Rob Dunbar: The threat of ocean acidification

http://www.ted.com Rob Dunbar hunts for data on our climate from 12,000 years ago, finding clues inside ancient seabeds and corals. His work is vital in setting baselines for fixing our current climate -- and, scarily, in tracking the rise of deadly ocean acidification.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate. Watch a highlight reel of the Top 10 TEDTalks at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/top10

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Science & Technology

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• Rob
• Dunbar
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• Mission
• Blue
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• ocean
• acid
• acidification
• climate
• change
• environment
• pollution
• science

[0maxwell2]

@RoyStewart rather than dispute chemistry we can all verify with some arithmetic and access to physical constants. So, I would urge you to use your scientific acumen to read Dunbars work, e.g. Arrigo, K.R. Dunbar, R.B., et al,Science, 283: 365-367 (1999); K.R., Dunbar, et al, Journal of Geophysical Research, 105: 8827-8846 (2000)

[0maxwell2]

@0maxwell2 this is clearly a lower bound because i've not accounted for any equilibrium between the dissolved CO2 and other species once in the ocean. Does this impact free carbonate in the ocean? certainly. Does this impact solubility of calcite and arginite? certainly. Can I do a similar back of the envelope calculation to determine the metabolic stress this puts on coral, etc... not really, at this point we should review the work of people studying these more complicated questions

[0maxwell2]

@RoyStewart And I also want to clear up water can take up CO2 quite readily even under low pressure, CO2 is very soluble in water. Someone at some point said about 33% of CO2 in the atmosphere dissolves in water, in fact I think it's about 3% based on solubility constant, Nevertheless, you can do a b.o.t.e. calc to get a lower bound estimate on increase in [co2] based on an increase from 380 ppm to 480 ppm (increase in partial pressure of 1e-4 atm) and see [co2] increases 20%

[0maxwell2]

@RoyStewart Hi Roy, I just want to point out a couple things. You are correct in that when we say something is acidic, we mean it has a pH < 7.0 However, for aqueous solutions, 'acid' is H3O+. Is there acid, or H3O+, in the ocean? If the ocean pH is 8.04, then the [H3O+] is 10^-8.04, so yes there is acid present. Further more, if the pH decreases to 7.04, the concentration of H3O+ (acid) increases ten fold, so 'decreasing pH' means 'increasing acid' even if the solution is basic

[RoyStewart]

@LukeScientiae Only because they are under pressure. and only as long as they are under pressure.

[RoyStewart]

@thebastedbigfoot doing so reveals that the oceans are alkaline, time for you to shut it !

[LukeScientiae]

@RoyStewart Carbonated drinks (that's drinks with CO2 in the water) are very acidic. Approx 10 times more acidic than fruit juice. You're very, very wrong about CO2 not being able to make water acidic. The extent caused by CO2 in the oceans will not be like drinks (thankfully!), but enough to destroy huge habitats and eventually threated the whole oceanic food chain because plankton will suffer very quickly, and pretty much everything is dependent on that.

[StephanieLisaTara]

HAIKU

I hatch! Crawl! And swim!

Oh how I love my sweet life,

But—why’s the sea so warm?

—A Green Sea Turtle

[RoyStewart]

@chrisprescott at the atmospheric pressure at sea level the sea water can't take enough CO2 to cause it to become acid. The claims that the oceans are acid is a deliberate lie.

[RoyStewart]

@midare It is impossible for enough CO2 to enter the sea water to make it acid, as at any given pressure, the water will only take only so much CO2.