On one page, the BBC tells us that 400 PPM CO2 will destroy the planet, and on another page they tell us that the planet thrived at 4,000 PPM.
BBC Nature – Cambrian period videos, news and facts
Corals evolved at 4,000 PPM, and now alarmist imbeciles tell us that 400 PPM dissolves corals.
Does it ever occur to alarmists that they are stupider than the witch burners in Monty Python and The Holy Grail?
Congrats Steven on failing to understand evolution, geologic timescales and why comparing long extinct species with extant ones is moronic beyond belief. If anyone is guilty of creating logical fallacies “stupider (sic..oh the irony) than the witch burners in Monty Python and The Holy Grail” it is you.
What a world class stupid substance free comment.Do you believe that the chemical properties of Aragonite have changed?
You are the classic alarmist, repeating mindless mantras with no substance or detail to back them up.
What logical fallacy are you referring to? You speak words, but your intellect is a void.
“Do you believe that the chemical properties of Aragonite have changed?” No, but perhaps you need to see what the pH of the ocean was back then.
What do you expect from Mikey! 😆
Funnily enough, the Oxford Dictionary accepts “stupider” as a word in the English language.
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/stupid?q=stupider
Oh … the irony.
I’ll give you that. The three I checked didn’t have it listed though, so apologies for that part of my comment Steven.
Oh. If uknowimanidiot was more than just a sock puppet then the Arctic would be ice free right now. But it’s not. Oh dear, how sad, never mind.
You played around with my pseudonym. I haven’t seen anyone do that before. Well done! So very clever and original of you and calling me a sockpuppet too? I am extremely impressed by your intelligence and maturity. You can have a gold star sticker. Let’s put it on your Barney lunchbox so all the other kids can see what a clever boy you are.
You seem very sensitive. How about you explain in less than 50 words why Steve’s point above (the one about corals in high CO2 atmospheres?) is not valid. Perhaps if you got out more? Viewed the massive limestone mountain ranges in Laos, Vietnam and plenty of other mountainous places in the world? I guess Steve raises questions about things outside your world view. That’s not your fault. It just is.
Too easy. Corals live in the ocean. That’s 5 words, but for your benefit I’ll expand on that. While atmospheric pH may have been high, ocean pH was not as low as it is today. Some reconstructions have it as high as 7.6-8.4. My worldly understanding of many of the limestone deposits that you mention is that they are micritic in nature. Given that chemistry hasn’t changed since time began they are actually evidence that the oceans had a higher pH than today. Thanks for reminding me.
😆 Mikey made a funny!
And how come you’ve pinched Sam Kekovich’s tag line?
Did you want us all to start eating lamb? I already eat lamb!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dqsyXPkG3I
RE: uknowispeaksense – “on failing to understand evolution, geologic timescales and why comparing long extinct species with extant ones is moronic”
Being the genius you are, you of course know that cretaceous marine sediments in Europe are mainly comprised of white limestone and chalk. You also know that occasionally, black shales are observed to be intercalated within limestone/chalk layers.
Therefore, you know that Steven is correct, but you prefer to focus on the occasional anoxic black shale, rather than the overwhelming white limestone.
Any extinct, limestone depositing creature of old is more closely related to modern species than your extinct, black shale depositing species.
Pray tell, enlighten us on why you ignore 90% of the depositional fossil record?
uknowispeaksense,
Here is an example of high co2 and high temperature on a tropical forest.
uknowispeaksence Perhaps you should have a read of tom segalstad ([email protected]), and find that the oceans must have been very acidic and then take a look a his soda bottle experiment and also the proof that CO2 latency is in tens of years not tens of thousands.
and why comparing long extinct species with extant ones is moronic beyond belief
=======
What are trilobite exoskeletons made of?
Hint: what were ocean pH levels back then?
The fact that you are personally afraid of CO2 is not an excuse for baseless paranoid ad hoc sciency sounding babble.
It’s a simple question Steven. What were the ocean pH levels at the time? You’ve obviously overlooked that detail which I would think is pretty important given corals live in the ocean. You know, it is ok to be wrong? Why not just man up and say “yep, I overlooked ocean pH.”? I can congratulate you for being mature and we can move on to the next topic.
As the CO2 levels were that high and a fairly high volcanic activity back then, probably there was more acid rains. This in turn would cause more mineral leaching from the surrounding earth. As these mineral get deposited, via rivers, into the sea they would tend to neutralize any tendency of the seas to acidify.
Just as happened today. A self regulating and self limiting system (no uncontrolled runaway effects)
That is not to say that the seas were the same pH as today, just to say that they would tend toward alkaline (pH 7 and higher).
7.6 to 8.4 from what I have read.
What are you babbling about? Carbonate chemistry has not changed.
No,but the chemical make up of the ocean has.
recommended ph levels from the EPA
http://water.epa.gov/lawsregs/lawsguidance/cwa/tmdl/upload/oa_state_info_nov2010.pdf
Humm do tell unbeknowentome we tell us the PH is going up at 400ppm so what was it at 4000ppm do tell please.
For a start, the pH is going down. The lower the number the more acidic (or for the picky ones, less alkaline). The higher the number, more alkaline. The numbers I have seen for the ocean pH around the time of the Cambrium explosion ranged from 7.6 to 8.4 which is more alkaline than today.
Same BS, different day!
RE: uknowispeaksense – “The numbers I have seen for the ocean pH around the time of the Cambrium explosion ranged from 7.6 to 8.4 which is more alkaline than today.”
7.6 is more alkaline than today? Do tell? What is the pH of today’s ocean?
Shouldn’t your statement read “more AND LESS alkaline than today?”
There, that wasn’t so hard was it…
sigh*
The role of alkalinity in the evolution of ocean chemistry, organization of living systems, and biocalcification processes, Bulletin de l’Institut océanographique, 1994.
New Constraints on Precambrian Ocean Composition, The Journal of Geology 101(2), 1993
The earliest Cambrian record of animals and ocean geochemical change, doi: 10.1130/B30346.1
Chronology of early Cambrian biomineralization, doi: 10.1017/?S0016756811000720
There’s a good start for you.
You assert that 7.6 pH is higher than the oceans today? I think we are done here.
Gee, you read those papers very quickly as evidenced by your desire to withdraw. What’s wrong? Too technical?
RE: uknowispeaksense “Gee, you read those papers very quickly as evidenced by your desire to withdraw. What’s wrong? Too technical?”
No sir, that wasn’t the issue. The issue was that the papers you cited to back up your pH assertion, make no assertions regarding pH. You created a dead goose chase. I wanted to validate your assertion. If you read further, you will see that I kept searching, giving you the benefit of the doubt, despite my familiarity with the literature.
Instead, I reaffirmed that your assertion of a pH of 7.6 to 8.4 is not supported in the literature, and that even if 7.6 was supported by the literature, the pH in today’s oceans is higher than 7.6
The only thing asserted by the papers you cited was the modern value of 8.1, which most readers will note is larger than 7.6.
Sir, I await with eager anticipation your next diversion.
http://www.ucar.edu/communications/Final_acidification.pdf
extract –
However, the term can also lead to confusion
when it is wrongly assumed that the oceans will become acidic, when in reality, ocean pH is never expected to fall below 7.0; i.e., the oceans are becoming
less basic, but not acidic. Such a phenomenon could
only occur in the unlikely event that CO2 emissions
reach more than 10,000 Pg C (Caldeira and Wickett,
2005).
The ocean-carbonate system is buffered by huge amounts of limestone, so pH is constrained to a very narrow region. People who claim that the oceans could be come acidic are scientific morons.
oops “you” I meant not we normal people
I believe modern hard corals evolved with atmospheric CO2 at around 2000PPM in the late Jurassic but the point remains. 400PPM of CO2 isn’t going to harm them a bit.
400PPM of CO2 isn’t going to harm them a bit.
Probably not.
They are more at risk from excessive rain and runoff than they are from 400PPM CO2.
Look at it this way: 15,000 years ago the Great Barrier Reef was dead as a doornail and about 300 feet above sea level baking in direct sunlight. It recovered. Every single coral reef we currently know of will be dead, dead, dead in the next glaciation. Every natural system has negative feedbacks that prevent runaway else it would have already run away long ago. Periods of warmest temperature are periods of greatest biological diversity. Cold periods are very hard on biology.
@uknowispeaksense
“While atmospheric pH may have been high, ocean pH was not as low as it is today. ”
What is this trying to say? The atmosphere was alkaline? Seas were acid?
typo..thanks for picking that up. “While atmospheric CO2 was high……” and the seas were more alkaline than they are today.
““While atmospheric CO2 was high……” and the seas were more alkaline than they are today.”
Thus contradicting the alarmist mantra that higher CO2 levels cause the oceans to be more acidic.
No it doesn’t. We’re talking about the Earth 1/2 billion years ago. The ocean chemistry and atmospheric chemistry was very different to today. The same processes occur but the starting points are very very different.
🙂 good one Dave N
It’s like I said just below here! Must be that new evil CO2 err something! 😆
Hey Mikey, where did you get the admin rights to post where ever you want, like you just did in between Dave N and Ben’s post here?
I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just hit “reply”. Ask Steven how it works.
It’s that new evil CO2 at lower levels is suppose to be worse fer the oceans than that CO2 of the yesteryears in history that was 10 times higher! LMAO! Good one thar Mikey!
What is wrong with you? The ocean was more alkaline. It’s that simple. You do realise the Earth was a very different place back then? You know…..plate tectonics, excessive volcanism…all that stuff. The ocean chemistry was different. There are hundreds of papers on it. Look them up.
😆 that evil CO2 must be something else thar, hey Mikey!
It’s good to see you still have nothing of value to add to any conversations other than mindless quips.
Not much different that what you do here! 😆
So nor Me guessesss it’s that evil CO2 that is the blame, Right, but when it was 4000 ppm that wasn’t a problem! 😆
On a little side note about corals:
Just because a coral has been bleached does not mean it’s dead. Some bleaching events are caused by cold water.
http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/coral_bleach.html
Apparently when they went back to look at the Pacific ‘bleached’ coral they were mostly all recovering with a different types of symbiotic microbes.
Plants moved from the shade to the sun can get sunburned, lose foliage, and appear almost dead. Then leaves grow out on that same plant that can tolerate full sun. The ability of life to adapt to different conditions is impressive. The coral is likely just shifting gears.
I’ve seen that graph – temperatures vs. CO2 content of the atmosphere back to the Cambrian Explosion – many times, but still don’t know who originally produced it. Anyone know?
The name on the graph is http://WWW.geocraft.com and references “Temp after C.R. Scotose, CO2 after R.A. Berner, 2001.
It can be found at http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html
Steven,
Have you seen the graph “Ice Volume, Planktonic Foram O-18 as Proxy” at
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html
IMO most interesting in its display of glacial cycles and their temperature variance.
Oops,
That should be IMO most interesting in its display of glacial cycles and their VOLUME variance.
The timeframes show us what the chemical basics were throughout the evolutionary periods and since nice rain water is acidic depending on the integration/coalescence of the air it falls through, past PH levels are irrelevant.
http://www.usefulcharts.com/science/human-evolution-timeline.html
We are who we are (for the past 50,000 years) with minimal changes in the last 30,000 years, which means the progressive mind and the conservative mind have coexisted longer than you might have thought…
I’d type something but it’s too damned cold down here.
RE: uknowispeaksense – “The numbers I have seen for the ocean pH around the time of the Cambrium explosion ranged from 7.6 to 8.4 which is more alkaline than today.”
I wonder if you could do us all a big favor, and speak to the chaps at Oxford Journal: Molecular Biology and Evolution. It’s the strangest thing, but when they wanted to reconstruct functional Precambrian enzymes, they used a pH range of 5.5 to 7.6.
If they had spoken to you first, you could have corrected them.
http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/11/30/molbev.msr253.full
Oh … the irony.
Or visitor was only interested in spreading the Fairy Tales of Pseudo Science!
uknowispeaksense
the EPA regulations for sea level ph off the coast of the US is between Ph6 – Ph 8.5. NOAA state that the seas will never become acidic.
“Given that chemistry hasn’t changed since time began they are actually evidence that the oceans had a higher pH than today.”
Two words for this idiot “Henry’s Law”