Yes, it comes from PH statistics gathered by their monitoring device. That's the hard science. Of course, Discovery and magazines will focus on the implications of the statistics, since most people aren't very good with numbers.
The question posed is this. If we know PH levels are rising 10 times as fast as the models predict, then what impact does that have on the environment? Well, we know from hard science that ocean acidity levels increase in direct proportion to how much CO2 they are absorbing. We know that CO2 levels are increasing rapidly. The statistics show that there is a statistically significant probability that humans are the main contributing factor to the increase over the last 50 years.
It's not really hard to start connecting all the dots, when you look at ocean acidity levels, CO2 increases, human industrial CO2 output measurements, ice core patterns showing the last 800K years of CO2 and temperature levels, deforestation levels, rising extinction levels, fishery die offs in the ocean, unprecedented swings in ice cap melting, increased size of dead spots in the ocean, increased size of the hole in the Ozone, etc etc. What does it all point to? Is it all just coincidence and the product of some global conspiracy? |
