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Melting out, ocean chem, new congress

Discussion in 'Environmental Discussion' started by tochatihu, Nov 26, 2014.

  1. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    Catchall all thread. While y'all are busy defrosting Meleagris galopavo.

    1. Remember Otzi? As snow and ice continue to melt, stuff appears at the surface. Stone and metal implements have archaeological significance. Flesh, leather, wood (biologicals) also have climatological significance, because if they had melted out earlier would have disappeared by decay.

    Otzi's new friends are neolithic (6000 years more or less) bows and arrows. More stuff that miraculously survived earlier hot times and only appear now. Citation:

    Martin Callanan 2013. Melting snow patches reveal Neolithic archery. Antiquity 87(337): 728–745

    I cannot just walk into this journal, so a full read requires email to author. But the message is clear enough.

    2. please start here:

    Acid Maps Reveal Worst of Climate Change | Observations, Scientific American Blog Network

    because it is almost entirely useful. We need to talk about the 300-million-year thing though. The most cited paper on long-view ocean chem appears to be this:

    Bärbel Hönisch et al. 2012 The Geological Record of Ocean Acidification. Science 335: 1058-1063.

    and it can be freely downloaded from various. In their Fig. 4D we do not see that ocean-surface-pH is now the lowest in 300 million years. We do see in Fig. 4C that the magnesium/calcium ratio is highest now. In text we read that such ratios make 'soft' shells (something like that) . We don't read a reason why
    magnesium is currently going rogue.

    Maybe it's just that CHEMISTRY is too hard to talk about, but this is getting mangled. First by people who misunderstand pH and so state that aciidfication can only happen below pH 7. Wrong kids, sorry about that, acidification is the same as reduction of pH.

    Second by SciAm right here,. Sorry kids, the paleoproxies (tenuous as they may be) do not indicate we have now a 300-my record low-pH ocean. Actually rather the opposite. heh-heh. SCEPTICS U DON'T KNOW THIS BECAUSE U DON'T READ THE LIT! (let that be a lesson...)

    What Hönisch et al. do suggest is that surface ocean magnesium is now such that ocean critters are making the flimsiest shells in 30o my. Certainly a matter that deserves closer, well-funded examination, but c'mon.

    3. this:

    New GOP Leaders Embrace Science but Don’t Hug Trees | Observations, Scientific American Blog Network

    briefly, new committee leads may be good for all aspects of scientific research funding except for climate change.

    I could certainly live with that. IMHO Nat Inst Health gets an unparalleled bang/buck. NASA: go baby go. Climate: well, not all research into ecology and earth system function feeds into the VAST INTERNATIONAL CONSPIRACY. Some people do photosynthesis. Some do decomposition, the other half of the 'non-fossil' carbon cycle, and totally responsible to get nutrients back into plants for photosynthesis. Defunding that broad swath (because it sorta looks like climate change to ... um ... untrained congresspeeps) would not be the smartest possible plan.

    Because humans eat stuff. Never more obvious than on the eve of the Annual Day of Gluttony. So have at it guys. I'll get tofu or sumpin'.