“Images on this page show what happens to a pteropod (pronounced “TARE-oh-pod”) shell when it is exposed to seawater with a pH that is lower than normal. After 45 days, the shell slowly dissolves. Earth’s ocean is not this acidic yet, but is predicted become this acidic by the year 2100 if humans continue the present pattern of adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.”
Read “Activity 7: Why Should I Care? : Show How Increased Carbon Dioxide Makes the Ocean More Acidic”.
You sound like you know what you are talking about. I have written a calculation that shows the annual carbonic acid created by today’s ocean uptake of CO2 is on the order of 1 part per 50,000,000,000 ocean-water. How can this produce any meaningful acidification?
Remember kids only you can help the corals……oh wait, that’s not right.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2304595/Coral-reefs-heal-researchers–humans-leave-alone.html
So easy to destroy…If 7 is neutral…end of the acidic claim.
Of course these suggestions that NOAA makes, about Ocean “acidification” are not only fatuous, but actually criminally fraudulent. Persons making such statements, ought to be charged with Fraud Offences, and then put on trial, in A Court of Law! See the many videos at the Fraudulent Climate website, some of which actually demonstrate that this ocean acidification is A LIE, and A FRAUD.
In order for this process to occur the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would have to be in the 30% to 100% range. We all would have asphyxiated long before calcium carbonate began dissolving in the ocean water.
Actually you can dissolve CaCO3 with carbonic acid – H2CO3, it makes Ca(HCO3)2 = calcium bicarbonate which is soluble in water and – key fact – is ALKALINE in solution. (a salt that is the product of a weak acid and strong base is always alkaline in solution).
Remember the old ‘lime water’ experiment? Bubble CO2 through Ca(OH)2 and it first forms CaCO3 (milky precipitate) but if you carry on it goes clear again – formation of bicarbonate.
This is why the oceans can never ever become acidic. The more CO2 that dissolves the more it will remain alkaline! The oceans are a buffer solution.
Only if the ocean beds and sediment runs out of carbonates could the oceans become acidic.
This is all part of the “communication of climate change” strategy, totally dishonest. Jane Lubchenco has a video on the NOAA website where she adds vinegar to a flask containing a stick of chalk. Lo and behold, it fizzes and starts to dissolve. This is what is happening in the oceans, don’cha know.
In 2009, Lisa Suatoni of NRDC, did the vinegar trick in the shockumentary, “Acid Test: The Global Challenge of Ocean Acidification”, fronted by Sigourney Weaver.
Also in the film was Professor Stephen Palumbi, of Stanford University’s Hopkin Marine Station. He also has a video using the vinegar trick, showing how vinegar will dissolve coral. It is for school children.
Also from Stanford, at the Department of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution for Science and another “Acid Oceans” film star is Dr Ken Caldeira, who helped to kick start the current scare in 2003, (Caldeira and Wickett), a paper which was quoted extensively in AR4: Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis, 5.4.2.3 Ocean Acidification by Carbon Dioxide.
“The consequences of changes in pH on marine organisms are poorly known (see Section 7.3.4 and Box 7.3). For comparison, pH was higher by 0.1 unit during glaciations, and there is no evidence of pH values more than 0.6 units below the pre-industrial pH during the past 300 million years (Caldeira and Wickett, 2003). A decrease in ocean pH of 0.1 units corresponds to a 30% increase in the concentration of H+ in seawater, assuming that alkalinity and temperature remain constant.”
Hence we get the claim that “the ocean” has become 30% more acidic since the start of the industrial revolution.
For more on the propganda check out:
Acid Seas – Back To Basic
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/acid_seas.html
Dying Shell Fish Larvae: A Distorted View
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/lies_shellfish_scam.html?Itemid=0
Heh, been there done that Snorbert….
It would take a lot of hydrofluoric acid to eat its way out of a glass beaker.
They hate it when that happens. I pointed out the very same problem right here at JS last year using a like-minded admission by them and the EPA, “‘Ocean Acidification’: A Sweet or Sour Talking Point FAIL?” https://junkscience.com/2012/12/07/ocean-acidification-a-sweet-or-sour-talking-point-fail/
No, hydroflouric acid wouldn’t work too well. It eats through glass…
They have a whole series of similar projects telling the kids on their website “Have fun!” in bold. http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/discoverclimate/
Looks like NOAA needs a basic chemistry lesson, like all the CAGW adherents (aka: alarmists) need a basic physics lesson.
How do we allow such crap to infect our so-called scientific institutions, which in turn infects our children?
The emission rate of carbon dioxide does not affect my statement. No amount of carbon dioxide dissolved in water will ever cause calcium carbonate to dissolve. Refer the the solubility product constant in your freshman chemistry book.
EPA regulations off the coast of the US allow a ph of between
6( acidic) – 8.5 .
oh you cannot make this up,
from a NOAA workshop:
“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)”
A better illustration would be for the teacher to put their left hand into a wide mouth jar filled with acid and their left hand into a wide mouth jar full of ocean water and let the children observe for themselves. 🙂
Acetic acid will also dissolve calcium carbonate, but it is not a cause of ocean pH decrease. Hydrofluoric acid probably would not work. The first reaction product would be calcium fluoride, which is what we do when we put fluoride on out teeth. Calcium fluoride is very nearly insoluble and resistant to acid attack.
This experiment is 100% road apple. It is not possible to dissolve calcium carbonate by acidifying water with carbon dioxide. You can dissolve calcium carbonate with mineral acids, i.e. hydrochloric, sulfuric, nitric and possibly with phosphoric acids. But none of those is responsible for the lowering of the pH of the oceans.