Gotta go make dinner, but thanks so much.
Here's a quick response.
>Marks my response to your great, muchly appreciated, thoughtful comments.
I won't do that again, but for one time i figured it's okay.>
In general I think we overfertilize the coastal areas (and maybe shipping lanes) and overharvest the food chain (defertilizing the open ocean?); both of which disrupt and lower the productivity overall.
That would make sense if the open oceans were ever fertile and bursting with life. They were not. The dearth of life over most of the abyssal plains was not caused by our fishing practices.
>I am aware of the diversity of ocean environs. The open oceans are kinda like deserts (some are quite productive) with lots of migration across, between oases (oasises?) -reststops.
And yes, I'm just barely learning of the details (checking records of overall productivity historically).>
Whales used to eat a million tons a day of CO2 (in plankton). Now it is more like a thousand tons/day because there are so few whales. I think that'd be true across the board.
This is an interesting thought. You seem to be equating whales to trees as carbon sequestration sinks. Do whales keep growing throughout their lifetimes, continually adding carbon? What is the fate of the carbon in krill, now that fewer whales are available? Is it added to the biomass of other predators, or does it just rot and return to the atmosphere? I don't know the answers to these questions, myself.
>Again, just learning about this stuff. For instance, there are two carbon cycles in the oceans. Stuff that is constantly cycled (returned to atmosphere) and stuff that falls to the bottom. -Sorry, rough interpretation. More later.>
I've been thinking about this for months and am still learning about the overall picture of climate influences. Overall I wonder if the increase in CO2 over the "industrial era" might be more tied to our depletion of the productivity of the oceans. The assumption being that healthy oceans would have been able to soak up the increasing CO2.
I don't know how the oceans fit into the the global carbon balance relative to other parts of the carbon cycle. Investigating the dynamics of the various carbon pools is pretty hot research in a number of the earth sciences right now. I can't say you're wrong.
The oceans may hold more carbon, but how dynamic is that pool? What is the capacity of the ocean for holding carbon, and how is that capacity influenced?
>Yes, all very good questions....>
I guess I also feel that if the oceans aren't made into better carbon sinks, cutting down on our output of carbon by even 50% won't make much diffenece. Isn't the decrease in pH of the oceans an indication that they won't be absorbing much more CO2?
Ah, feelings. Without better knowledge of the global carbon balance, that's all the two of us can express on this topic. If the oceans are reaching their capacity for absorbing carbon, why wouldn't reduction in carbon emissions make a difference?
Dissolving CO2 in water certainly lowers its pH. Is that the reason the pH of the oceans are changing, and does it mean the limit of carbon absorption is at hand? I have no idea. I'm a dirt scientist.
>My thought was that if the oceans are no longer soaking up CO2, that our glass jar with a sponge for a lid, which we call Earth, just got a lot less permeable (the spongy lid, i mean) to CO2.
My idea is that up to now the oceans were soaking up huge amounts of CO2 (and releasing slightly larger amounts -leading to observed increases in co2).
If that sponge is “drying out,” then our additions of CO2 to the glass jar become much more significant. If that is true, then our reductions in rate of increase would do little. It would require actual reductions in CO2 levels to affect a decrease in overall levels. (sorry, tautological)
What I mean is we'd have to have a net sequestration of CO2 to affect atmospheric levels.
Now I know what I've just said is hyperbole; an extreme swing of the equilibrium.
But if that is a good assesment of a large part of the mechanism for climate change, then any shift toward that end of the equilibrium should be addressed.>
Every thing I read about fertilizing the oceans ends with a paragraph saying that we can't recommend this because it'd probably have worse unintended consequences; but how is that any different from what we've been doing all along to the lands, rivers, lakes, and oceans?
I agree with what you've read. The difference between intentionally changing the chemistry of the oceans and accidentally changing it due to ignorance and short sightedness is moral, IMO. History is replete with disasterous consequences stemming from our intentional manipulation of natural systems. To do so on such a large scale is betting the lives of millions (or more) people, and populations of other creatures on a hypothesis.
>...and that's the second level....
“A whole second level of discussion would involve reasonably deciding what, if anything, we can realistically do that would actually make a difference.” -from snowbird's link
Thank you so much again, soilguy
More later, this is just a quick response....
~~SAM