Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 08/30/2010 8:20:06 AM PDT by null and void
Imagine loosening the screw-top of a soda bottle and hearing the carbon dioxide begin to escape. Then imagine taking the cap off quickly, and seeing the beverage foam and fizz out of the bottle. Then, imagine the pressure equalizing and the beverage being ready to drink.
Rutgers marine scientist Elisabeth Sikes and her colleagues say that something very similar happened on a grand scale over a 1,000 year period after the end of the last ice age — or glaciation, as scientists call it. According to a paper published recently in the journal Nature, the last ice age featured a decrease in the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide and an increase in the atmospheric carbon 14, the isotope that guides scientists in evaluating the rate of decay of everything from shells to trees.
In recent years, other researchers have suggested that some of that carbon dioxide flowed back into the northern hemisphere rather than being entirely released into the atmosphere in the southern hemisphere. Sikes and her colleagues disagree. Their data, taken from cores of ocean sediment pulled up from 600 meters to 1,200 meters below the South Pacific and Southern Ocean, suggest that this “de-gassing” was regional, not global. This has important implications for understanding what controls where and how CO2 comes out of the ocean, and how fast — or, to put it another way, what tightens or loosens the bottle cap.
Carbon dioxide and carbon 14 in the atmosphere and ocean are on opposite ends of an environmental pulley. When the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases, the level of carbon 14 drops, and vice versa. That’s chemistry and ocean circulation. Biology also helps, because photosynthesizing organisms use carbon dioxide, then die and take it with them to the bottom. During the last ice age, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was lower, because much of it was trapped in the bottom of the oceans.
The ventilation of the deep Southern Ocean — the circulation of oxygen through the deep waters — slowed considerably during the last ice age, causing carbon dioxide to build up. Sikes and her co-authors report that, as the ice began to melt, the oceanic bottle cap began to loosen, and the carbon dioxide began to leak back into the atmosphere. Then, as warming intensified, the cap came off, and the carbon dioxide escaped so quickly, and so thoroughly, that Sikes and her colleagues could find very little trace of it in the carbon 14 they examined in their samples.
Eventually, just like the carbonated drink in a bottle, equilibrium was established between the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the carbon dioxide in the ocean. Today, the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere has been rising in the past 200 years, pushing the levels in the ocean up. Human activity is responsible for that rise and the rise of other greenhouse gases. Some people have suggested we can pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and force it back down to the bottom of the oceans by manipulating the biology — growing algae, for instance, which would increase photosynthesis and send carbon dioxide to the bottom when the organisms die. But Sikes’ results suggest that global warming could eventually result in another great fizz.
Sikes’ co-authors are Kathryn Rose, research associate at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Woods Hole, Mass.; Thomas P. Guilderson of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif.; Phil Shane of the University of Auckland, in Auckland, New Zealand; Tessa Hill and Howard J. Spero of the University of California, Davis; and Rainer Zahn of the Catalan Institute of Advanced Study at the Autonomous University of Barcelona in Spain.
Hate when that happens.
Good news is the human race is fizzling out.
Thanks for printing. I couldn’t pull up the original article.
So, if there is more CO2 in the air, does that mean my Coke wont explode when I open it?
The plants will love it. Maybe my yard might start to look better.
This is the conclusion they began with and then cherry-picked all the data they could find agreeing with them and systematically avoiding all evidence to the contrary.P>Welcome to the twisted world of agenda-based science.
The article was thin on facts from the start, then lost all credibility when the "human activity" BS was injected without any evidence or support for the claim.
The solubility of gas in liquids is inversely proportional to temperature.
In other words, as the oceans cool down, they will absorb more carbon dioxide. Just as well, as the oceans warm up, they will release previously-absorbed carbon dioxide.
Al Gore contends that increased carbon dioxide levels is the cause, and increased global temperatures is the effect, but he likely has the cause and effect backwards.
Today, the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere has been rising in the past 200 years, pushing the levels in the ocean up. Human activity is responsible for that rise and the rise of other greenhouse gases.
Wait a minute!! In the first "scientific" statement, natural "warming" intensified and with it atmospheric CO2 intensified as well.
But, then, in the second instance, ALL such additional CO2 is "man made" and NOT a RESULT of a continuing "warming" cycle?
How convenient!!
It seems to me that CO2 and "warming" is really a "chicken and egg" question that science has not really answered, but one which, to me will be answered with natural "warming" cycles being recognized as the production engines for greater atmospheric CO2, not the other way around.
“...carbon 14, the isotope that guides scientists in evaluating the rate of decay of everything from shells to trees. “
Sorry, but this article is very muddled, e.g., the above statment. There are other statements as well that don’t make much sense. It could be an interesting study, but needs some technical clean-up.
Will it help if I throw all our pop and beer out of the cooler, and into the sea?
Don’t want our children to suffer should there be a shortage of CO2 on the ocean bottom in the future.
Were humans to disappear from the face of the Earth, it is very doubtful that the 'atmosphere' or 'weather' would change very much at all.
You would be able to see more stars at night, but there would be nobody to see them.
...Oh what a relief it is.
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