The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme

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Aswad -> The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (5/6/2013 3:32:49 AM)
Today, the AMAP presented the results of recent research at a conference in my home city. The findings can be summarized thus: By the most optimistic projections, in a few decades, global seawater pH will drop by 0.3 on average. To a student of biology, little more needs to be said. Note: these figures assume that our goals in reducing CO2 emissions will be met (CO2 is absorbed by the ocean for the most part, leading to acidification). Industrialization of second and third world countries will result in substantially worse outcomes, unless they can be persuaded to use nuclear power instead. Solar and wind are growing, but nowhere near fast enough to be realistic alternatives yet, a matter of will as usual. Nice to see sea level rise take a back seat to more important aspects of climate change, for once. IWYW, — Aswad.

hlen5 -> RE: The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (5/6/2013 9:51:45 AM)
Would you please explain the consequences of dropping pH levels to the non-biology student? One doesn't need to be a science major to know we (the industrialized world) are fouling our nest globally.

YN -> RE: The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (5/6/2013 11:25:54 AM)
The ocean and the micro life it supports (plankton, krill, etc.) is much like the soil and it's micro life on land, all larger creatures live atop these small creatures who produce the food the larger plants and animals need with their bodies, as well as the chemical changes needed in the soil and the oceans for the creatures and larger organisms survival. And much like on land, these smaller organisms have very limited mobility, the zoo plankton in the oceans are no more capable of moving location or changing their circumstances than the worms and organisms in your garden are capable to migrating several kilometers to improve their environment if the soil becomes poisoned to them. And, like their peers in soil, they are dependent on certain temperatures, nutrients and chemistry (acidity being a large one) for their survival, much as larger organisms like yourself are. And like on land, if the soil "dies" so do the larger organisms dependent on the soil for life. In the case of the oceans, there are areas with great biomass, and others where the ocean is like a desert is on land, with little biomass. Those areas with great biomass are fragile and depend on the chemical, and thermal environment, much as the worlds "breadbaskets depend on the soil and rain and such. And the larger creatures whole depend on these ocean areas for their food suffer famine when theses biomasses falter, much as a drought or other ecological catastrophe creates similar famines among the large organisms on land. So raising or lowering the acidity of the worlds oceans to any extent is like raising or lowering the acidity of all the worlds soils at once, any farmer or gardener could see the probable adverse affects.

DomKen -> RE: The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (5/6/2013 11:28:54 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: hlen5 Would you please explain the consequences of dropping pH levels to the non-biology student? One doesn't need to be a science major to know we (the industrialized world) are fouling our nest globally. A lower ph means a more acidic ocean. All sea dwelling organism that have shells made of calcium carbonate, which is all corals and other organisms with shells including the tiny organisms that form the base of the ocean foodchain and produce most of the oxygen we breath, will be negatively impacted by this effect as their shells start to dissolve faster than they can make them. This could cause first the death of the coral reefs and then the collapse of the ocean foodchain.

YN -> RE: The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (5/6/2013 11:38:28 AM)
The excess carbon is also pulled into the sea going plant life, rendering it more toxic and less nutritious to animals attempting to live on it, much as wood is less nutritious for most organisms. Carbon heavy plant life is trouble, requiring more time and energy whether you attempt to compost it on land or the ocean's organisms attempt to deal with it.

FunCouple5280 -> RE: The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (5/6/2013 1:34:43 PM)
In Biology that is huge swing. If you blood pH changed by that much, you might just be a corpse. While the pH of the water isn't as large a concern to vertibrates (Every Aquarium I have ever maintained could nandles some pH fluctuaions of that level), the invertibrates get pummeled. Then you have the issue of different bacteria and algeas blooming. It takes an enormous amount of time for that to stabilize. The reality isn't that the pH is lower, so much as it is in flux. Those shifts, especially in such a stabil environment as the ocean, are the most troubling factors. If the given pH stays steady, many organisms would adapt, but as long as it is changing, it is a moving target and difficult to adapt to.

Aswad -> RE: The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (5/7/2013 5:25:12 AM)
FunCouple and DomKen are right. It's a huge swing. Twice as acidic (it's a log scale), in fact. A moving target is indeed harder to adapt to, but the stable changes are also problematic. Already, we are seeing several of the crustacean species having a hard time forming good shells, and this problem will be worsened by increased ice melting, because the fresh water from the ice has less salt and thus can absorb more calcium carbonate while having less to part with. In this case, there are both environmental and corporate interests. Norwegian seafood is a major industry here, as are oil and shipping. Thus, we've long had a tradition of marine ecology research, which has been given public funds for more research the past decade, and it's been a lot more troubling than the concerns the media tend to focus on (while tragic, a few million dead and several millions more displaced is something humanity can easily live with; vast changes in marine biology, not so much). Lobsters are getting disfigured tails. Clownfish is losing its sense of smell, used to hunt food and find mating partners. Several crustacean species are failing to form strong shells, or not forming shells at all. Oysters are hardly reproducing. Snails, a major source of food for the birds, are losing more young than ever. These are the current findings, and they're going to get worse, expected to get much worse in the most optimistic projections. IWYW, — Aswad.

deathtothepixies -> RE: The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (5/7/2013 4:26:18 PM)
fuck the fish Aswad, I'm gonna eat the flesh of the animals I killed with my big gun, gonna take em back home in my huge gas guzzler and take a nice deep breath of clean fresh air, fire up the bbq and not spend a single second worrying about the future

Marini -> RE: The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (5/7/2013 9:24:14 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Aswad FunCouple and DomKen are right. It's a huge swing. Twice as acidic (it's a log scale), in fact. A moving target is indeed harder to adapt to, but the stable changes are also problematic. Already, we are seeing several of the crustacean species having a hard time forming good shells, and this problem will be worsened by increased ice melting, because the fresh water from the ice has less salt and thus can absorb more calcium carbonate while having less to part with. In this case, there are both environmental and corporate interests. Norwegian seafood is a major industry here, as are oil and shipping. Thus, we've long had a tradition of marine ecology research, which has been given public funds for more research the past decade, and it's been a lot more troubling than the concerns the media tend to focus on (while tragic, a few million dead and several millions more displaced is something humanity can easily live with; vast changes in marine biology, not so much). Lobsters are getting disfigured tails. Clownfish is losing its sense of smell, used to hunt food and find mating partners. Several crustacean species are failing to form strong shells, or not forming shells at all. Oysters are hardly reproducing. Snails, a major source of food for the birds, are losing more young than ever. These are the current findings, and they're going to get worse, expected to get much worse in the most optimistic projections. IWYW, — Aswad. Thank you for the interesting, yet depressing information. The good news is, according to many, there is no such thing as global warming, and climate changes are all in our imaginations. So as we watch these changes occur, let's just pretend its just an illusion.

Aswad -> RE: The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (5/8/2013 2:33:15 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: deathtothepixies fuck the fish Aswad, I'm gonna eat the flesh of the animals I killed with my big gun, gonna take em back home in my huge gas guzzler and take a nice deep breath of clean fresh air, fire up the bbq and not spend a single second worrying about the future That's roughly how the animals think, too, but I assume you were charicaturing some two-legged animals. Me, I don't worry about the future, but I plan for it, and part of planning is trying to avoid these things. IWYW, — Aswad.

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