Doug Mackie Welcome to the second post in our series about ocean acidification. In the first post we introduced Equation 1 (shown again below) for the formation of calcium carbonate and showed that the formation of calcium carbonate shells is a source of CO2, not a sink for CO2. Equation 1 We noted that most chemical reactions can go both forward or backwards and that we could use thermodynamics to predict the direction. In fact, most reactions go in both directions at once but there is usually a more favoured direction. Consider a dinner party with 6 people. There are 5 people on one side of the table and 1 person on the other. Each side starts with a bowl of peanuts and they begin to throw them at each other. At any one time a few peanuts will be in flight, most of them coming from the side with 5 people. However, it is plain that very quickly almost all of the peanuts will end up on the side with 1 person. At this point, the side with 5 people can only throw peanuts as quickly as the lone peanut pitcher sends them over. An equilibrium has been reached. The number of peanuts on either side does not change even though a few individual peanuts swap sides. Chemical reactions also proceed until equilibrium is reached. That is, the reaction proceeds until the forward reaction (the reaction on the left side of the equation) and the backwards reaction (the reaction on the right side of the equation) occur at the same rate. For most reactions, one side of an equation is vastly (by a factor of thousands or millions) more favoured than the other and for convenience chemists often write a single arrow to show the favoured direction. Thermodynamics is based on energy differences and tells us if a reaction occurs under the given conditions. Chemists use the word spontaneous to describe a reaction that occurs without outside intervention. For example, ice melting at room temperature is spontaneous, while liquid water freezing at room temperature is not spontaneous. Millions of experiments - like ice melting - have been done and the data has allowed chemists to calculate a change in energy content for every type of chemical reaction. It is, of course, complex and there are many considerations. Nevertheless these energy calculations show – and experiments confirm – that calcium and bicarbonate ions react according to Equation 1 (shown above). Thermodynamics also tells us that the reaction in equation 1 is spontaneous under the conditions in the surface oceans. That is, marine organisms like corals and shellfish are able to extract bicarbonate ions from seawater to make their shells or skeletons. However, as we will see in a later post, those conditions can be changed so that the reverse reaction happens, causing the calcium carbonate to dissolve: Equation 4 Equation 4 is just Equation 1 running in the reverse direction. This is what takes place when limestone rocks are weathered by the action of rain and air. It is no surprise, therefore, that the most abundant ions in most river waters, calcium (Ca2+) and bicarbonate (HCO3–), are derived from weathering. (Post 6 discusses weathering in detail). Thus equations 1 and 4, gentle readers, explain the formation of carbonates and rock weathering. They also explain the time scales on which these reactions occur, oceanic control of atmospheric CO2, and why acidification is happening in our ocean. We will cover each of these in the coming series of posts. In the next post we cover why it is easy to use Equation 1 to make shells. Written by Doug Mackie, Keith Hunter and Christina McGraw . This post is number 2 in a series. www.skepticalscience.com/Mackie_OA_not_OK_post_2.html
|
|
|
Post by speakertoanimals on Jul 5, 2011 17:22:52 GMT 1
One minor quibble -- ice melting ISN'T a chemical reaction, but a change of state.
Unless you add burning thermite to ice, then you get a rather showy and exothermic chemical reaction, but not what I'd describe as 'melting'............ :-)
|
|
|
Post by StuartG on Jul 5, 2011 19:34:21 GMT 1
"One minor quibble -- ice melting ISN'T a chemical reaction, but a change of state. " Agreed. "thermite" I started to comment on this and thought it would make a subject for discussion. ------ I wait to see what Louise's point is going to be. i.e what conclusions She thinks we should draw from Her post. StuartG
|
|