Wait, wait – someone made an assumption that carbon life forms would not like more carbon, and that they might not be able to adjust to a change even after surviving for 100 million years of other changes. But now researchers are surprised that some shells are not only as good in an “acidic environment” but might be even better. Indeed formanifera turned out to micromanage pH levels so that in the right spot, where they need a higher pH, they can create that. The researchers say “such an active biochemical regulation mechanism has never been found before” and wonder “what if” the majority of organisms can do this?
More carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air also acidifies the oceans. It seemed to be the logical conclusion that shellfish and corals will suffer, because chalk formation becomes more difficult in more acidic seawater. But now a group of Dutch and Japanese scientists discovered to their own surprise that some tiny unicellular shellfish make better shells in an acidic environment. This is a completely new insight.
Researchers from the NIOZ (Royal Dutch Institute for Sea Research) and JAMSTEC (Japanese Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology) found in their experiments that so-called foraminifera might even make their shells better in more acidic water. These single-celled foraminifera shellfish occur in huge numbers in the oceans. The results of the study are published in the leading scientific journal Nature Communications.
Since 1750 the acidity of the ocean has increased by 30%.
Well… at least in theory. (Number of pH meters in 1750 = 0.) Models predict the oceans have become less alkaline.
According to the prevailing theory and related experiments with calcareous algae and shellfish, limestone (calcium carbonate) dissolves more easily in acidic water. The formation of lime by shellfish and corals is more difficult because less carbonate is available under acidic conditions. The carbonate-ion relates directly to dissolved carbon dioxide via two chemical equilibrium reactions.
Self-regulating biochemical magic trick
The classical theory is based on purely chemical processes by which the rate at which lime is created is determined entirely by the acidity of the water. NIOZ researcher and shared first author Lennart de Nooijer: “In our experiments the foraminifera were regulating the acidity at the micro level. In the places where shell formation occurs, the acidity was substantially lower than in the surrounding seawater. Foraminifera expel large amounts of hydrogen ions through their cell wall. This leads to acidification of their immediate micro-environment causing the equilibrium between carbon dioxide and carbonate to change in favour of carbon dioxide. The organism take up the increased concentration of carbon dioxide quickly through its cell wall. On the inner side of the cell wall, a low acidity prevails due to the massive excretion of protons. Under these conditions the ingested carbon dioxide is again converted to carbonate, which reacts with calcium to form lime. Such an active biochemical regulation mechanism has never been found before.”
Can self-regulating single-celled organisms lead to a more rapid global warming?
The surface layer of the ocean is in equilibrium with the atmosphere. Therefore, more carbon dioxide in the air also leads to more dissolved carbon dioxide in the ocean’s surface . “This finding may have important implications for the relationship between carbon dioxide levels in the air and the formation of calcareous structures by organisms,” says co-author Professor Gert-Jan Reichart. “If the classic hypothesis holds and more carbon dioxide leads to less lime production, the oceans can continue to take up CO2 from the atmosphere. But what if the majority of the organisms can regulate the chemical form of their inorganic carbon by biochemical processes like our foraminifers did, and continue to form lime structures in a more acidic ocean? Over time, the concentration of dissolved carbon dioxide in the oceans may start to increase. Consequently, the ability of the oceans to take up a large part of the carbon dioxide in the air may start to decrease. This would mean that more carbon dioxide would remain in the air, leading to a more rapid warming of our planet.”
REFERENCE
Takashi Toyofuku, Miki Y. Matsuo, Lennart Jan de Nooijer, Yukiko Nagai, Sachiko Kawada, Kazuhiko Fujita, Gert-Jan Reichart, Hidetaka Nomaki, Masashi Tsuchiya, Hide Sakaguchi, Hiroshi Kitazato. Proton pumping accompanies calcification in foraminifera. Nature Communications, 2017; 8: 14145 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms14145<
Wait, wait! So although the shellfish can micromanage their own environment to their advantage, the actions of the selfish little critters means that there will be more CO2 in the atmosphere, causing problems for the rest of us. It IS worse than we thought!
161
What needs to be done is that the CO2 molecules without the proper credentials should not be permitted entry to the environment.
This article makes it abundantly clear that the environment is becoming shellfish and must be stopped..
61
G’day,
Looks like those pesky polyps might be more resilient than those experts thought. A big reef has just been found off the mouth of the Amazon.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-31/first-images-of-coral-reef-discovered-at-mouth-of-amazon-river/8226792
Cheers,
Dave B
31
The Self-regulating biochemical magic trick is quite interesting. There seems no reason to doubt its’ intricacy.
The Can self-regulating single-celled organisms lead to a more rapid global warming? is pure long term speculation. More grant snaffling, one may suspect.
161
How do you get a percentage from a PH scale?
” the negative of the base 10 logarithm of the molar concentration, measured in units of moles per liter, of hydrogen ions.” Wiki
151
What part of “it’s worse than we thought” do you have difficulty understanding?
111
Ah yes. The IQ part.
61
Evening all.
Strictly speaking, you’d have to say that the hydronium ion concentration increased by 30%. Which would mean a pH shift of about 0.13. (Starting at pH 8, calculating H+ concentration, multiply by 1.3, get the pH on that number.) The ocean pH moves all over the place depending on local conditions – a pH difference of 0.13 is background noise.
Cheers,
Speedy
221
The change they are talking about is a change from pH from 8.2 to 8.1
This actually a change of 26%.. but of course gets rounded up to 30%, to be scary
This change from 1750 is of course a totally un-measurable fabrication.
What they also don’t mention is that to become neutral is a further change of ≈1200%
184
Andy
The 25% change cannot be calculated this way because logarithms. Simple example, if you start at pH 0 and go to pH 1, what is the % change calculated your way?
Geoff
90
Pretty sure that’s how the climate scientists do it, Geoff.. 😉
164
Geoff
“because logarithms”
Twas my first reaction. Dealing with measurements in dBuV most days. Reflex action tells me half of 45 is 42. Wonder how climate science would cope with that?
100
Sound stuff is fun, hey Siliggy 🙂
Done quite a bit of audio stuff in my time.
74
AndyG55
Find myself measuring small signals in 75 Ohms more often than 600.
50
Audio mixing for live bands.. some studio work as well. 🙂
31
I can understand most of the public not understanding your sound argument, but scientists. Is this the level of science that dominates in the discipline of climate.
60
“I can understand most of the public not understanding your sound argument”
I hear what you are saying !!
51
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
10
“if you start at pH 0 and go to pH 1, what is the % change calculated your way?”
-90%
[H+] at pH = 0 is 1 (-log₁₀(1)=0)
[H+] at pH = 1 is 0.1 (-log₁₀(0.1)=1)
90% reduction.
94
Andy,
So you caught my trap and did not fall for the “divide by zero” suggested. You must be a chem graduate also.
Yep, you are correct in the math, but it is the meaning that gets me here. When pH varies from 1-13 or more, there are 13 orders of magnitude of hydronium activity. You should not take a section of this large continuum and express it as a percentage, because you have no fundamental % scale behind it. The pH scale is sort of floating open ended, with no definite 1% or 100%. You know what I mean.
Geoff.
10
[H+] at pH8.2 = 6.31E-9
[H+] at ph8.1 = 7.94E-9
change = 25.89%
[H+] at ph8.1 = 7.94E-9
[H+] at ph7 = 1.0E-7
change = 1159%
114
Please, please AndyG55 stop with the maths and science its too complicated, please stick with personal opinions its easier for the layman to understand.
Less basic MUST mean more acidic despite what the PH meter tells you on a more serious note the studies findings may explain why tiny sea creatures have existed for all these years (millions) and not been snuffed out by the tiniest perturbations in chemical composition.
I am sure some warmbots think its like cutting the head off an Alien and being dissolved instantly by its blood LOL.
80
But, but… I’m not allowed to get too personal.. I get [snipped] ! 🙂
32
The H+ concentration at pH 0 is 1 molar as 10^0 =1. At pH 1 the H+ concentration is 0.1 molar which is 10x less. One litre of a molar solution contains molecular weight of the component atoms in grams. The molecular weight of Hydrogen is 2 and the molecular weight of oxygen is 16 so I mole of water contains 2 grams (g) or 2000 milligrams (mg) of hydrogen and 16 g or 16000 mg of oxygen. A 0.1 molar solution of water contains 200 mg of hydrogen which is 1800 less mg than in a 1M solution so the fall is 90%.
40
“so the fall is 90%.”
Yep, just what I got. 🙂
33
“More carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air also acidifies the oceans.”
I don’t understand, aren’t we talking about going from a basic seawater to a little less basic seawater? Wouldn’t it only be acidification if seawater actually were acidic rather than basic?
50
“aren’t we talking about going from a basic seawater to a little less basic seawater?”
Yep,, but ACIDICIFY is a “scary” word.
And there is zero proof its changing, anyway.
53
Wiki is wrong again.
Definition should use activity not concentration of hydronium ion. The two are related via complicated relations including effects from other ions present. More important in moderately concentrated solutions like sea water with its high NaCl.
Geoff
131
It is measured at the IPCC on a lie detector scale
70
Dennis, the technical name for the equipment used is a “bovine excrement” meter.
81
“Since 1750 the acidity of the ocean has increased by 30%.”
It came from here:
Climate Change 2007: Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis, 5.4.2.3 Ocean Acidification by Carbon Dioxide.
“The uptake of anthropogenic carbon by the ocean changes the chemical equilibrium of the ocean. Dissolved CO2 forms a weak acid. As CO2 increases, pH decreases, that is, the ocean becomes more acidic. Ocean pH can be computed from measurements of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and alkalinity.
A decrease in surface pH of 0.1 over the global ocean was calculated from the estimated uptake of anthropogenic carbon between 1750 and 1994 (Sabine et al., 2004b; Raven et al., 2005), with the lowest decrease (0.06) in the tropics and subtropics, and the highest decrease (0.12) at high latitudes, consistent with the lower buffer capacity of the high latitudes compared to the low latitudes. The mean pH of surface waters ranges between 7.9 and 8.3 in the open ocean, so the ocean remains alkaline (pH > 7) even after these decreases.
The consequences of changes in pH on marine organisms are poorly known (see Section 7.3.4 and Box 7.3). For comparison, pH was higher by 0.1 unit during glaciations, and there is no evidence of pH values more than 0.6 units below the pre-industrial pH during the past 300 million years (Caldeira and Wickett, 2003). A decrease in ocean pH of 0.1 units corresponds to a 30% increase in the concentration of H+ in seawater, assuming that alkalinity and temperature remain constant.”
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/science-papers/originals/acid-seas
The basis of all the hype is a calculation from an estimate, which gives a precise figure of 0.1pH decrease, they don’t even know the consequences of changes in pH, and the conclusions they reach are based on an extrapolation of eighteen years of data from one Pacific ocean station.
Check out Tony Thomas: http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2016/01/fishy-science-ocean-acidification/
60
Hello Siliggy!
Regarding the ‘30% increase in acidity’ scam, and how to get a percentage figure from the pH scale:
Whenever pH is mentioned, there’s a rather important minus sign which is by convention omitted for convenience, and this causes confusion among many.
For example, a pH of 7 means that a solution contains 10 to the power of minus 7 (10-7) grams of hydrogen (in the form of hydrogen ions) per litre. Translating this into a more easily recognised number, it means that our pH7 solution contains 0.0000001 (that is, 1/10,000,000) grams of hydrogen per litre.
A solution of pH6 contains 0.000001 (1/1,000,000) grams of hydrogen per litre, and one of pH8 has 0.00000001 (1/100,000,000) grams of hydrogen per litre.
A solution of pH7 contains 10 times as much hydrogen as a solution of pH8. Hence, the pH decreases as hydrogen concentration increases.
So far so good, but as you can see, things get a little awkward when you’re talking about smaller pH changes, for example from 8.3 to 8.2. How to calculate the hydrogen concentration in this case? What you need is the negative antilog function on your pocket calculator.
A value for a pH of 8.3 would be typed in as -8.3. Don’t forget that important minus sign !The antilog value will emerge as 5.0119 X 10-9 (5.0119 times ten to the power of minus 9), and this is the hydrogen ion concentration.
For a pH of 8.2, type in -8.2. The answer will be 6.3095 X 10-9. The difference between 5.0119 and 6.3095 is 25.89%, which is close to 26%. In other words, the difference in the 0.1 pH unit change between 8.2 and 8.3 is 26%.
I hope this helps – this is often rounded up to 30% by the doom-mongers.
10
Because the percentage of carbon dioxide in Earths atmosphere is so relatively minuscule,it is simply wrong to say that the carbon dioxide present in Earth’s atmosphere causes any global warming. Increasing carbon dioxide at these levels would have no warming effect whatsoever only to increase plant growth and in turn all other life forms.
132
As Jo suggests, the term to use should be “less alkaline ” rather than the misleading and emotive term “more acidic”.
The shell making mechanism described is a credit to the researchers, why did they have to go and spoil it wasby saying, at the end, that the result would not be fulfilled shell loving lifeforms but dangerous global warming?
Sad.
KK
110
KK more neutral or simply lower PH are OK too. But it is NOT scientifically more acidic, since neither the start point or end point are acids.
Also while adding acids like sulphuric or hydrochloric to water may inhibit shell production carbonic acid is NOT the same because the little critters use the carbonic acid to MAKE their shells – Simplified
CO2 + H20 + Ca- CaC03 + H2
Now this actually happens in stages,
CO2 + H20 HCO3
and so on
Now it’s been noted not just with these studies that Shellfish DO regulate PH and temperature at the shell forming surface of their bodies – So higher levels of CO2 in the ocean increase the bio availability of Carbonate Ions for the formation of arganite. The CO2 “acid” also dissociates more mineral limestone to increase Calcium availability in the water. Shellfish consume CO2 and Calcium to make their shells. I might also point out that warm water precipitates more CaCo3 than cold water!
More CO2 -> Higher Carbonate availability
More CO2 -> Higher Calcium availability
So the very slightly higher dissolution of the outer shell is completely offset by the shellfish having increased bioavailability of CaCO3 precursors for shell formation at the temperature and PH controlled shell forming surfaces of their bodies.
Jo has quite a good page here http://joannenova.com.au/2011/11/the-chemistry-of-ocean-ph-and-acidification/
Also see this article about how shellfish deposit their shells.
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep17269
91
More carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air also acidifies the oceans?
It seemed to be the logical conclusion that shellfish and corals will suffer, because chalk formation becomes more difficult in more acidic seawater.
But now a group of Dutch and Japanese scientists discovered to their own surprise that some tiny unicellular shellfish make better shells in an acidic environment.
What acidity? Until you are below 7, you are alkali.
I am suspicious. While the Summary and Introduction use the phrase ocean acidification. three times.
The quotes from the body of the paper talk correctly about Alkali. Acid is not mentioned and not true
For example they say
“Total alkalinity of the solution is determined by pH method”
They also talk correctly and precisely of a reduction of pH, not ‘acidification’, a wrong statement as the water is not acid.
“The foreseen reduction in pH (from 8.1 today to ∼7.8 at the end of the twenty-first century36) by increased oceanic CO2 uptake is relatively small compared with the pH decrease in the foraminiferal microenvironment (down to 6.9 in Fig. 1) during calcification. The decrease in ambient pH (Table 1) does not noticeably affect the strong decrease in pH in the foraminiferal microenvironment as a result of calcification. Hence, a relatively moderate decrease in pH may not impair foraminiferal calcification.”
There is no mention of acidity in this paper. 7 is neutral. Above 7 is alkali and this paper says the oceans are alkali including the surface. Below 7 is acid, so the extreme limit of 6.9 is a tiny bit acid and is caused by a living organism.
Above 7 is alkali, not acid. The seas are alkali and a huge buffered solution, bordered by trillions of tons of calcium carbonate in limestone, coral and the White cliffs of Dover and the sea floor. These would all have to go before the seas could be acid.
(The use of circular Bessel functions and Fricks law to model proton diffusion around the foraminifera is amazing for a biological analysis paper is gob smacking physics to use in a marine biology paper. I just wonder who would have the breadth of knowledge to understand all this.)
As for 30%, it sounds like big change but chemically equilibrium works on a log scale and on a log scale is only log(1.3) or a reduction in pH of 0.114. Tiny.
This is really not a paper about ocean acidification and makes the clear point that the effect of a reduction in alkalinity is trivial in the process.
So I am suspicious that the Summary and Introduction have been bolted on for effect, reinforcing the nonsense of ocean ‘acidification’ when the massive seas are all alkali. Maybe that is what you have to do to be published these days?
322
If the pH of sea water drops.. It becomes less CAUSTIC
94
Yes, caustic is a synonym used more in large scale industrial chemicals. However I do not remember it being used for this sort of chemistry where the words acid and alkali are the antonyms or perhaps acidic and basic. The authors use alkali in the body of the paper and reduction in pH, not the absurd and incorrect phrase ‘increasing acidity’. The range being discussed is so close to neutral anyway at 7.8-8.1 that even calling sea water alkali is being a bit picky but technically correct. The distinction between acid and alkali is critical chemically because so many acid/base chemical reactions reverse at this point. That is when the incredible buffering of the trillions of tons of limestone comes in. You have to compare the technically precise language in the body of the paper with the emotive and wrong description in the summary and abstract.
70
It’s incorrect, sloppy usage, and, I suspect, is deliberately engaged in by “Ocean Acidifiers” to confuse.
When something becomes less acidic, it is not more alkaline. If its pH is still less than neutral, it can only be described as less acidic, because it is still on the acidic side of neutral. An acidic solution is either weakly (nearly neutral), moderately or strongly acidic.
The same argument holds for basic/alkaline/caustic, except that the pH for this starts above that of neutral and increases with strength.
An acidic solution can have an alkaline solution mixed into it. The acid and alkali neutralise each other. If more alkali is added to the acidic solution than is needed to neutralise it—that is, to bring the solution’s pH to the neutral pH—then it ends up as an alkali/basic solution, not an acidic one, and most especially not as a less acidic one.
Solutions—and rain, rivers, lakes and oceans are solutions—are either acidic, neutral or alkaline. Period.
The pH defines its state and provides a relative measurement within its state.
Leave these imbecilic word games to the true imbeciles. As good sceptix, we should maintain clarity through precision. So go forth and be precise.
00
The zero point of relative of course is 7.0 or neutral.
00
I use alkaline in preference to caustic but it might help to scare the snowflakes!
30
I LOVE scaring snowflakes 🙂
02
… the Summary and Introduction have been bolted on for effect …
Awhile back I read somewhere reliable where an author of a published paper complained that the summary and intoduction were actually done by the publishing journal’s sub-editor. He (author) had no input at all. The summary made him very uneasy.
I’ve only ever had 3 articles published (on topics galaxies far and away from any climate connections) and these were really quite obscure structural geology issues. The editors did not interfere at all past the review and formatting stages. But then again the topics were not best-sellers either.
60
Serious question. Having handled industrial CO2 frequently, I’m at a loss to understand how warm water can be more acidic than cold. When we needed to really gun the CO2 into the mix for a low pH we got the coldest water possible. The difference between warm water and cold was very substantial as regards both absorption and pH.
This last dribble of sea level rise (it hasn’t been much) seems to have begun in the latter 1700s, judging by various old gauges. I assume there has been some “global warming” of oceans since then. So how come a lower pH? Can some extra atmospheric CO2 overcome the very strong tendency of warm water to spit the gas and thus keep a higher pH? I don’t get it.
130
Yes, IF CO2 causes global warming then Henry’s Law becomes a factor in that less CO2 will dissolve in the oceans. Bear in mind that approx. 98% is there as dissolved gas and not affecting the pH. Also that if the pH reduces then the equilibrium moves against conversion to bicarbonate.
The figures for changes since 1750 etc. are made up – sorry modelled – by assuming that extra CO2 reduces the pH, ignoring any temperature effect. Also, with a reported variation of pH of 0.5 units across the oceans and a seasonal variation up to 0.3 units in any one spot I am sceptical about “ocean acidification”.
Anyway, the White Cliffs of Dover (including the South Downs in England and the equivalent deposits in France) were laid down in the Cretaceous Period when the CO2 level was between 1600 and 1950ppm. Hardly cause for anticipating impending doom.
For the record there were NO pH meters before the late 1930’s.
150
“For the record there were NO pH meters before the late 1930′s.”
And if you think NOAA sea measurements are sparse….. how many ships carry a pH meter and use it?
123
“The results of the study are published in the leading scientific journal Nature Communications.”
I guess that should have been a warning to me. Once I would have responded favourably and with confidence to terms like “leading scientific journal” and “Nature Communications”. How long ago all that seems now.
80
Ocean acidification is a complete hoax dreamed up by a couple of NOAA scientists.
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2014/12/23/noaagate-how-ocean-acidification-could-turn-out-to-be-the-biggest-con-since-michael-manns-hockey-stick/
172
Worse, the graph ranges from 7.6 to 8.4. No water on this graph is below 7, acidic.
So not only are ‘acid’ and ‘more acidic’ wrong statements, as said the long term data does not support a long term steady drop in pH. Another hockey stick created by showing a partial picture.
As for ph from 1750, someone is pulling our legs. Acids had not been identified until Arhennius in the late 19th century.
That is before you get to the fact that 98% of the world’s free CO2 is already in the ocean.
130
Your right tdef, also what is the error margin ? I think this is just a ploy for us to accept the meme of ocean acidification , when reality suggests it’s nothing more than unsubstantiated [snip] .
[If you avoid the word I snipped you will avoid being in moderation. Thanks.] AZ
40
Did I use the “F” word again ? Freud in future .
00
It is unsubstantiated. Ocean pH varies from about 8.1 to 8.8 almost all the time. You can sit at anchor out in your nearest/favourite harbour, toss a bucket over the side every half hour, draw it up, measure its pH and arrive at all values between that range quoted in just one day. You might even spot a value slightly outside the range but it won’t be by much.
(I wonder if `phrawd’ is trapped?)
00
Nope! Not yet! 🙂
Most people don’t know that even the mild alkalinity of the oceans actually makes life more difficult. Life forms make use of many strategies to thrive therein. Eels for example, excrete a thick layer of mucus to protect their skin. So living in slightly acidic conditions could be easier. After all, we use hydrochloric acid in our stomachs to pre-digest our food.
In support of this, ocean floor volcanic vents output acidic water and support a highly varied collection of flora and fauna in their immediate environs.
However, a counter argument for this is the pH of our blood (a very complex solution) which is tightly regulated to between 7.35-7.45, or very mildly alkaline.
00
I get very suspicious when percentages around 97-98 are cited.
This range has been trashed for all time.
11
Usually I quote 50x but this translates directly into 98%.
That’s why the whole thing is unbelievable, the idea that our tiny amount of CO2 makes any difference or hangs around for long or produces any warming at all rather than vice versa. The most likely reality is that all the air comes from the oceans and most is in the oceans. Fish breathe. We came from ocean life and we live in a very thin ecosystem, totally dependent on wet lungs and salt. Our new ecosystem is a mere 2km thick and the fact that it is -60C just 5km or at the South Pole up is irrelevant in temperate or tropical climates.
The very idea that fossil fuels have a great influence on the amount of CO2 in the air and in turn on climate is both arrogance and insecurity. It’s like worrying about the temperature at the poles when just over a hundred years ago we had not been to either. It seems the moment we discover or measure something like the thickness of ice, the phenomenon of coral bleaching, the ozone hole, the migration of caribou or cycles of life for polar bears, someone invents a reason to be very worried, blame someone and raise taxes. Blame the other person.
For example now there is a diesel tax in London. So the environmentalists favorite before electric cars, diesel, is being taxed punitively because of they are the polluters? Soon every council will have a diesel tax, because the money is great and diesel is now the problem. It seems the Greens of the last two decades are the problem and need to be taxed to save the planet. Ha. Ha. Ha.
40
You could use 52x which translates into 98.8%? They’re accurate and pedantic but should be readily recognisable.
00
Thanks for that link – very interesting. But it makes me wonder. If the science is so good – why do the alarmists need to lie and conceal?
Perhaps the science isn’t so good after all? That’s my theory, anyway…
Cheers,
Speedy
130
‘….why do the alarmists need to lie and conceal?’
I suppose in a very real sense the Klimatariat kept digging themselves into a deeper hole, nobel cause corruption.
As TdeF correctly points out ‘98% of the world’s free CO2 is already in the ocean,’ which makes a mockery of acidification.
40
unrelated, but my scientific offering for the day, which some might like to critique:
26 Jan: UPI: Brooks Hays: Scientists Discover Metal That Conducts Electricity But Not Heat
Researchers have discovered a metal that fails to comply with the Wiedemann-Franz Law, the rule that suggests good conductors of electricity will also be good conductors of thermal energy…
The revelation — detailed in the journal Science — furthers the oddball reputation of metallic vanadium dioxide…
“This material could be used to help stabilize temperature,” said Fan Yang, a postdoctoral researcher at Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Foundry. “By tuning its thermal conductivity, the material can efficiently and automatically dissipate heat in the hot summer because it will have high thermal conductivity, but prevent heat loss in the cold winter because of its low thermal conductivity at lower temperatures.”
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2017/01/26/Scientists-discover-metal-that-conducts-electricity-but-not-heat/7541485461847/?utm_source=upi&utm_campaign=mp&utm_medium=2
27 Jan: Science Mag: Anomalously low electronic thermal conductivity in metallic vanadium dioxide
Decoupling charge and heat transport
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/355/6323/371
30
Hi Pat,
Without reading the accompanying link it is immediately obvious that the material under discussion, Vanadium dioxide, is not a metal but a compound.
I imagine that steel has a similar behaviour.
Bright steel is capable of conducting heat and electricity, maybe not as well as copper, but it conducts.
Now a thought experiment. Imagine that the bright steel is left out in the open with no protection for 50 years.
It will rust and you can be sure that it’s conductive properties are less than in the original state.
That an oxide of Vanadium doesn’t conduct that well is not surprising.
Is this just a case of the authors having to sell their paper using an advertising teaser?
KK
10
KinkyKeith –
thanks for your comment. I noted someone saying something similar in a comment on some website last nite.
10
Well, now, a welcome relief from trump bashing/boosting, depending on the phase of the moon or whatever it depends on.
I have had a hard time believing ocean ph has stayed constant over thousands of years — or more. And now maybe it’s not so important because, just maybe, organisms can handle the ph problem themselves? If the lesson here is anything it’s that we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Life may be more resilient than we think.
90
Sorry Roy, news just in Russia hacked the oceans pH to influence the results so Trump can float his fish oil stocks
70
Nice try. 😉
But it’s more like someone hacked your comment. Or maybe the comment’s ph is wrong. It’s really hard to tell whether you’ve been hacked or had your ph messed with because they both cause random words to issue from your fingers. Oooo! Be careful. Danger ahead. 🙁
40
After endless ice ages and three major catacylysms, life on earth is obviously resilient. To think the world would end for the sake of tiny shift in temperature only detecteable by statisticians would itself be amazing.
60
Not just amazing, unbelievable. But I hesitate to speak in such absolutes, lest those who worry more than they think or look into things before speaking should become too excited.
30
Roy Hogue January 31, 2017 at 2:21 pm
“Not just amazing, unbelievable.”
How about ‘Obscene niceness’..
20
You may have a point there. Obscene could be applied to a great many things.
It’s too bad all the alarm bells going off in someone’s head over ocean acidification cannot be so easily dismissed because those same heads can muck up things pretty badly, leaving the cooler thinking heads to clean up the mess — at least if they would let us.
10
All carbon based life forms on the planet produce carbon dioxide through respiration. Just think of all those coral polyps along the 2300 kilometres of the GBR pumping out carbon dioxide 24/7/365. “It’s much worse than we thought!!”
80
But also think of the associated algae/bacteria (the coloured part of corals) which eagerly use said CO2.
70
They do it for considerably longer than the 365 weeks that you state, Mr Evans; in fact, they have been doing it for tens of thousands of weeks, so far, and may well continue for as many or more in the future!
(Mind you, it could be something to do with men and the seven-year-itch… I don’t know…)
30
Robin,
I hope that you aren’t suggesting that we need to get rid of the coral?
KK
10
It shouldn’t be.
It is well known that calcification often takes place under the local biochemical control of the organism itself (which, inter alia, also has a lower internal pH than the surrounding milieu).
The only thing surprising is either the continuing ignorance, or brazen lying, of so called researchers who claim that very small pH changes must necessarily be harmful. The displayed knowledge of chemistry and biology frequently appears to be stuck at the level of a ~12 year old.
100
Like life on any other part of the planet, ocean life NEEDS Co2.
53
Co2-> CO233
I do find it rather confusing – many sources state that the oceans contain over 90% of the planet’s CO2; many also state that a significant amount of the increase in CO2 is from “outgassing” from the oceans as they imperceptibly warm. It is also being stated that what CO2 that is being absorbed by the oceans is dangerously reducing the pH of the oceans.
Perhaps there is a scientist out there who could explain to me why the outgassing of CO2 does not dangerously increase the pH value of the oceans, prior to its dangerous decrease as this gas is (re)absorbed. Could it be that it is only the human-produced CO2 that causes this drastic, dangerous reduction in pH? If so, how on Earth can this be explained or demonstrated without collapsing into heaps of giggles?
150
Good point. Even the idea that man made CO2 enters the oceans should worry someone. It raises a real concern that man made CO2 might vanish!
A massive 98% is the figure, 50x the amount in the atmosphere. Yes, the unjustified and incredible presumption is that extra CO2 in the air produces extra CO2 in the ocean surface. However the reverse does not happen. Under Henry’s Law, increased atmospheric CO2 can be absorbed by the ocean and decreased CO2 will be replenished. The key is ocean temperature, which is vastly more complex than it seems as despite the n insistence that only the surface is involved, the ocean is not a constant temperature!
So absorption in cold climates and outgassing in warm climates and deep currents moving energy from one to the other, upwellings, sinks and massive circulation like the air itself.
However in the locked mind of the man made CO2 caused warming advocates, none of this happens. In warming science Henry’s Law is unidirectional. Warming oceans do not increase CO2 and further, man released CO2 is trapped forever in the atmosphere. CO2 does not leave the ocean. Ever. As for the vast amount of CO2, that is trapped below the surface for thousands of year. The only consistent theme in this amazing logic is that Democratic capitalist countries are the problem and need to be punished with taxes. This is coming from the United Nations as the truth, the whole truth. It is not to be questioned. Along with fake news, fake science.
50
The exact point I have made before, the Oceans can’t Net Outgas CO2 due to warming and become more acidic. Likewise CaCO3 precipitates from warm water better than cold so “Global warming” results in two opposing forces on CO2 concentration. The Organisms in question control PH and Temperature within the shells in order to optimise their ability to synthesise shells. So all an increased CO2 and Ca concentration can do is increase CaCo3 production in the warmer, PH controlled environment of the shellfish’s body.
This stuff is typical scientific nonsense, that taking one factor (PH) and changing it represents what happens in the real world.
10
Hi all,
Interesting finding but didn’t we already know that marine organisms that build calcium carbonate shells do it from within their body tissue, not by fixing it from the surrounding sea water? In other words they do not glue calcium carbonate to themselves but produce it from within tissue over which they have pH control. I learned that in 2 year Uni Biology back in the 1990’s I think. Maybe they are only referring to single call organisms like forams?
Lower pH may result in thinner shells due to exposure to “acid” conditions but it will not stop multicellular creatures like mollusks making shells.
As for ocean acidification well, lets just say, what a bunch of crap!
About 100 million years ago mirco-planktonic organisms began to evolve calcium carbonate shells. Since then, as each critter dies, there has been a continuous “rain” of these shells falling to the ocean floor resulting in the accumulation of thick layers of carbonate ooze. This results in a buffering of the oceans that can only be over come if these layers of ooze were to be dissolved by massive amounts of acid. Current atmospheric CO2 levels of about 0.04% could never do it so no pH change is possible.
That’s not to say that you can not get variations in pH in shallow coastal waters due to flood events or drought etc. but these are temporary changes and do not effect the global ocean pH. Possibly only large scale undersea volcanism lasting many centuries might be able to do it.
Anyone who says that the oceans are acidifying are doctors of witchcraft not doctors of science.
162
This carbonate ooze on the sea-floor is a massive drain of carbon from the carbon cycle.
If it is not replaced, then eventually the carbon cycle runs out of carbon. Not good for the planets biosphere !
This has been the state over the last million or so years, as shown by the Vostok ice core rocking between 250 and 180 ppm CO₂.
Thanks to humans releasing long buried carbon back into the carbon cycle as CO₂, the world’s plant life and biosphere has been given a new lease on life.
115
DonS,
Would the mass of sediment raining down produce a floor layer each year that is quite thin, or might it be around one millimeter per year, matching some estimates of sea level rise? Truly I do not know the quantitative answer, but I have not seen this precipitation effect included in
sea level change calculations.
Geoff
52
Plus sediment from rivers etc. although I think an attempt is made to include that..
43
Hi Geoff,
Sorry for taking so long to get back but I’m not on the net everyday.
As to your question about the precipitation producing a change in sea level I would say not for 2 reasons.
1. The amount deposited annually is as you say very small and could not be detected as sea level rise even if we tried. AndyG55 mentioned sediment inflow from rivers, which would be more significant annually however the oceanic crust tends to sink into the mantle to compensate for the added weight of sediment so no net rise in sea levels would be likely from these sources as I see it.
2. More importantly the organisms that produce the calcium carbonate shells do not make it from nothing. The calcium and carbonate are already in the oceans, the critters just convert it from dissolved to an un-dissolved form i.e. into shell. So nothing is actually being added into the ocean that isn’t already there.
That’s what I reckon anyway.
Cheers.
00
Just thinking laterally, the material raining down is dead biomass.
As a layman I assume most would be from plankton and little from end users and top of the food chain, such as sharks and whales.
As such much would be carbon and nitrogen from the atmosphere from dissolved CO2 and nitrates formed by lightening and solar flares.
Since such compounds, when dissolved, do not take up any volume in the sea water, their precipitation out must add to the volume of the sea, so be part of sea rise.
Actual sea rise is a calculated amount.
In it is added the change of volume in the sea basin, be it positive or negative.
I don’t know if sedimentation is allowed for.
00
Rainwater.. pH 5.5 or lower
All the rivers that have flowed into the oceans over millions of years, have been almost all well below neutral, even down as low as ph5 or a bit lower.
Yet the oceans have stayed steadfastly around pH 8.1
They are surrounded by huge masses of carbonate rocks, sand etc etc, and the pH is not going to move !
Anyone that thinks a tiny change in atmospheric CO2 is going to make one iota of difference on such a well buffered system, must have sludge for brains. ie (is probably a “climate scientist™”
145
Andy , thanks for reminding us of the bigger picture , the CO2 cycle with the oceans is that cooler temperatures in the oceans absorb atmospheric CO2 , warmer water outgasses the CO2 back into the atmosphere , approx 150 million years ago creatures evolved In the sea’s that used that CO2 to form shells , when they die the shells form rock , in effect breaking the CO2 cycle , there was a lot more CO2 in the atmosphere then than now as over the millennia more and more has become sequestrated in rock, eventually we risk levels of CO2 so depleted in the atmosphere that would cause plant starvation , so our emissions of CO2 in recent times from burning fossil fuels has helped replenish the atmosphere with plant food and at least delay the day sometime in the future when so much Co2 will be sequestrated in rock that we drop below the dreaded 180 ppm in the atmosphere , funny how you never hear the precautionary principal applied in that direction
60
Look at the Vostok ice cores.. CO₂ drops perilously low.
45
see #14.1 🙂
25
Indeed at some point we will probably need to deliberately reduce limestone using nuclear power to put enough CO2 into the air for us to survive – this may possibly be necessary as soon as the next ice age, which could be less than 20,000 years away, a blink in geological time.
The biggest risk to us humanity COLD = Low CO2, COLD + Low CO2 = Critically low food yields.
50
“But”, here is an odd argument, but here goes. CO2 does warm the world, no how, creates a better growing system. More co2, creates a healthier ecosystem. More foilege holds heat, warmer environment.
Try that on the loonies. And it only works till harvest time.
30
Jim we have to face reality, sadly CO2 does not warm the world, but we are extremely lucky that human ingenuity has discovered a way to produce a little more of the gas through the industrial process.
In the cold hard centuries ahead (the Holocene interglacial has already passed its used by date) we’ll need every molecule to help maintain life on this far flung planet.
50
Perhaps I am a little fuzzy on the chemistry, but to construct a shell of CaCO3 (limestone) wouldn’t you need dissolved CO2?
10
Yes, You need Water (Not in Short Supply in the ocean), CO2, and Calcium.
10
No contradiction. More CO2 in the water means more calcium dissolves, and shellfish needs calcium to build shells, which in that way gives them an easier supply.
It would be an other outcome if you acidified the water with sulphuric acidc, because it diminish the available calcium. The calcium would then be bound as gypsum, that hardly dissolves.
50
“if you acidified the water with sulphuric acid”
Don’t give them ideas, Svend !
24
Surprise! A consensus is building that the UN is Big Brother in George Orwell’s futuristic novel, “Nineteen Eighty-Four.”
1. The last two known atomic bombs destroyed Hiroshima & Nagasaki on 6 & 9 AUG 1945
2. Stalin’s USSR troops captured the world’s remaining inventory of atomic bombs in Japan’s plant at Konan, Korea a week or two later in AUG 1945.
3. Nations and national academies of sciences were united under the UN on 24 OCT 1945.
4. George Orwell was dying of TB, but he moved from London to the Scottish Isle of Jura to start writing “Nineteen Eighty-Four“ in 1946.
41
Here’s a link to this unfolding story:
https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2017/01/29/trumps-idea-man-steve-bannon-x-rays-ny-times-skull-empty/#comment-204837
Many if not most of us might support democratic internationalism, but not the tyrannical UN IPCC form of internationalism promoted with false or exaggerated claims of the danger of CO2 as a pollutant.
61
I think given human nature, “international democracy” is a contradiction in terms.
From a Christian point of view, this view is also re-inforced by the Biblical account of God confusing the languages of the peope building the ancient Tower of Babel to stop it.
Interstingly, one of the EU Govt buildings in europe is a replica of the unfinished Tower of Babel and the EU figurehead of Europa is the goddess Europa depicted riding a bull.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2l1RhAI-rRQ
Interestingly, in the book of Revelation, it talks of the harlot/whore riding the Beast.
“1 One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute, who sits by many waters.
2 With her the kings of the earth committed adultery, and the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries.”
3 Then the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns.” ( Rev 17:1-3 )
The coincidences are pretty amazing…
IMHO, the EU is the warm up act for the UN.
60
You may be right. All humanity needs to practice humility, love and tolerance in order to survive.
That is the central lesson of my journey through life.
1. In 1943, I was a first grade student drawing racist pictures of Germans and Japanese.
2. In 1960, I became the graduate student of the most humane, brilliant Japanese scientist.
3. Now, I know Paul Kazuo Kuroda risked his life to protect the flame of science from the insanity of nationalism!
30
. . . and the even greater insanity of totalitarian internationalism!
30
🙂
00
OriginalSteve,
Democratic internationalism might be possible if based on:
1. Honest spirituality, not religious dogma
2. Honest science, not consensus dogma
I suspect these could convince the world’s population to accept:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident
That all men are created equal
They were endowed by their Creator
With inalienable rights to enjoy
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
For our democracy, there is but one
Ultimate authority: Our Creator.
Our leaders are but trusted servants
of democracy. They do not govern.
40
Was the CO2 attacking the concrete here?
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2017/01/we-dont-need-no-608.html
10
Whoda thunk it? Such primitive little critters had a proton pump ability like us. ( Our proton pump gives us a gastric pH of 1, but a half a meter away the small intestine is 9.4) Next thing we will find they have calcium channels, heck all of the fancy biochemical tricks we find in humans. Claude Bernard said “maintenance of the internal milieu was the condition necessary for a free existence”. The old Codger musta been onto something back then. Gosh just think we mighta inherited it from dem critters and not the other way around.
120
Thanks Ted for injecting a level of bio knowledge that puts the “paper” under a bit of scrutiny.
If I am wrong in summarizing this paper as “common knowledge” please let me know.
If it is common knowledge what justifies the work; unless perhaps this particular specimen has not been analyzed previously. Or perhaps, ultimately, this paper was really about Global Warming?
KK
20
Yes, KK humans regulate PH to preciptitate bones and shellfish and crustaceans regulate PH to precipitate exoskeletons – Whoda Thunk it!
Common knowledge, there is no mystery, they even know the ensymes responsible for doing this, indeed the organisms convert CO2 + H20 (acidic) to HCO3- (alkaline) and excrete hydrogen ions left over into the ocean. So by this means they can maintain the environment within the shell to a comfortable PH by regulating water flow and production of Carbonate ions.
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep17269
You saliva is PH 5.9-7.9 IE lower PH that sea water, and I don’t know about you, but I seem to have a big problem PREVENTING the precipitation of Calcium Carbonate.
20
The Australian today
ANNABEL HEPWORTH
The penetration of rooftop solar panels in SA and Queensland has reignited warnings about threats to power supplies.
50
I was thinking about that…perhaps solar needs to be regulated so it can only feed back intot he grid at night from batteries…
40
People in Spain managed solar feed-in at night.. without batteries. 🙂
42
They use the Irish model
30
No No,
Sunlight created the Cretaceous plants that died and were metabolised to become oil and coal, burning the oil to make energy is just restoring the sunlight sequestered in the Cretaceous era to good use therefore – Oil is just a form of Solar Power.
There Justified, Happy?
40
Always keep that in mind in case an opportunity to short cut the process presents itself.
If I had the resources I would be looking into marine aquaculture.
00
POTUS Trump says: Go forth and multiply
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/cartoons/bleak-gallery/image-gallery/ee8a4ef1032a9da5a37c87ecb7f34c5c
10
all over the news today, with theirABC ended with the often-repeated FakeNews “President Trump has said CLIMATE CHANGE IS A HOAX/”:
30 Jan: ClimateChangeNews: Ed King: Trump advisor: green movement a ‘threat to freedom’
“The environmental movement is the greatest threat to freedom and prosperity in the modern world1,” he said, speaking in London at an event hosted by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a climate sceptic think tank.
Investors who have sunk billions into solar and wind energy are “gullible” he said, the science behind global warming is “vastly exaggerated”, the writing is on the wall for the UN’s climate body…
Admitting he has never actually met the president, the veteran lobbyist nonetheless expressed confidence Trump saw talk of a climate crisis as “overblown and overstated”.
Steve Bannon’s appointment as Trump’s key strategist was a sign of his disdain for climate science, suggested Ebell, pointing to Bannon’s appointment of climate sceptic journalist James Delingpole when he ran right-wing news site Breitbart.
TWEET: James Delingpole: Heading for a press conference on Trump’s climate plans purely for the pleasure of watching leftie journalists squirm. Good use of time?
“We did produce an action plan and an advisory document,” he said, which was based on policies Trump discussed during his presidential campaign.
While Ebell would not discuss this “confidential” document, he did indicate it advised Trump how the US can ditch the Paris climate deal and turn off funding for the UN climate body and Green Climate Fund.
It also outlined how the administration can “repeal all rules” linked to greenhouse gases such as the Obama era clean power plan regulating emissions from energy plants…
“The US will change course on climate policy… Trump wants to unleash American energy production,” said Ebell, speaking to a room of around 50 journalists.
Asked if a shift in global investments towards clean energy would impact the White House, Ebell demurred. “I’m not an investment guru,” he said…
The best and “cleanest” way for the US to ditch its international climate commitments is to “withdraw from the framework convention”, he suggested, adding it “may be down the line”…
Rex Tillerson, former Exxon boss and Trump’s pick for chief diplomat, is on record supporting the Paris Agreement…
Ebell: “If Rex Tillerson disagrees with the president – who will win that? The president was elected and Rex Tillerson was appointed. I’d say the president was odds on to win.”…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/01/30/trump-advisor-environmental-movement-a-threat-to-freedom/
50
Even with extra CO2 in the ocean its expected that European sea bass will continue to have a normal social life.
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V20/jan/a13.php
10
30 Jan: Financial Times: Pilita Clark: Trump adviser predicts US will quit Paris climate accord
EPA transition chief believes Rex Tillerson will oppose president’s move
Donald Trump will start pulling the US out of the Paris climate change agreement within 12 months, according to a member of the US President’s transition team…
Mr. Trump has called CLIMATE CHANGE A ‘HOAX’…
Mr. Ebell told reporters in London that Mr. Trump would face resistance from an “expertariat” and an environmental movement he said was “the greatest threat to freedom and prosperity in the modern world”.
In an interview Mr. Ebell told the Financial Times that Mr. Trump was also likely to be opposed by his pick for Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson…
***Mr. Ebell criticised ExxonMobil and other oil and gas groups for supporting the Paris accord, suggesting they were part of a “climate-industrial complex” that stood to gain by squeezing out competition from coal…
(Ebell’s) transition work ended after Mr. Trump’s January 20 inauguration…
But Mr. Ebell thought it would be risky for Mr. Trump to backtrack on his climate pledges because this would be tantamount to ignoring the voters who had elected him “who make stuff, dig up stuff or grow stuff for a living” and did not want to face higher costs from policies to cut carbon emissions…READ ON RE RESEARCH FUNDS, ETC
https://www.ft.com/content/10907460-e67f-11e6-967b-c88452263daf
50
Of related interest for some may be this article on the history of the pH meter.
http://www.labmanager.com/lab-product/2010/10/evolution-of-the-ph-meter?fw1pk=2
10
31 Jan: UK Daily Mail: Trump could tear up Paris climate change agreement ‘as early as tomorrow’, warns former White House advisor
by Emily Chan and Reuters
Any country wanting to pull out of the Paris Agreement after signing up has to wait four years.
But a source on Trump’s transition team suggested last year there were speedier alternatives…
These include sending a letter withdrawing from the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the parent treaty of the agreement; voiding US involvement in both in a year’s time; or issuing a presidential order simply deleting the US signature from the Paris Agreement.
Ebell said the ‘cleanest way’ would be to withdraw from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change itself.
He said: ‘Whether the UN secretariat wants the U.S. to continue to have a seat at the table is up to them. I don’t think Trump cares about that.
‘The people who elected him would prefer not to have a seat at the table.’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4172258/U-S-change-course-climate-policy-Trump-official-says.html
30 Jan: UK Independent: Tom Batchelor: Trump ‘will definitely pull out of Paris climate change deal’
He (Ebell) said the US would “clearly change its course on climate policy” under the new administration and claimed Mr Trump was “pretty clear that the problem or the crisis has been overblown and overstated”.
“I expect Donald Trump to be very assiduous in keeping his promises, despite all of the flack he is going to get from his opponents,” he told a briefing in London…
Mr Trump, who has previously called climate change a hoax invented by the Chinese…
Friends of the Earth’s director of campaigns, Simon Rayner, said pulling the US out of the Paris climate treaty “would be an act of utter contempt from Donald Trump towards the international community.
“Climate change is one of the biggest challenges the whole planet faces – and one the U.S must play its fair share in tackling.
“The warning lights are flashing: Theresa May must urgently stand up to Donald Trump and an environment and political agenda that is already causing huge harm.”…
Ebell: “Since 1996, that is the year before the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated, over 30 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions since the era of fossil fuels began in around 1750 have been emitted. Now, if we were going to have some warming, it should have started.
“The fact is that the sensitivity to carbon dioxide, the sensitivity to the climate, has been vastly exaggerated.
“In all of this discussion of the impacts of global warming, the benefits of higher carbon dioxide levels and of warming…are completely minimised by the alarmist community.”
Jonathan Bartley, co-leader of the UK Green Party, said a US withdrawal would be a “bitter blow to the fight to save our planet,” but added: “The momentum we have gathered is unstoppable, and the Paris Agreement will continue in strength with or without Donald Trump.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-paris-climate-change-deal-myron-ebell-us-president-america-pull-out-agreement-a7553676.html
60
No doubt the worried looking PM Turnbull has been informed and now does not know what to do to save face and explain what our governments have been doing, and spending on donations for the cause. And explaining to his Goldman & Sachs mates too.
40
So Simon Rayner says the US pulling out of the Paris deal would be an act of contempt for the international community? What does he say about Sea Shepherd and their piratical activities in the face of international agreements and international LAW on the high seas? Not much. Funny that.
But if the US shows leadership in extricating itself from an agreement based on the worst hoax and the worst science since Piltdown Man – then he complains?
I hope the leadership in Australia follow them out the door. And, while we’re at it, a review of the monies paid to the UN might be a good idea. Perhaps demand a few economies in the administration? Or just ditch it. Yeah.
Cheers,
Speedy
100
31 Jan: Yahoo: Reuters: Ayesha Rascoe: Trump signs executive order to slash regulations
President Donald Trump signed an order on Monday that will seek to dramatically pare back federal regulations by requiring agencies to cut two existing regulations for every new rule introduced.
“This will be the biggest such act that our country has ever seen. There will be regulation, there will be control, but it will be normalized control,” Trump said as he signed the order in the Oval Office, surrounded by a group of small business owners.
Trump’s latest executive action will prepare a process for the White House to set an annual cap on the cost of new regulations, a senior official told reporters ahead of the signing.
For the rest of fiscal 2017, the cap will require that the cost of any additional regulations be completely offset by undoing existing rules, the official said on customary condition of anonymity.
Trump, a businessman turned politician, campaigned on a promise to reduce federal regulations that he said burdened American businesses…
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-executive-order-slash-regulations-151135855–business.html
20
I assume that because our MSM all but ignored it most people are unaware that the Abbott Government removed a large list of NGOs from taxpayer funding and in addition cut much red tape regulations and announced a future hit list of targets for later on.
50
Around the time of the Abbott coup his popularity was on a par with Malcolm Turnbull now and with the Trump effect I can’t see Talcum surviving the year, unless he pulls the infrastructure bunny out of a hat.
20
Abbott was white anted from 2009 to 2013 and the MSM went along with it
20
Yeah, he was white anted and his dismissal seems to have come as a complete shock to him, I blame Peta for that miscalculation.
00
Really, you don’t blame the white ants named Turnbull and Bishop who spent from 2009 to 2013 undermining their leader Abbott and 2013 to 2015 adding the Cabinet Chief of Staff or Cabinet Secretary (not Abbott’s PA) Credlin to their target?
00
The Whip should have warned him but Peta isolated Abbott.
Turnbull, Bishop, Hunt et al. conspired to eliminate the PM, this is modern day politics.
Anyway, its history, where do we go from here?
00
There must be massive amounts of CO2 injected into the oceans by undersea volcanoes. Is that right?
40
Yes
50
Yes quite right!
Some 85% of the world’s volcanoes are unseen, unmeasured and quietly erupting deep in the ocean. 64,000km of oceanic ridge systems pour out most of the world’s volcanic emissions of CO2, which mostly dissolves in the deep, cold water of the oceans. Volcanoes annually emit more CO2 than does all of humanity. Individual undersea hot springs (there are thousands of them)emit more CO2 than a 1Gw coal-fired powered station. Refer to geologist Ian Plimer’s “heaven+earth” Connor Court Publishing 2009.
But hey, what the hell, don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story. We will blame SE Australia’s recent hot weather on Donald Trump.
70
Late to the party again but a couple of projects have kept me from having my usual bout of what in some far less polite circles [ my friends !!!?? ] has been referred to as my “verbal diarrhoea”!
Now with respect Jo has only covered the surface, literally, of the ocean acidification / ocean PH formanifera’s and by inference, other molluscs and shell fish further up the evolutionary scale, ability’s to fix carbonates for the construction of their shells.
To quote; from Jo’s headline post ;
Surprise, surprise!
I do wish some of these purported researchers and so called experts would do a few minutes reading before coming to such startling to them, conclusions.
Black smokers, those vents of volcanic magma heated water first identified in 1977 and found on all the deep mid ocean ridges at around 1500 to 4000 metres deep have some of the most extreme conditions that life in all its multitudinous versions has very successfully colonised since time immemorial.
Water temperatures being vented from the Black Smokers are around 300 C to 400 C, in short, bloody hot as well as being under such pressure that the vented water is neither steam nor water as we know it.
And the pH of the water being vented by those black smokers?
How does a pH of 2 to 5 sound.
Thats Acidic to say the least.
Now they have found White Smokers with pH levels of 10 to 11.
That alkalinity in all its basic form
So a selected quote from the NOAA info sheet on the newly found “White Smokers” and the outline of the extreme acidic and alkalinity and what are supposedly extreme and toxic conditions to life of every type around the Black Smokers in particular that are characteristics of the deep ocean Smokers
.
How do the vents at Lost City relate to other hydrothermal vents in the oceans?
Thats the chemical characteristics of the deep ocean Smokers, those vents of super heated water that are loaded with chemicals and metals in forms that are supposedly toxic to just about every form of life.
But the Black Smokers are surrounded with teeming masses of bacteria and shrimps and starfish and tube worms and crustaceans that have to get their shell forming materials from right up against those highly acidic hot vented waters.
____________________________________
.
Quoted from the Marine Education Centre of Australiasia
Deep-Sea Biology
_______________________
So with all the crap about the dangers of ocean acidification, a shift of something like 0.1PH ,since the 18th century, an unproven shift in ocean pH and very much a pie in the sky figure selected no doubt as it was going the right way to make another emotively based dangerous sounding development in line with the hard green left’s constant bombardment of the populaces emotional sensitivities so as to sustain itself as a wealth and power grabbing organisation.
We see vigorous and dense conglomerations of a very large range of ocean creatures living in conditions on and around those deep ocean vents that the greens and alarmists and grant troughers in ocean research would claim are utterly impossible for life to exist in the oceans under those conditions.
And in fact as they seem to repeatedly imply, ocean life would become extinct in conditions were changed not very much from the current global climate and ocean conditions.
As usual through gross ignorance and straight out ignorant and deliberate mendacity the greens and all those other alarmist whackos and grant troughers are wrong again as we see the incredible ability of life to adapt to some of the most extreme conditions found on this planet.
And at the bottom of the deep oceans a long way from sunlight at that.
——————
Hydrothermal vents ecosystems images
11
….. and then as PM from 2013 to 2015
00
Not the topic, but for those who haven’t seen it, the Sydney Morning Herald is in hyperdrive anti Trump today. Too much for them to have generated it all themselves.
They have even resurrected Julia Gillard.
.
So just who are the directors of this campaign?
20
George Soros via his funded Australian political spin team GetUp, extreme Greens and other fellow travellers who fear that POTUS Trump and his allies will demolish their agendas.
10
Andrew Bolt has written about the Faux Facts spin today
10
Ted O’Brien –
Fairfax is even applauding their enemy – arch globalist, pro-open-borders Rupert Murdoch – because it suits their fact-free anti-Trump agenda!
Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox gently rebukes Donald Trump over immigrant ban
The Sydney Morning Herald – 1 hour ago
Donald Trump’s controversial immigration ban has finally triggered a response from his biggest media benefactor: Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox…
obviously, Fairfax isn’t watching Fox – only Hannity, Carlson & Judge Jeanine are unreservedly pro-Trump.
10
Ted O’Brien –
but is there a bigger laugh than this?
PM Malcolm Turnbull to give frank advice to Donald Trump privately
Herald Sun – 2 hours ago
OPPOSITION leader Bill Shorten has continued to lash Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over his silence on the US travel ban in his speech to the National Press Club today.
Malcolm Turnbull, stop the mealy-mouthed platitudes and stand up for ***our values
The Guardian 31 Jan 2017
the MSM reminds me of petulant primary school children.
20
levels so that in the right spot, where they need a higher pH, they can create that. The researchers say “such an active biochemical regulation mechanism has never been found before”
This is a good piece of research.
However proton pumping is well known in other species.
https://courses.washington.edu/conj/bess/acid/acidreg.html
‘There are three regulatory molecules that stimulate acid secretion (acetylcholine, histamine, gastrin) and one regulatory molecule that inhibits acid secretion (somatostatin). Acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter that is released by enteric neurons. Histamine is a paracrine that is released from ECL (enterochromaffin-like) cells. Gastrin is a hormone that is released by G cells, endocrine cells that are located in the gastric epithelium. Somatostatin is also secreted by endocrine cells of the gastric epithelium; it can act as either a paracrine or a hormone.
The figure (same as on the handout) shows how the positive and negative regulators interact to stimulate acid secretion. Acetylcholine and histamine directly stimulate parietal cells to increase acid secretion. Gastrin stimulates acid secretion by stimulating histamine release from ECL cells. (Gastrin also has a direct effect on parietal cells, which is to stimulate their proliferation). When the pH of the stomach gets too low, somatostatin secretion is stimulated. Somatostatin inhibits acid secretion by direct effects on parietal cells, and also by inhibiting release of the positive regulators histamine and gastrin. The balance of activity of the different regulators changes as food is consumed and passes through different segments of the upper GI tract.’
One might well hypothesise Ph regulation in animals and Man for survival and multiplication.
After all these sea animals have survived for millions of years, so an active pump to control Ph and electrolytes must be involved.
Too often we are told that Bronsted-Lowry theory is not involved in seawater in the formation of shells, for reasons I cannot understand.
Fake News?
There was a recent thread on Watts Up With That.
However this research demonstrates active pumping of protons, ensuring the deposition of calcareous skeletons.
Life trumps CO2 theory.
40
The hottest record is being beaten again according to some;
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-31/hottest-summer-ever-and-it-is-only-january/8225840
10
Oh good grief! Here they go again. We have had more cooler nights than usual lately and fruit is taking longer to ripen. No days of 40C here yet either and they expect us to swallow that nonsense about hotter than ever. How stup1d they make themselves look with these silly claims. Of course, their claims will be swallowed whole by the soy latte supping snowflakes down in the city.
31
No argument here Annie I’ve had the jacket on outside for work more often than not, one hot day then a cool change, rain, cloud cover for a few days after, the heat just isn’t staying around, if this continues through February the fire season won’t be that bad until next year or a summer that really dries out all that fuel.
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‘Sydney’s Observatory Hill, at The Rocks, has recorded nine days of temperatures 35C and above, equalling the previous record set more than 120 years ago in the summer of 1895–96.’
Apart from the UHI fudge factor (if we accept it as gold standard) then we are about to enter a Gleissberg.
The other thing worth mentioning, I didn’t notice any AGW catastrophe attached to this story.
20
Brisbane hottest January…1903.
20
Clearly the wayward jetstream is a precursor to global cooling.
Needless to say, aunty can’t blame it on CO2.
00
no wonder Amazon’s Bezos, Google & the rest of Silicon Valley hate Trump & have been pretending to care about those affected by Trump’s immigration EO. more heads will be exploding if/when this is announced!
30 Jan: Bloomberg: Trump’s Next Immigration Move to Hit Closer to Home for Tech
by Peter Elstrom and Saritha Rai
President Donald Trump’s clash with Silicon Valley over immigration is about to become even more contentious…
… Google, Facebook, Salesforce, Microsoft and others railed against the move, saying it violated the country’s principles and risked disrupting its engine of innovation. Trump’s next steps could strike even closer to home: His administration has drafted an executive order aimed at overhauling the work-visa programs technology companies depend on to hire tens of thousands of employees each year…
If implemented, the reforms could shift the way American companies like Microsoft Corp., Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc. recruit talent and force wholesale changes at Indian companies such as Infosys Ltd. and Wipro Ltd. Businesses would have to try to hire American first and if they recruit foreign workers, priority would be given to the most highly paid…
“Our country’s immigration policies should be designed and implemented to serve, first and foremost, the U.S. national interest,” the draft proposal reads, according to a copy reviewed by Bloomberg…
“Visa programs for foreign workers … should be administered in a manner that protects the civil rights of American workers and current lawful residents, and that prioritizes the protection of American workers — our forgotten working people — and the jobs they hold.”…
But in recent years, there have been allegations the programs have been abused to bring in cheaper workers from overseas to fill jobs that otherwise may go to Americans. The top recipients of the H-1B visas are outsourcers, primarily from India, who run the technology departments of large corporations with largely imported staff…
Congress is also working on visa reforms and the parties will have to cooperate to pass new laws. ***Zoe Lofgren, a Democratic congresswoman from California, introduced a bill last week to tighten requirements for the H-1B work visa program…
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-30/trump-s-next-move-on-immigration-to-hit-closer-to-home-for-tech
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Here we go again on the self interest wagon. Short term or long term?
Trump is addressing the short term, immediate problem. Current unemployment. What are the longer term consequences?
If employment is not based on best available talent, the US science will lag behind. Science in say India and China will gain the talent excluded from the US. The US will eventually slip behind.
Trump would understand this. That is what sets him apart from our trained economists. So don’t expect these measures to remain as depicted once the unemployment problem is solved.
01
31 Jan: Adelaide Advertiser: Tony Shepherd: Affordable, reliable energy is possible says Professor Alan Finkel in Adelaide
SOLVING the “trilemma” of having energy that is affordable and reliable, while also meeting Australia’s climate-change targets, will not be easy, but is possible, Australia’s Chief Scientist Alan Finkel says.
Prof Finkel yesterday began a worldwide tour, sparked by South Australia’s devastating blackout, in Adelaide.
He is talking to people here and overseas about the national energy market as he prepares a report for government.
***He said an emissions intensity scheme was still under consideration.
The Government swiftly backtracked on the idea of an EIS after Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said it was a possible solution…
“We’re looking at everything that makes ***intellectual sense,” he said…
Yesterday Mr Turnbull was forced to deliver another gentle smack down to his predecessor, Tony Abbott.
Mr Abbott publicly argued for a reduction in the RET…
Prof Finkel said yesterday both that renewables weren’t the main reason for high energy prices, and that new large-scale solar and wind farms now cost the same to build as new coal generators.
Opposition energy spokesman Mark Butler called Mr Abbott’s remarks “sniping” and said Mr Turnbull had failed to stand up to the right wing of the party…
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/affordable-reliable-energy-is-possible-says-professor-alan-finkel-in-adelaide/news-story/5d00170b1e6902127b89236a69ebc5bb
MSM won’t touch this & Carbon Pulse requires subscription, but found the cached version:
27 Jan: CarbonPulse: Briton sentenced to more than 3 years in jail for EU ETS tax evasion
A British man that had been sought by authorities for several years has been sentenced by a German court to three years and three months in jail for tax evasion linked to the EU carbon market, according to sources.
Mohsin Usmangani Salya, who had been hunted by German authorities over his suspected involvement in committing so-called carousel fraud through the EU ETS, was in Nov. 2016 convicted of “serious tax evasion”, an official with the Frankfurt prosecutors’ office told Carbon Pulse.
The official said Salya turned himself in to German authorities last year, after which an international warrant that had been issued for his arrest was withdrawn…
No other details were publicly available as German law restricts authorities from publicly naming individuals accused or charged with crimes.
Salya’s surrender and conviction was confirmed to Carbon Pulse by one of his legal representatives.
German authorities last April reissued a public call for help in tracking down Salya and two other men suspected of being involved in a tax evasion and money laundering scheme linked to the EU ETS and valued at over €125 million.
Pakistani nationals Ashraf Muhammad and Mobeen Iqbal remain wanted by Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), according to the agency’s website, on suspicion that they “fraudulently” dealt EU carbon allowances between 2009 and 2010.
“Their whereabouts are believed to be outside of Germany (Dubai/UAE or Pakistan),” the BKA said.
International arrest warrants were first issued for the three men in 2014.
Authorities may have linked the trio to other British men recently arrested or charged by European authorities over their role in VAT fraud in the EU ETS, which experts estimate has cost governments as much as €7 billion in lost revenues.
A German court last year found seven Deutsche Bank employees guilty of facilitating €220 million in tax fraud through the EU ETS, with one former banker sentenced to jail.
According to the BKA, at least a dozen individuals have been sentenced by German courts to jail terms of up to 10 years for their part in the widespread fraud, which plagued the European carbon market for several years before governments tightened up tax laws.
20
hilarious and true:
30 Jan: WashingtonTimes: Jennifer Harper: President Trump: Man of action to the Republicans, source of ‘chaos and confusion’ to Democrats
Oh the hand-wringing, the outrage, the overuse of the word “chaos,” plus endless shrill talking points. The news media, the Democratic Party and Hollywood have stumbled upon reality at last: President Trump is in the White House, taking care of business full speed ahead — just as he said he would. Livid ***news organizations, operatives, strategists and movie stars are almost incandescent with rage, as America looks on. The phenomenon will intensify Tuesday when Mr. Trump reveals his nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, likely setting off a whole new round of strategic, carefully crafted narratives that suggest the nation is on the brink of disaster and tumult.
“President Trump’s actions should not have come as a surprise to anyone who was paying ***even the slightest attention to the presidential campaign,” notes an editorial in Investor’s Business Daily…
“Much of the ‘chaos and confusion’ that Schumer complained about was the result not of Trump’s order, but the false, misleading and inflammatory claims spread by Democrats, protesters who instantly swarmed into various airports, and the ***mainstream press that vigorously fanned the flames. This has, unfortunately, been the pattern since Trump took the oath of office,” notes the Investor’s Business Daily editorial.
“All the actions Trump has taken so far are ones he promised months ago to tackle immediately, yet they are all treated as shocking developments. It is hard to see how Trumps’ critics are helping their cause when they react to everything Trump does as if it were a world-ending catastrophe.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jan/30/donald-trump-man-of-action/
40
Just think, all these poor deluded snowflake Democrat liberal leftists only had to do one thing to stop Trump.
Vote!
Tony.
00
O/T
EPA, take note.
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Well, who’da thunk it? The Full Story of NOAA’s Data Manipulation.
Wow. Dr Brian needs to know this so he can deny it.
From NoTricksZone.
31
But who reads it?
How does this news compete with the blitzkrieg in the Fairfax press this week?
00
No oceans are acidic,nor anywhere near acidic.
‘Acidic’ is flogged simply because it sounds more dramatic and catastrophic than ‘slightly less alkaline’ which is consistent with the rest of this absurd CAGW propaganda.
The only thing ‘acidic’ or a better word would be ‘toxic’, is the amount of BS we are being shoveled from the Marxist Conglomerate and Mad Malthusian CAGW crowd of imbeciles!
31
If shell easily made then coral stays, shell grit accumulates, calcium carbonate trickles down to the bottom of the ocean as always. That means less not more co2 in the air so I think a positive result as there are plenty of limestone caves being dissolved, great system of cycles in nature. Carbon goes around, calcium goes around we just need to manage and adapt.
00