CO2 Pollution Could Erase Coral Reefs | Wired Science | Wired.com
Corals evolved during the Cambrian Era, when CO2 levels were eight to twenty times higher than today. The great coral reefs of the Permian era formed when CO2 was as high as 3,000 ppm CO2.
Obviously corals like high levels of CO2.
Looking at that chart makes me wonder why we haven’t turned up some several-hundred million year old amber that contains some air bubbles that can be used to measure the real CO2 concentration. This would probably help to shrink those error bars a little bit.
The oldest amber is about 320 million years old. It did not become abundant until around 150 mil years ago.
That timeframe is perfect since it includes the period of 250 to 100 MYA where the error bars are simply crazy. So amber from that period would seem to be crucial to fleshing out the CO2 concentration.
Didn’t they make a movie about this 🙂
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/10/29/us/air-from-dinosaurs-age-suggests-dramatic-change.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
“Besides the amber from Canada, the researchers have analyzed 25-million-year-old Dominican amber and 40-million-year-old Baltic amber. As a check on their technique, they have also tested modern resin from New Zealand. Unlike the oldest samples, the Dominican and Baltic ambers appear to match the composition of the modern atmosphere, although those results, too, are preliminary.
Many of the samples, both modern and ancient, share a peculiarity, a huge excess of carbon dioxide. Dr. Berner believes that some process of breathing, either plant or animal, replaces molecules of oxygen one for one by molecules of carbon dioxide.
The result is that the actual levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide vary unpredictably from sample to sample, but the total of the two gases remains constant.”
Berner’s article:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/239/4846/1406.short
Thanks for the links, I’ll study it later.
Not sure how to interpret that quote: “The result is that the actual levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide vary unpredictably from sample to sample, but the total of the two gases remains constant.”, are they insinuating that they cannot trust the CO2 concentration found in the amber and that it needs adjustments? 😉
CO2 isn’t even pollution. How is this even remotely scientific? Corals LIKE CO2. I’m honestly getting depressed at these warmists. How do they get published?
It could or maybe it couldn’t.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/28/the-fishes-and-the-coral-live-happily-in-the-co2-bubble-plume/
You are forgetting that Evolution took a mere few 10’s of thousands of years to create man from primitive hominid. Took mere decades to drastically alter the physiology of an introduced specie of lizard.
Given the time-scales, there is no reason why corals should still like CO2. Of course, there is no real reason they shouldn’t, either.
Sorry, but you missed the boat on this one.
Don`t get me started. That argument is ridiculous.
Correct: the genes are the same. If they weren’t, it wouldn’t be the same organism.
Same argument applies to plants. Chlorophyll evolved at high [CO2] so plants are CO2- starved.and die at <~180 ppm.
Well the corals will evolve over time and adapt to increased levels of CO2. These organisms reproduce relatively quickly. The key question would be to determine their rate of evolution versus the rate of CO2 increase sequestered in the oceans. Before anyone presses the panic button on this it might be worthwhile to conduct an actual experiment to see if and how they adapt… The problem with armchair speculating is that most speculations turn out to be wrong.
Gaia doesn’t like ‘man made’ CO2. Prehistoric CO2 was pristine.
I cannot believe that I had to explain this to you Steven.
Do these geniuses not realize that reef-building corals in the tropics house symbiotic algae within their tissues? And as algae are primitive plants, CO2 is essential for their survival? There are threats to coral reefs, but CO2 is not one of them. What a doltish article.
There are threats to coral reefs like cold weather.
http://www.evergladesfoundation.org/news/entry/cold-weather-kills-corals-assessement-under-way/
Coral reefs of different ages consist of different species that evolved under then prevailing conditions. They are like forests. Forests in different ages or places are different. Coral reefs of today are adapted to current conditions. How fast they could evolve in response to lower pH, higher temps, lower salinity and greater ocean depth (as glaciers melt) is unknown.
However evidence from past major extinction events does not look promising.
I suppose that the chemical properties of aragonite have changed, and we can also now make gold from lead
Skeletons Of Ancient Corals Different From Today’s
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/11/041109235235.htm
See also: http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev-marine-121211-172241
As one can clearly see looking at the chart CO2 concentrations during the Ordovician Period ,were much much higher then today and a probably Ice Age took place back then. During the Carboniferous Period ,CO2 concentrations were similar to today, and Ice Age conditions existed from time to time.
To make matters worse for the AGW fraud theory, during the Eemian Interglacial some 125,000 years ago temperatures were around 2 to 4 C higher then today, while CO2 concentrations were less then 300 ppm!
Remember the 1970’s when all they talk about was the cooling, now they are doing the opposite. However I expect a substancial cooling this decade, unlike in the 1970’s which was another hoax, based on nothing but ridiculousness
This time with the prolong solar minimum in progress, the direct effects, those being a solar irradiance decrease, weaker EUV light emissions, weaker solar wind, along with the many secondary effects which come as a result of those direct effects, is going to result in a N.H. cooling.
I will be most interested to see how volcanic activty phases in with the solar activity, once this very weak solar max of cycle 24 passes on by, and this cycle heads back toward minimum conditions , as we go toward solar cycle 25.
I’m not sure how the percentages work out , but the ALL of the 20% of the O2 in the atmosphere was locked up in CO2 before photosynthesis evolved . Life could not have evolved if there had been free O2 because it would have torn apart the early organic compounds .
That article is from 2008 . Why bring it up now ?
Looks like a 150 million year cycle for low temperatures, which we are currently in.