#acidification

Ocean acidification could boost shell growth in snails and sea urchins 

One of the projects which I’m currently helping out with seeks to answer this question!

Above: starfish with 8 arms, 4 of which are regenerating.

What I get to do is basically:

1. Anaesthetise the starfish and take pictures of them with a scale in the background.

2. Analyse the pictures (i.e. measure how much the arms have grown over time)

Excerpt from this Smithsonian story:

David Kline, a staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, says the threat of disappearing coral reefs is far more urgent than scientists ever realized. In 2010, he led a team of researchers in simulating a future climate change scenario to examine the effects of ocean acidification on coral reefs at the University of Queensland’s Heron Island field station on the Great Barrier Reef. The results of the study were recently published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.

While previous studies of ocean acidification’s impact on coral reefs have taken place in artificial aquarium settings, Kline conducted this 200-day trial in a natural reef ecosystem using a Free Ocean Carbon Enrichment (FOCE) system. The FOCE system, pioneered by a team at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, delivers computer-controlled pulses of carbon dioxide-enriched seawater to mimic ocean acidification.

By studying the reef itself, the team was able to examine the effects of organisms that feed on coral in conjunction with the effects of ocean acidification. Healthy, live coral tissue typically protects its calcified skeleton from a process called bioerosion, where organisms like parrotfish and worms either eat away at exposed coral skeletons or enter the skeletons and feed from within.

The study was the first ever to use the FOCE system to study a coral reef in situ, and the results were bleak. “We found that the effects of ocean acidification, compounded by bioerosion, are likely going to be worse than previously predicted,” Kline says.

Read all the way down and you find this done by using models, models which continue to prove wrong. The fact remains that there are too many factors effecting climate for science to understand it, much less predict it.

“ The researchers came to their conclusions by simulating the conditions of the deep sea in the lab. They replicated the bottom currents, seawater temperature, chemistry and sediment compositions. “

By observable evidence we know that the greatest damage to the sea, and the greatest acidification, which absolutely can be traced to human activity, but probably has more to do with agricultural run-off and other chemical waste pollution, is the Mississippi outlet, India-Bangledesh, and the China Sea, in order to worst. The first two are working to clean things up and the Mississippi is almost completely due to run-off.

By observable evidence the above map is bull shit. This means its intent is to place blame on the USA, Europe and Australia: ie - the Industrialized West. The Industrialized West (including Japan and Australia), with the USA technologically in front, leads the way in Environmentalism with India waking up to it but both Russia and China have yet to care to any degree.

Keep in mind that fifty years ago we barely knew anything about the ocean floor and we still do not know all that much about it in most places. Climatology and Ocean-equivalent are new sciences. New sciences are so off that they typically change their name after it becomes understood; for instance Alchemy is now called Chemistry and Astrology is now called Astronomy.

and I figured I could do some sort of a 30-day-tumblr-challenge for it. It’s something personal and close to me, and I’ve been thinking the challenge could be a combination of doing artwork, thinking about environmental problems and the importance of this planet and maybe some light-hearted little tasks like taking a pic of your house plants or trees, or favourite places on this planet.