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The link above the map is Google Maps, to show where in the straits this problem is.
10 million scallops that died in the waters off Vancouver Island were the victims of a falling pH. level in the ocean. The pH. has fallen a full point, from 8.2 to 7.2 and the more acidic water means the shellfish can't properly form shells.
Acidic water blamed for West Coast scallop die-off
"Oyster die-offs in Washington state and Oregon dating back a decade have also been linked by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration researchers to acidification and rising carbon dioxide levels."
Can you accept a pH change of 1, because of CO2 in the atmosphere? I cannot. I could accept 0.1, but not 1.0.i see this all of the time in the lab. we use a media with a pH indicator for tissue culture. as the bottle gets empty, the media gets more alkaline. we solve that by taking the cap part way off and sticking the bottle in the CO2 incubator for an hour or so. you'd be surprised how readily it absorbs the CO2.
same thing with the ocean.
Very true. The salinity is a bit lower than the Pacific, and that has some effect of pH, but in the other direction I believe. I would have to look it up. I have forgotten so much about chemistry.
I never worried about this issue, just figured all we're doing is putting all that carbon back where it came from anyway, but a full point on the pH scale? Who knows what that means.
Negative ions from salts in the ocean hydrolize in water to form more of the Hydroxide, or alkaline ion, thus a pH greater than 7.
Which reduced the oceans ability to absorb CO2, hence more in the atmosphere.We are putting the carbon from 20 million years ago back. I wonder if you know what Earth was like then. It was a steaming jungle from pole to pole.
Can you accept a pH change of 1, because of CO2 in the atmosphere? I cannot. I could accept 0.1, but not 1.0.
So then, the slightly lower salinity also moves it to lower pH.
I believe as I was looking things up, the salinity is 33 for the area. The Pacific is 34 or 35. Still, it's just a minor change.
I'm completely aware of the log nature. That's why I say a pH change of 1 is ridiculous to believe it is caused by CO2, that it has to be something else.That is correct.
Also, a change of pH of 0.1 does not affect the Hydrogen/Hydroxide concentration as a direct prortion, but a logarithmic one.
So going down to 6.9 from 7.0 is a greater change in conc. than 6.9 to 6.8.
A logarithmic curve/graph would show this, but I'm just not that good on computer tech .
from what i've read, it has dropped from 8.2 to 8.1 since industrialization began. my guess is that it will continue to equilibrate. CO2 + H2O equals carbonic acid, so if you keep putting CO2 up in the air, the oean will certainly absorb it. how low it will get, i can't really speculate. i'm a molecular / microbiologist; climate science is not my area of expertise.
the media that we equilibrate ends up with a pH in the mid 7s, but our media is quite different than an ocean. different buffering agents and whatnot.
I'm completely aware of the log nature. That's why I say a pH change of 1 is ridiculous to believe it is caused by CO2, that it has to be something else.
I wonder if because of the shipping density, if some ships didn't simply dump stuff that was illegal... Or, maybe just the sheer density of ship traffic.I would hypothesize it is a combination, as most things are in solution.
pH going down is a result of hydroxide going down or hydronium going up, or both.
It is now the job of the scientists involved in the field to find out why.
We all saw the huge lowering of pH with acid rain and acid snow decades ago, trashing Lake Erie and some Rocky Mtn. lakes.
The Lake is now healthy again .
Always great to hear of Chemistry in the real world.
If you work in the mid 7s with pH, I would hypothesize you are working with blood.
Teaching buffering and the common-ion effect, on top of Equilibrium reactions, was quite the challenge enough with students using ICE tables.
But, they did better here than on difficult Kinetics using Calculus .
I wonder if because of the shipping density, if some ships didn't simply dump stuff that was illegal... Or, maybe just the sheer density of ship traffic.
Considering the straits don't exactly flow like other waterways, I think that's why the salinity is lower. Because of freshwater melts and river flows. Still, I don't see this as being the cause for such a large change in pH, as it is normal.That's another good hypothesis to what caused the ion conc. to change.
I'm also wondering if glacier melt is a further cause, but haven't looked at it too deeply.
As well, with soluble pollutants going out to sea.
I tend to stay away from the AGW-type threads because they just get out of hand.
As a kid in the 60's, I was aghast at the notion of a garbage dump in the ocean off of New York City.
As if this crap won't make its way into the Gulf stream.
IMV, mandatory recycling of EVERYTHING would be a huge job-creator as well as unloading our dumps.
And a gift to the Next Century .
I tend to stay away from the AGW-type threads because they just get out of hand.
Yes, at some point it will become more costly due to supply and demand. Other methods of creating energy will come about by necessity. I see no reason to damage our economy by rushing a process that will occur anyway.i still think we should replace fossil fuels because they are a finite resource, and our kids and grandkids will have to participate in wars over access to diminishing supplies. plus, the tech is 19th century, and we can do better. and on the other hand, i still want a 1970 Trans Am. how's that for dichotomy?
Yes, at some point it will become more costly due to supply and demand. Other methods of creating energy will come about by necessity. I see no reason to damage our economy by rushing a process that will occur anyway.
I had a 1977, and currently own a '02 WS6.
Sweet car!
Can you accept a pH change of 1, because of CO2 in the atmosphere? I cannot. I could accept 0.1, but not 1.0.
Dissolved CO2 lowers the average pH of rainwater to 5.7, even where "acid rain" caused by pollution isn't a factor. The gentle acidity of rainwater is a major source for the weathering of minerals, which the carbonic acid leaches from rocks and which eventually find their way to the ocean.
I recently tested New York's soft tapwater, straight from the tap into the measuring vial, and I got pH 7.0 or 7.2. Then I took a second sample, capped the vial and shook it vigorously for a full minute. It re-tested at pH 6.2. Either my tapwater the other morning got depleted of CO2 on its way here in the watermains, or possibly I super-saturated the water with CO2 (and other atmospheric gases) by shaking it.
Yes I doFresh water aquarium science is a far cry away from the complexities of the ocean.
Do you understand the log functional relationship that the pH scale uses?
You are ignoring the probability of the ocean being a lightly buffered solution. A buffered solution is one that resists changes in pH at certain pH levels (due to the various ions in the solution. Among the most common laboratory acidic buffers are phosphate buffers using Potassium Phosphate and Phosphoric acid. At certain pH ranges depending on the concentration of the Potassium Phosphate in solution the amount of H3PO4 required to drop the pH by 1 can vary drastically. Given H3PO4 has three H+ ions it has three pKa values if.Your relationship of pure water to rainwater has no bearing. Yes, rainwater has a pH of 5.6 to 6. However, there has always been CO2 in the air, and where you 5.7 comes into play, a doubling of CO2 changes rainwater from your 5.7 to 5.55. Only a 0.15 pH drop for a doubling of CO2. The oceans already carry a balance of CO2 with the atmosphere. A doubling of CO2 is expected to have approximately the same 0.15 pH change. Not a 1.0 pH change, and that is with all other factors equal.
Again there is no way that our approximate 40% increase in CO2 since 1750 will cause anywhere close to a 1 pH change. It may have cause about a 0.1 pH change over the last 2+ centuries though.
I've always had a different thought regarding the bees. When I first heard of the colony collapse syndrome, I noticed the pattern seemed to follow increased cell phone areas. A bee's body is about 1/8th wavelength of our 1900 mhz band cell frequencies. 1900 mhz is a wavelength of about 15.8 cm. 1/8th wavelength is about 2 cm. If they are serious about this, find out if they have considered this possibility. Cell repeater towers put out a pretty substantial amount of EM.The company I work for makes pesticides. We formulate, package and sell the insecticides that are suspected by some as to being a cause of the bee population decline, (ie Thiamethoxam, imidacloprid are two of the three that I can recall and the two I have worked with)